Geospatial Data Visualization & Analysis
Infrastructure Asset Collection & Mapping
OVRDC provides infrastructure and utility mapping services to local governments and communities. Project outcomes include paper, digital and interactive web maps. The web maps are a new feature for the program and they are still in the beta phase.
Regional Demographic & Economic Trends
Ohio Valley Regional Development Commission is designated as a Regional Data Center affiliated with the Ohio Department of Development’s Office of Policy Research and Strategic Planning. OVRDC also serves as a regional data hub as part of the RTPO Program. The main sources of this information include the U.S. Census Bureau, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, and other federal, state, and local sources. OVRDC’s Regional Data Portal is your one-stop shop for regional demographic data, interactive maps and links to external GIS data.
GIS User Group
GIS Services & Project Requests
OVRDC offers a variety of GIS services upon request. The following is a truncated list of some of the additional services we offer.
- Accurate locating of facilities (fire stations, EMS, dwelling locations, etc.)
- Analytical maps such as landuse, land capabilities, green-way analysis and watershed analysis.
- Hazard mitigation mapping projects, hydrologic analysis studies, CDBG environmental assessments, elevation studies, business and economic analysis.
- On demand map creation such as street and road maps of communities, demographic maps, topography maps, groundwater maps and hydrologic maps.
- Promote economic development by industrial site marketing, grant support activities, assist with planning and funding of infrastructure, and tourism promotion.
- Technical Assistance to groups, local government agencies, businesses, the general public, local officials, and OVRDC Full Commission Members.
Please contact the GIS staff to discuss projects. The OVRDC GIS has the advantage of being a regional system with data on the district’s 12 counties making it ideal for regional planning and analysis. Click here for the OVRDC Data Request Price Sheet. The OVRDC does not charge for data requests that require less than TWO hours of staff time to fulfill as the administrative costs involved are covered through federal funds from the Appalachian Regional Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration. You will be informed in advance if a fee is required. Services are available to anyone. Special projects requiring a large investment of staff time and other resources will be done under a service contract arranged in advance with tasks and fees clearly stated and agreed to by all participants.
Web GIS Resources
The following list contains links to a variety of resources and programs for turning your data into interactive web maps and charts. OVRDC has used and is familiar with all of these projects, programs and applications. OVRDC only posts projects, plugins, programs and applications that we have worked with and tested. OVRDC prefers the Atom text editor.
| Name | Description | Cost |
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| awesome-geojson | GitHub page with a list of applications for working with GeoJSON data, sources for free data and much more. | N/A |
| GeoJSONLinit | GoeJSON Validation | N/A |
| GeoJSON Definition | Wikipedia Link | N/A |
| Mapshaper | A website and command-line tool that converts & simplifies GeoJSON<>Topojson and other file formats. | Free |
| ||
| ArcGIS Online | Drag and drop templates for web and story map creation. Many templates are available on GitHub. | Free – $2,500yr+ |
| CARTO | GIS data visualization using mapnik rendering and SQL for the backend. | Free – $1,800yr+ |
| Leaflet | Probably the most popular web mapping API outside of Google Maps. Easy to use with hundreds of plugins. | Free |
| Mapbox | Vector tile data service and mapping API that uses WebGL. GIS data editing and creation available through their web interface. | Free – $6,000yr+ |
| OpenLayers | Another popular open-source web mapping API with out-of-the-box support for vector tiles. | Free |
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| esri2open | ArcMap plugin for creating geojson files from shapefiles and feature datasets. The plugin works with any map layer in ArcMap 10.0-10.2. For versions 10.3+ it only works for existing feature data sets and shapefiles – you cannot add layers directly from the map. | Free |
| gdal2tiles | Python script for creating web map tiles in PNG or JPG format. Can be run in QGIS via QTiles or natively via the command-line. There is a similar paid service called MapTiler. | |
| tippecanoe | Vector Tile command-line generator for Linux/Mac | Free |
| QGIS | Open-source desktop GIS software with a large variety of python plugins. | |
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| geojson-dashboard | Client-side web map theme built on Bootstrap that has support for charts, tables, maps, search and data exporting. | Free |
*A listing here does not represent an endorsement by OVRDC or any of its member agencies.