DIGIT Projects

The projects listed below are a selected sample of the interdisciplinary research in which the DIGIT Lab has participated. In each project, we served as the primary spatial analyst/modeler for the project. The individual principle investigator or client acts as the application expert. In other words, we offer unique spatial analysis to your area of expertise through the use of GIS.

Salt Lake Cooperative County Plan (CCP)

The DIGIT Lab is working with Salt Lake County Planning and Development Services to improve the GIS resources available through the CCP. The goal is to create a data sharing system that allows municipalities and other authoritative entities to be able to edit and update their portions of the data set while eliminating the duplication of efforts to create County wide data sets that currently occurs on a regular basis. The DIGIT Lab is working with the 16 municipalities, 5 townships and the unincorporated areas to compile county-wide datasets to provide a more holistic view of the County and achieve a continually updated data sharing network for planning and administrative purposed within Salt Lake County.

National Park Service – National Trails Intermountain Region (NTIR)

The National Trails Intermountain Region is a division of the National Parks Service responsible for maintaining congressionally designated historic trails.  These include the following national historic trails: Pony Express, California, Oregon, Mormon Pioneer, El Camino Real de los Tejas, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, Old Spanish, Santa Fe, Trail of Tears, and the Route 66 preservation program. Since 1997 The DIGIT Lab has been assisting the NTIR with the development of a historic spatial database containing specific spatial and aspatial information about the trail, artifacts found on the trail, and the national auto-tour route.  In addition, the DIGIT Lab provides mapping, cartographic and spatial analysis support as needed for NTIR trail studies.

Dr. Linda Edelman, College of Nursing, University of Utah

The DIGIT Lab is supporting Dr. Edelman’s research on older adult populations in rural communities by performing spatial analyses to explore the geographic relationships of burn patients, health care accessibility, time to treatment and treatment paths, rurality, social economic status, and health outcomes.

Red Butte Gardens

The DIGIT Lab developed an ArcGIS Online Application to provide Red Butte Garden patrons with detailed plant information through an interactive plant map. The application can be viewed on a wide range of devices from desktop to mobile allowing patrons to access the plant information from home or live as they tour the gardens.

Escalante River Watershed Partnership

The DIGIT Lab is providing GIS support for the Escalante River Watershed Partnership’s Woody Invasive Control and Restoration (WICR) and Watershed Resource programs.  Support includes designing, building and maintaining spatial databases, providing online GIS data editing, mapping and querying capabilities, creating efficient and effective reporting strategies, technical advising and meeting support.

Rockwell Collins, Inc.

The DIGIT Lab produces military standard map series for use in military training simulators and base maps for use on military GPS units for different locations around the world. These maps include Terrain Line Maps, Joint Operation Graphics and custom GPS base maps.

Natural History Museum of Utah

Working with Dr. William Newmark, The DIGIT Lab performed spatial analysis within GIS in attempt to understand large animal movement (specifically deer and elk) with respect to environmental factors such as elevation, slope, vegetation cover and distance to water sources. In addition, spatial analysis of the home and core ranges of Tanzanian birds was conducted to study the effects of habitat fragmentation.