Los Angeles County Land Information Website (LIW) Project

In August 2001, MRF was selected by Los Angeles County to build the County’s Land Information Website (LIW). The goal of this project was to create a web-based GIS document retrieval system integrated with the County’s existing document management system (FileNET) and the county’s GIS database engine ArcSDE.. The nature of this project was very similar to the Public Record Retrieval and Viewing System that MRF had successfully developed for Orange County. In the implementation of the LIW, MRF developed an advanced, web-based document retrieval and viewing solution using MRF’s state-of-the-art SVG Map Server to access scanned documents stored in FileNET and GIS features stored in ArcSDE. MRF SVG Map Server was selected by the County because of its powerful web-based GIS functionality, short response time (2 seconds in an Intranet environment) and excellent reliability.

The major tasks were:

  • Scan and index Public Works’ paper-based documents, including 140,000 cadastral records in the two pilot areas
  • Georeference these scanned documents and create spatial search features for them
  • Load the documents into FileNET and link the documents with GIS features in ArcSDE.
  • Develop web-based GIS interfaces that allow the users to access GIS features in ArcSDE, and retrieve and view the documents from FileNET.
  • Develop system maintenance tools to allow County staff to add new records to and modify existing records in the system
  • Provide user-level security management to determine what documents and GIS layers each user is authorized to access

The following is a screenshot of the LIW system created for Los Angeles County:


Major features of this LIW system include:

  • Integrated multiple systems: MRF SVG Map Server, FileNET, and ArcSDE
  • Integrated multiple data sets: vector GIS data sets, scanned document images, and aerial photos
  • Spatial search of records: search by user-defined polygon, rectangle or circle
  • Index search of documents
  • GIS feature attribute query
  • Web-based document plotting/printing

Software used in the project:

  • MRF SVG Map Server
  • FileNET
  • ArcSDE
  • Oracle
  • MRF Mapping Tool Kit
  • ArcInfo
  • MapObjects.