Street view added to GIS LakeNavigator

“Invaluable’ tool now live, Auditor Galloway reports

Lake County recently added a “robust” feature to its Geographical Information System, LakeNavigator 3.0: Street Smart by CycloMedia.

Director Jim Branch said the GIS department is excited to offer the new tool on the county online mapping application, which allows users to see high-resolution street side photos.

“The photos were taken last fall and the vendor, Cyclomedia, drove every road capturing 360-degree photos similar to Google Street View, but at a much higher resolution and encompassing many more streets,” Branch said.

“This resource will be used by county departments for everything from property evaluations to developing street side inventories,” he added.

Through LakeNavigator, the application can also be used by residents to explore neighborhoods and see detailed images of properties throughout the county.

“Unlike Google Street View, our Street Smart tool covers almost every road — including private roads in the county,” said Lake County Auditor Christopher Galloway, who serves as GIS board chairman. “The photography is more detailed. “Residents, businesses and professionals, like realtors, can use this tool when using the Navigator system.

“Street Smart also employs proactive security features to ensure privacy,” he added. “License plates on cars and faces on people are blurred out.”

The county contracted for the services (with Cyclomedia), “making a big investment” in a tool that will be used by multiple county departments, Branch confirmed.

“As part of that contract, we made pushing this imagery out to the public, for their use, a priority,” Branch said. “The tools associated with Street Smart, like measuring, for county department use, are not available to the public due to vendor limitations on licensing.

“The internal tools county departments will use, like utilities, planning, and the sheriff’s and auditor’s offices, are not really applicable to the public’s use.”

The cost of the feature is $249,437.50, rounding out the six-year contract, paid out of the Lake County General Fund, with future costs coming from the GIS Fund and supplemental funding from the utilities, engineer and auditor offices.

The contract also includes provisions for a redrive of the county in 2023 to update imagery.

Galloway said the second imagery capture will take place before the 2024 sexennial, in the fall of 2023.

“This will be invaluable to the auditor’s office in assisting us to efficiently complete a lengthy and comprehensive process,” he added.

LakeNavigator went live for the public last month after the Lake County commissioners approved the contract in October.

“I appreciate the commissioners’ willingness to invest in technology like Smart Street — and making Lake County a leader in technology adoption,” Galloway said. “I encourage the public to log on and check it out.”

SUBMITTED An image of the now accessible Street Smart tool recently added to the Lake County GIS System.