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Land Information and Computer Graphics Facility 
The Land Information and Computer Graphics Facility (LICGF), administratively housed in the School 
of Natural Resources of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, has as its primary mission making 
land information accessible through technology by investigating public land records modernization as it 
relates to the concept of a multipurpose land information system. LICGF provides a venue for both 
interdisciplinary, multi-agency projects, and individual faculty and student research efforts. These 
activities foster the development of technical and institutional knowledge and skills essential to the 
acquisition, interpretation, integration, and sharing of information on land and water resources. 
LICGF has identified a number of goals that help to define its functions as well as to guide its mission 
into the future. These goals are: 
• To fulfill the research, instruction, and ext.ension/outreach mission of the university within the 
context of the policy evaluation mission of the School of Natural Resources, by providing faculty, 
student, government, and private sectors access to GIS hardware and software and expertise and 
knowledge. 
• To assist local government agencies in developing and implementing multipurpose land 
information systems that result in more efficient, effective, and equitable management of rural 
lands and resources by reducing the risk and uncertainty of GIS technology transfer, by 
disseminating knowledge through demonstrations and scholarly publications and more public 
forums such as the Wisconsin Land Information Newsletter, and by expediting the transfer of 
technology through professional training and instruction programs. 
• To study the diffusion of GIS technology within state and local government by observing the 
societal, legal, institutional, political, and economic impacts upon rural land use, management, 
and tenure, and the overall societal and individual response to improved access to land 
information. 
• To design, develop, and evaluate multipurpose land information systems that incorporate 
legislative mandates and demographic and natural resource conditions that address agricultural 
and natural resource management policy, to address the process of zoning and land planning, and 
to address the resultant impact upon land tenure. 
LICGF maintains an extensive array of computer hardware to assist in pursuing the above mission. The 
main thrust of software development at LICGF is in the area of macros and extensions of ARC/INFO 
and pcARC/INFO. Before these packages were available, ODYSSEY was the main GIS tool used by 
LICGF researchers. ODYSSEY extensions have been developed for digitizing, plotting, data 
transformation and conversion, edgematching, and spatial analyses. 
Laboratory for Spatial Data Acquisition and Analysis 
The Laboratory for Spatial Data Acquisition and Analysis (LSDAA) is a research and instructional 
facility administered by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) within the 
College of Engineering. Its mission is to provide a physical and intellectual setting for research and 
instruction in surveying, photogrammetry, and spatial data analysis.- Graduate students and faculty 
involved in both interdisciplinary and traditional disciplinary' research make extensive use of the facility. 
LSDAA is a resource not only for broadly-based, syslems-oricntcd research but also for applications of 
GIS and spatial analysis to specialized problems. Most recently, the laboratory has facilitated research 
ranging trom hydrologic modelling to archeological data inventory, including, applications of geodetic 
control to GIS problems, GIS design, deformation studies, and digital orthophoto mapping. 
The laboratory also provides an avenue for the introduction of GIS concepts to civil engineers, the 
application of GIS techniques to civil engineering problems, and the involvement of civil engineers in 
multidisciplinary research.