topic Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself! in Public Gardens New(er) GIS Users

Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

Laurel_Hill — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 02:23:51 GMT

Hi! Welcome to this brand-new community! My name is Laurel Hill. I'm a horticulturist who is adding GIS to my tool bucket so I can better curate living collections at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. I'm new(er) to GIS and it's great to know there's a community of other newbies out here. Hopefully, we can teach and inspire each other! I'm kicking off this community introduction post, so I'll share a picture of sunny azaleas and my dog Coco Bean. I'm glad you're here!

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

AniaWiatr — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 14:19:17 GMT

Hello, I'm Ania Wiatr and TOTALLY NEW to the GIS world. I have been assigned to create plant data collection at Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Very excited to be here and learn from you all!

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

KaylaFlamm — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:12:34 GMT

I'm Kayla, not a newbie, but excited to connect with more people and continue to learn about other gardens and ways of using GIS. I've been "doing GIS" (mainly to support plant records, facilities maintenance, and field work) at the Missouri Botanical Garden for 9 years now. I may have a lot of experience in some things (e.g. drones, Field Maps) but still totally newbie level (e.g. Python scripting) in other things! That's one of the cool parts about GIS... it's so complex that there are always new things to learn. 🙂 That said, it's not an insurmountable hill to get started with it!

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

ChristinaVarnava — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 17:08:23 GMT

Hello everyone! I'm Christina Varnava at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. I have been using GIS for about 5 years now, never got any formal training but I taught myself how to use it well enough to get by in grad school and on the job. So my experience with it is pretty surface level and there are definitely basic things that I am not doing correctly haha. I know GIS is a really powerful tool and I am excited to learn more with you all! To celebrate you creating this great community, I've included a photo of one of my favorite Iris cultivars 'Ojai'

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

DescansoGardens — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 17:20:06 GMT

Hi everyone! My name is Autumn and I manage the plant records at Descanso Gardens in Los Angeles County. My background is similar to Christina's, I learned GIS on the job and can get by, but there is definitely room for improvement. I'm happy to share some of my experience muddling through and finding official tutorials and unofficial work-arounds though. I'm looking forward to watching this community come together!

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

saylwin — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 13:29:08 GMT

Hello everyone! My name is Sophia Aylwin and I utilize GIS for conservation strategies at the Naples Botanical Garden. I would like to delve more into using it for plant records, especially in relation to IrisBG. I was introduced to GIS during college as a tool for research and I was amazed by the many applications in which it could be used! I definitely still classify myself as a beginner, I have about 2ish years of experience but there is still so much to learn. I just recently started taking a class on python scripting and its opened up a whole new world of opportunity. I am very happy to be here and I am very excited to hear how other gardens are utilizing GIS!

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

BillAllis — Sun, 18 Feb 2024 17:48:48 GMT

I read the article in the APGA mag about how Naples is using GIS. I just posted how we are using it. I had intended to reach out to you guys (I was given Esther C's name ) because I am in Naples through the end of February. I've been to NBG two times already since here (we are members). Anyway, if you would be willing to meet at the garden I would love to discuss what you guys are doing and learn more about your workflows. Bill Allis gardenbower@gmail.com

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

NicholasR — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 14:58:05 GMT

I'm Nick Kreevich and I help manage documentation of our plant collections here at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I obtained a BS in Geography back in 2017 and have about ~9 years using all the different ESRI products, but mostly working with ArcMap, ArcGIS Pro, and the online suite of products that ESRI offers. With that said, and like Kayla said, GIS is a massive field and there are many things I don't know(but would like to learn about in the context of public gardens) like writing scripts, best practices for geospatial data management, administration(Enterprise system), and remote sensing(really interested in the application of LiDAR in documentation of tree collections; specifically tree height and canopy size). Looking forward to the future discussions on this new forum!

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

BillAllis — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 15:10:38 GMT

Hi
This sounds great.
About 30 acres of our site is forest. Our drone imagery of the canopy is very revealing related to tree species enumeration and identification.

When we did our initial assessment we blended drone sourced and calculated contours (1ft interval) with lidar topography in tree covered areas we couldnt generate 1 ft contours. This worked well for our purposes.

I am curious about your reference of lidar for canopy studies. How might this apply?

Thanks
Bill

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

miller94Miller — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 15:36:18 GMT

Greetings everyone, I'm Carolyn Miller and I'm the Plant Recorder for Beal Botanical Garden & Campus Arboretum at Michigan State University. I started using GIS about 9 years ago and took a variety of certifications to bring myself up to speed on the complexity of this program. I absolutely love working with GIS now! I use Field Maps for in the field collection and then Pro to add in more specific details on what I'm collecting. Looking forward to engaging with others in this technology.

Carolyn

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

NicholasR — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 15:57:42 GMT

Hi Bill,

I'm interested in being able to take measurements of trees using LiDAR. Without knowing the technicalities involved I can't answer your question too well, but here are some interesting videos on Youtube using LiDAR for capturing DBH values and here is a video capturing general tree metrics with LiDAR.

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

HeatherSummer — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:45:21 GMT

Hi everyone! I'm Heather Summer and I'm the Collections Manager (among other things) at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, NC. I have dabbled in GIS throughout my career, but mostly back in previous jobs when I was a field biologist conducting vegetation surveys and doing vegetation mapping. I have been at NCBG for about 12 years, but I have only been doing collections management there for the last several years. I am currently working on a comprehensive inventory to get our plant records up to date, as there was a huge gap where nobody was really keeping up with plant records. We used to use BG-base, but now use our own custom database hosted on the web. I am trying to start mapping our collections as well. I should also mention that I recently completed a Graduate Certificate in GIS and am currently pursing a Masters in Geospatial Information Science and Technology at NC State University. Big thanks to Laurel for getting this community set up!

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

ERSIArcGIS — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 15:34:18 GMT

Hi, I'm Sylvan Kaufman. I am the Science Advisor to Adkins Arboretum in Ridgely, MD (and I volunteer with the Santa Fe Botanic Garden in NM where I now live with their IRIS BG database). I learned a little about GIS basics in graduate school but haven't spent a lot of time using it. Now though Adkins Arboretum's plant database is entirely GIS based with help from the Washington College GIS Program, and we (me, the Horticulture and Natural Lands Director, and the Land Steward) need to learn a lot more to make it as useful as possible! We have a good field collector app and an online map available to the public, but need to add directions on how to use the database for the public and want to link our StoryMaps and other content.

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

helf0023 — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 16:24:26 GMT

Hi everyone! My name is Lou Helf and I'm the Plant Recorder at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I have a graduate certificate in GIS and about 3 years of professional experience with Esri products. I'm entirely new to the plant collections world, though - I started this position in December.

I'm interested in making maps beautiful and easy to understand. I also want to continue to build my skills with Python scripting for automation and I'm basically fascinated by all things GIS - it's such a powerful tool! I'm excited to join this group and learn from and with you all!

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

Laurel_Hill — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 01:42:00 GMT

Hi @helf0023! We are so glad you're here! Please feel free to share, teach, suggest! If you have any plant record or living collections questions, ask away!!! I assume you've already joined American Public Gardens Association communities and/or your CMS software community?

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

Laurel_Hill — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 01:48:27 GMT

Sorry for delay in replying to your post @SylvanKaufman! I am very impressed with your organization's GIS hub and Experience Builder. That's some great GIS work.

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

Laurel_Hill — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 01:51:30 GMT

Hello @HeatherSummer 🙂 I can totally commiserate with the big job ahead of you as you pick up collection management and grind away on a comprehensive inventory. Would love to share stories some time or hear how you are getting on with that project. Feel free to create a blogpost on this community to share any updates or wins!

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

helf0023 — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 14:17:48 GMT

Yes, I've joined APGA communities and it has been great to learn from others on the forums.

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

PaulKoloszar — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 19:15:24 GMT

Hey there all!

Paul Koloszar, plant records coordinator at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden here.

We use IrisBG and have had a consultant who set us up with a basemap, but we are looking into figuring out how to do field data collection (location points). Dropping points on the IrisBG map is only great where the locations to be mapped on the basemap are up-to-date. I'm hoping to get some plants mapped sooner than the next flyover is integrated, so...

Re: Newbie to the PG New(er) GIS User Group? Drop a quick post and introduce yourself!

Laurel_Hill — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 14:13:38 GMT

Hello, there @PaulKoloszar and welcome! I hope the community here can help you in some small way. I wonder if your organization is a member of the Esri Nonprofit Program, if you all have AGOL accounts, what your IrisBG version is installed, and if the IrisBG-ArcGIS Sync is a possible solution. If you haven't yet touched base with the amazing @AndresVasquez or the wonderful support team at IrisBG, maybe also reach out to them for support. Good luck! Feel free to post a question or draft a blog for the community page and let us know how it goes!