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Sacramento County innovates land registry data workflow using Open Spatial's Munsys

Customer

Mark McElroy, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Geographic Information Services, Sacramento County, California, USA. Sacramento County serves a population of 1,501,335* and covers 994 square miles including seven incorporated cities: Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, Folsom, Isleton, Galt, Rancho Cordova, and Sacramento.

*(U.S. Census Bureau, 2015 estimate)

Challenge

  • To effectively create, maintain and publish land registry information in GIS based upon legal documents, the county assessor’s map book, and some 9,500 CAD drawings

  • To accurately and efficiently transfer land registry information from CAD drawings to GIS, track changes to source documents, and build and maintain a single data source for land lines that can be used for the parcel and lot boundaries for GIS

The Munsys solution from Open Spatial enabled us to save time and money while drastically improving data quality and workflow. This solution allowed staff to continue to use legacy routines with increased publication frequencies. What used to take 3 to 4 days to process is now done in 20 minutes. - Ronnie Richards, GIS Manager, Sacramento County

Innovations/Results

  • Transformation of an error-prone 1 week workflow to a highly accurate and automated process that is updated daily and can be turned around in a matter of hours

  • Immediate identification of errors rather than at the end of the publication process

  • Improved efficiency using long-standing CAD tools and tricks such as customized commands and file settings

  • Use of one set of landlines to build parcel and or lot polygons

  • Migration from multiple CAD files to one seamless GIS database in Oracle

  • Powerful Structured Query Language allowing for easy isolation of different views of information such as legal boundaries, tax apportionment, or real world perspective

Solution

Munsys logo

Sacramento County radically streamlined maintenance of its land registry data workflow in 2008 when GIS staff began using Open Spatial’s Munsys solution. Munsys simplified the transfer of land registry data from CAD drawings to GIS and converted a laborious, error-prone routine into a swift, accurate workflow.


The Sacramento County Assessor’s Office keeps land records with parcel boundaries, lot lines, land values, and ownership information for approximately 475,000 real estate parcels. This land registry, or cadaster, is widely used by utility companies, incorporated cities, fire departments, and the public. Sacramento County faced a key challenge encountered by local governments and utilities around the world: the loss of accurate information contained in design drawings when data is transferred to GIS.


It was a game-changing situation. Munsys supplies everything we need to get this job done in the right way. - Ronnie Richards, GIS Manager, Sacramento County

Open Spatial’s Munsys solution enabled GIS staff to open CAD drawings and directly convert line work to GIS data. The powerful Munsys polygon generation, error-checking capabilities, and opendata structure modernized the task of creating, maintaining, and updating parcel information. Publishing data to GIS or back to CAD became a simple, automated process.


“It was a game-changing situation,” said Ronnie Richards, GIS Manager for Sacramento County. “Munsys supplies everything we need to get this job done in the right way.” Prior to using Munsys from Open Spatial, Sacramento County’s process involved some 28 steps to extract data from CAD and one week per month to update and rebuild the parcel polygon data in GIS.


Munsys bridges the gap between CAD and GIS technologies and enables a positive return on investment for organizations due to reduced training and minimal changes to established CAD procedures.



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