Today's experience was so so bad that as I drove home from work, I spent a fair bit of time thinking about leaving our field. Been using ESRI products since ArcView. I've given ArcPro 5 years now to improve. Today I was simply trying to show an Intern how to create a topology. I spent 5 hours with that poor guy watching me struggle over and over and over, failing every way you can imagine. I used a topology last week, iirc, and didn't have any issues. Why today? Who knows. No help in documentation. No help in error code. It's just not today. I can go days and weeks without an issue and then, inexplicably, all my departments work comes to a screeching halt because there is some random schema lock error or maps and entire projects are read only or or or or or or

We use AGOL. I do in fact like ArcPros ability to read and interact with AGOL Features. But I can't go on like this. Our entire department can't go on like this.

What is the feasibility of working Spatial Analysis, Network Analysis, 3d Analysis, and simple heavy editing and topology validation in QGIS, and importing the actually completed GIS work back into ArcPro for AGOL work?

I'm a designer and kept needing clean topo contours as vector SVG for. Doing it in QGIS every time got old, so I built my own thing: draw a box on a map, it grabs elevation data, out come contour lines you can export as SVG or PNG. Not a QGIS replacement, just the "nice contour SVG in 30 seconds" case.

Under the hood it's marching squares (skimage) on a gaussian-smoothed dem, douglas-peucker in shapely, then a few chaikin passes to round the corners. That last part is what I'm unsure about vs a proper gdal_contour at the same interval.

If you work with contours daily: does that look reasonable or does it eat too much detail? Link's in a comment so it's not an ad. Roast welcome.

Like the title states, I need to free up credits on AGOL. I've been tasked with backing up the data collected in the field to be archived on our OneDrive server. My rudimentary coding/python experience has created a clunky script that only pulled 3 FGDBs offline. Curious what backup methods others are using to pull multiple FGDBS/hosted layers simultaneously. Thanks in advance

Has anyone had success connecting a Juniper Geode to Avenza maps with thie 5.7 update? I haven't had any success with it!

When does registration open for the dev summit and does anyone know if they include passes with agreements like how they do for UC

Hey r/gis community!

We are looking for a dynamic and innovative GIS Solutions Engineer to join our IT Division. This role owns the City's full GIS portfolio spanning administration, development, solutions architecture, and analysis to advance the City's geospatial initiatives. You'll work hands-on with department stakeholders, vendors, and partners to design and execute solutions that meet real business and technical needs. You'll be the person turning spatial data into decisions city leaders and residents actually use.

The salary range is $134,886 to $172,357 annually. The range includes established salary steps. A candidate’s starting salary is based on factors such as experience and qualifications, and increases annually based on the established steps.

The City covers the full health insurance premiums for medical, dental, and vision insurance. Up to 50% hybrid work and 9/80 work-schedule options, as well as numerous other benefits.

https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/weho/jobs/5418863/gis-solutions-engineer

This position requires a versatile professional who can blend technical expertise with strong communication and project management skills to drive innovative GIS solutions for municipal challenges.

The ideal candidate for this GIS Solutions Engineer position will:

• Be an expert with Esri products, including administration and deployment of ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Enterprise (ArcGIS Server & Portal for ArcGIS), ArcGIS Online, and Field Maps.
• Possess hands-on expertise in designing and implementing advanced ArcGIS enterprise system solutions to address complex municipal challenges.
• Have strong programming skills in Python, JavaScript, and SQL, with experience in scripting to automate ETL workflows, GIS tasks, and integrating GIS with other enterprise applications.
• Have experience with administering and maintaining SQL Server enterprise geodatabases, including schema design, user permissions, indexing, performance tuning, data integrity controls, stored procedures, views, and support for published enterprise GIS services.
• Demonstrate proficiency in web mapping technologies, such as ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript and Leaflet, with a strong understanding of UI/UX principles for designing intuitive, accessible, and user-centered GIS applications.
• Excel in project management processes, guiding projects from inception to completion while managing multiple priorities in a professional environment with engaged stakeholders.
• Conduct research and analysis to solve complex technical and administrative problems, making professional recommendations and proposing alternatives.
• Demonstrate the ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously with strong attention to detail.
• Possess excellent communication skills, with the ability to interpret and convey complex technical information to the public, executives, and both technical and non-technical staff.
• Collaborate effectively with various departments to understand their geospatial needs and create tailored solutions.
• Be an independent self-starter with excellent organizational and problem-solving skills.
• Experience with Tyler Energov/EP&L is a plus, but not required.

EXAMPLES OF DUTIES

Key Responsibilities:

• Architect and maintain the city's geospatial infrastructure, ensuring scalability and performance.
• Publish, document, and maintain authoritative GIS datasets and services across enterprise and web-based platforms, ensuring that data is accurate, discoverable, appropriately secured, and supported by clear metadata, data dictionaries, service descriptions, and update schedules. 
• Develop custom GIS applications and tools to streamline city operations and improve service delivery.
• Conduct spatial analysis to support data-driven decision-making across city departments.
• Create high-quality maps and visualizations for both internal and public-facing applications.
• Stay current on Esri platform capabilities and broader geospatial technology trends, developing and maintaining a GIS technology roadmap that guides system architecture, application development, data management, integrations, modernization efforts, and long-term platform investment.
• Act as the City’s primary internal administrator for the Tyler Enterprise Permitting and Licensing platform. 

Interested? See the full details and apply here: https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/weho/jobs/5418863/gis-solutions-engineer

I am a toddler mom looking for comeback in career in gis. My b.tech was in GIS but later I worked in software for 6 years and then took break and now looking to join in graduate certificate courses as that can help me better qualify for a job. Please tell me how helpful is a graduate certificate program of getting a job?

There’s a few routes I can think of like custom artistry maps, maps of different irl places that are unique and informative, or something more specific and might look like a contract.

I once had some guy here reach out and I almost got a contract cause he didn’t feel good when it came to making good maps and I offered solutions. His company thought had some more regulations about hiring outside work though and it didn’t materialize.

But I saw that there could be opportunities there though admittedly pretty difficult.

I have a makers space near me where I can print large scale, do wood working and make nice custom frames and even cnc for some wood cut maps which I’ll be learning about and the programming for.

It seems like a lot of work for little gain but I’d like to really give it a try and wondered if anyone else here had any type of success is this realm?

Anybody gone through the process to get their CMT/CMS Remote Sensing and can let me know your experience with the process? My work is paying for me to get it and I'm just wondering yalls thoughts.

Anyone here have experience using the Juniper Spire with an NTRIP RTK network (the non-Juniper Systems option)? We are currently using Eos Arrow Golds and have been happy with them. One took a swim in a river a couple weeks ago and wasn't aired out fast enough to save it unfortunately. The Arrow line is being phased out by Eos, there aren't any for purchase currently is my understanding. I got a price on the new Eos Skadi Gold and it's nearly 10k! Our regional manager thinks this is way too expensive and I have to agree. Even the new add ons of tilt compensation and Lidar pole are additional costs that don't seem worth it. The Juniper Spire is $2,300 which seems like a bargain comparatively, but the fact its so much less expensive concerns me.

I'd love to hear people's opinions before we take the plunge into a different company's equipment. We have been using the Arrow Gold with RTK networks for XY and Z. Thanks!

Hey y’all! Anyone signed up or interested? I’ll be there and my company will have a booth and we have some seats available for our treat to dinner one night. Would love to connect ahead of it!

When: August 20-21
Where: Palm Beach County Convention Center | West Palm Beach
Site

I'm seeking a GIS tutor to help me out in an intro GIS class. I'm struggling to understand/connect steps and theory in Arc GIS and need help as the semester is ending.

is masters gonna help me if it's in a big university and how is the market in europe nowadays?

tl;dr - I want something that counts all of the points of a feature that are closer to a line segment of a line feature than any other line of the same feature (count: number of crashes occurring on each road) and spatial join does not seem to be effective.

I have two layers: a line layer representing roads in a county, and a points layer, representing non-motorized crashes in a county. I am attempting, ultimately, to calculate crashes by volume of traffic, so that I can identify the roads on which the most accidents happen.

In trying to achieve that, I want to get my roads layer to count the number of crashes that occur on each corridor (line segment). Spatial join seems to be what most people recommend for similar analysis when I have tried to problem shoot this, but I am not getting the desired result.

When I use spatial join with a target of roads and a join feature of crashes, running one to one, with a match option of closest, I receive a Join Count field in the output where every cell is a count of 1. Apparently the Nearest match option is telling each road to find the single nearest crash and use it to join. I was under the impression that multiple join features could be merged to one target line so that my join count field might have 10 for one road and 0 for another. I don't think that I want to use one to many, because I don't want duplicates of my roads or my crashes.

any help or suggestions you can offer would be helpful.

Howdy fellow GIS professionals, any Arizona friends going to the AGIC conference in August? I was hoping to make some confections ahead of time :) let me know!

I started to put together a polygon editor for some simple merging that I needed to do for work and got a bit carried away. I turned the app into a user-friendly, but powerful polygon editor.

I would appreciate if anyone would take a look and give some feedback. It’s currently hosted on GitHub. Here's the link: https://giswatidid.github.io/polygoneditor/

Feedback on usability, unexpected behaviour or useful missing features would be appreciated.

What do you use GIS for?

I have worked on different GIS projects at different scales and have built custom analytical systems to answer a variety of questions. While I strongly believe in the value of data, I have increasingly started wondering about the actual added value of some of these complex approaches.

In many cases, especially in biodiversity conservation, the results often seem very similar to what an experienced professional could have concluded simply by knowing the landscape, the ecosystem, and the problem. It is mostly the same and repeating itself.

For example, in Switzerland, where I often work in familiar landscapes, many conservation questions eventually come down to solutions we already know: restoring ecological structures, planting more hedgerows, improving the management of existing green infrastructure, reconnecting habitats, or changing maintenance practices.

Of course, GIS can build sophisticated systems to identify priorities, optimize interventions, estimate costs, and compare scenarios. But then the reality is often that a landowner does not agree, a project is not feasible, or the theoretically optimal location is not the right place to implement something. Sometimes a more practical approach based on local knowledge and relationships would have achieved more.

This makes me wonder where the real value of GIS lies.

Maybe this changes when working at larger scales, across different ecosystems, or in regions where local expertise is limited. But when you know a landscape well, it sometimes feels like experience and ecological understanding can already provide many of the answers.
I know maps are important to communicate, but for me, that's more in the visual communication category. Because of this, I'm now dabbling in modeling microclimates.

So I am curious:

What do you use GIS for, and where do you see its biggest benefits?

Is GIS mainly a tool for discovering new insights, or is its greatest value in supporting decisions, communicating evidence, and making expert knowledge more transparent and scalable?

GeoLens is a self-hosted catalog and map builder that runs on your own PostGIS. Upload vector (Shapefile, GeoPackage, GeoJSON, GeoParquet, CSV) or raster (GeoTIFF/COG) and you get a searchable catalog plus a browser map builder anyone with a link can open. It serves OGC API - Features/Records, STAC, and DCAT, and QGIS connects to it natively. Exports round-trip back to the same formats with reprojection, so there's no lock-in.

Live demo (no signup needed to browse): https://demo.getgeolens.com

curl -fsSL https://getgeolens.com/install.sh | sh

I built it because at most places I've worked the GIS data is scattered across files nobody but the analyst can open. Keen for feedback from people doing this day to day.

Here are a few screenshots from the app -

Hello everyone.

I am a U.S. senior in college studying GIS. I have interned this summer in a GIS position. I have a return offer for a significant amount of money from this company. I am, though, very interested in a PhD and a research career in remote sensing. I will be honest that I come from an affluent family where, while I am not a trust fund baby, I will never starve if I fail for a few years.

Is it absurd to turn down this job offer to apply for graduate programs this fall? I feel like nobody I talk to in my life understands the geospatial industry or my research interests so they all think I am unemployable. I am hoping to get insights from you all. I want a rewarding career that is challenging and enriching, but I am not trying to be an idiot who turns down a bit of stability in this market.

I am a transfer student going to be starting as a Junior and getting my GIS degree. My university informed me I need to pick another major or a minor.

What recommendations are there from y’all in the field in order to be more marketable? I would love to do Historical GIS and I was thinking maybe a double minor in environmental sciences and history.

I am also concerned about how I have trouble mentally visualizing objects or concepts in three dimensions, especially rotating objects in my head. Will that affect me particularly negatively?

Edit: My goal is to work in historical conservation.
Thank you!

excel tables now paste in as picture elements in the layout view now instead of as a table when you copy and paste. Does anyone know why they changed this, and if there is a solution that's as simple as the original c/p method? This is just going to sting when I have to do a street index map that has hundreds of records.

P.S. ESRI says to either take a screenshot or import the file. Also using the table frame tool is not intuitive at all. I spent 25 minutes just looking for how to add/remove fields and I ended up giving up.