260:(GIS) for environment impact and habitat mitigation studies. The scope of the project included completing a user needs assessment, developing a GIS functional scope, evaluating existing GIS technologies, and making recommendations to the USFWS as to the appropriate course of action for the development and deployment of GIS technology. In late 1976, the contract was awarded to the Federation of Rocky Mountain States, a not-for-profit organization. The contract number for this work was 14-16 0008-2155.
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1970s. The evaluation resulted in the determination that no existing GIS capability provided even a fraction of the functional capability required to meet user needs. Therefore, the decision was made to design and program a new interactive GIS application that used existing publicly available software whenever possible.
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in the same geospatial database. The vector data could be points, lines, or polygons. MOSS utilized what at the time was referred to as a "full polygon" representation. In a full polygon representation, each polygon vertex shared with another polygon. Polygons could have islands (holes). Raster data
266:
For the first six months of 1977, the project team worked on two tasks: A User Needs
Assessment (Task 1) and an Inventory of Existing GIS technology (Task 2). The needs assessment involved interviewing wildlife biologists, natural resources planners, and other professionals that would be involved in
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evolution of the capabilities of hardware and peripherals and the number of users and diversity of applications have resulted in the need to reassess MOSS. A draft report was submitted to USGS as a preliminary description of the logical functions for an enhanced public domain geoprocessing system.
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packages were identified. Of these, 54 had enough documentation and basic required functionality to warrant further analysis in terms of matching GIS functionality against user requirements. This report is a valuable historical document as it has information and details of GI systems used in the
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An early major project, completed in 1982, was for coastal habitat analysis, change detection, and impacts of dredge disposal along the
Louisiana coast. Outputs from this system were presented to the State of Louisiana Senate and House Committees on Natural Resources. The project is described in
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Concurrently, Carl Reed did an inventory of existing public domain and commercial GIS technology. This was Task 2 of the USFWS contract: "Survey, assess, and compare existing computer software systems and geographic data bases which are relevant to FWS determined needs. This may include federal,
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to perform a
Feasibility and Design Study for the Enhancement of MOSS. MOSS was originally designed in 1977 for implementation on a main frame computer. Many of the logical design concepts current with the state-of-the-art at that time were superseded. Research into geoprocessing methodology,
372:, such as the coordinate reference system (projection), date of creation, owner, data of last update, description, and so forth. Metadata was "searchable". For a full description of all of the MOSS functional capabilities please visit the 1985 version of the MOSS User's Manual
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Proceedings, Third
National MOSS Users Workshop : [June 2-5, 1986, Fort Collins, Colorado] / $ c compiled by U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and TGS Technology, Inc. ; [Tracey R. Feagan, workshop
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Engineering
Topographic Labs, Fish and Wildlife Service, and numerous state, local and university organizations. The first MOSS users workshop was held in 1983 and had about 30 attendees. The second users workshop was held in Denver in 1984 with almost 150 attendees.
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array addressing issues. Raster images could be no larger than 32,000 pixels per row. Each map in a MOSS database could have up to 32,000 features. There was no limit on the number of maps in the database. Each map had a map header that contained a variety of
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In 1978, MOSS was used in a pilot project in 1978 to test the validity of using the new MOSS software in a real world FWS habitat mitigation project. The pilot project used vector and raster map data digitized from USGS base maps, from
425:. Fort Collins, Colo. : Washington, D.C.: Dept. of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Biological Services, Western Energy and Land Use Team : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off. 1977.
263:"The goal of this two year project was to develop an operational capability within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to accept, store, manipulate, and output spatially related data for use in a variety of FWS programs."
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National MOSS Users
Workshop (3rd : 1986 : Fort Collins, Colo ); Feagan, Tracey R.; United States Bureau of Land Management; Unitred States Fish and Wildlife Service; TGS Technology, Inc (1987).
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and training activity began. Within a few years, numerous other
Federal agencies were using MOSS for a variety of projects. By 1983, MOSS was being used in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, multiple
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Using the user requirements as the design driver, the design of MOSS began during the summer of 1977. Once the design group, led by Carl Reed, agreed on the design, programming started. The
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was the development language. Graphics presentation and code development was done on a
Tektronix 4010. Initial programming was completed by Carl Reed in 1978.
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computer (AOS operating system) and required MOSS to be ported from the CDC mainframe to the DG minicomputer. This work was completed in the summer of 1980.
409:. Bureau of Land Management Library. Fort Collins, Colo. : Information Systems Technical Laboratory, Federation of Rocky Mountain States, Inc.
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was ready for production use. Once installed, operational, and properly documented at the WELUT facility in Fort
Collins Colorado, an extensive
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development on wildlife and wildlife habitat. They were further tasked with evaluating and making recommendations regarding habitat mitigation.
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software technology. Development of MOSS began in late 1977 and was first deployed for use in 1979. MOSS represents a very early
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detail in a paper presented at AutoCarto 5: THE ROLE OF THE USFWS GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM IN COASTAL DECISION MAKING.
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in which point, line, and polygon features could all be stored in the same map file. The user interacted with MOSS via a
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wildlife habitat definition and habitat mitigation. The results of the assessment were published in the summer of 1977.
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363:. The early versions of MOSS only allowed up to 32,000 coordinate pairs per line or polygon feature. This was due to
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By 1979, a user-accessible version of MOSS was available on the CDC mainframe. In late 1979, the FWS purchased a
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Zenodo, 2021 Reed, Carl N III, Katz, Sol, Frosh, Randy, Davidson, John, Hunter, Anne, & Lee, John. (2021).
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WELUT - 02 Project : report 2200 : logical capabilities of the GIS : management summary version
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In the middle 1970s, coal-mining activities required federal agencies to evaluate the impacts of
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Feasibility and design study for the enhancement of MOSS : draft : logical functions
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Comparison of selected operational capabilities of fifty-four geographic information systems
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655:"Evaluation and Selection of Existing GIS Software for the U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE GIS"
628:"Comparison of Selected Operational Capabilities of 54 Geographic Information Systems"
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Federation of Rocky
Mountain States. Information Systems Technical Laboratory (1977).
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Federation of Rocky Mountain States. Information Systems Technical Laboratory (1978).
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state, and private software and data bases". Approximately 70 different mapping and
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582:. Bureau of Land Management Library. Fort Collins, Colo. : Autometric, Inc.
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552:"THE ROLE OF THE USFWS GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM IN COASTAL DECISIONMAKING"
760:"User Needs Assessment for an Operational GIS within the US Fish and Wildlife"
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User needs assessment for an operational geographic information system /
512:. Bureau of Land Management Library. Lakewood, Colo. : The Bureau.
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730:. Denver, Colorado: United States Department of the Interior. 1985.
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In 1984, the United States Geological Survey contracted with
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This article is about computer software. For other uses, see
722:. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. 1981.
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by 5 years. MOSS utilized an integrated vector based
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Not available online. Available from the lead author
480:""Proceedings: Fifth National MOSS Users Workshop.""
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Proceedings of the 1985 National MOSS Users Workshop
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Map Overlay and Statistical System online resources
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256:) issued a request for proposals for developing a
550:Ader, Robert; Stayner, Floyd (August 28, 1982).
225:GIS development - predating the better known
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776:: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
644:: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
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758:Gropper, Hamill, Nez, Reed, Salmen (1977).
252:In 1976, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (
321:state offices, the Bureau of Reclamation,
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720:Western Energy and Land Use Team Brochure
706:CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
29:Map Overlay and Statistical System (MOSS)
764:Federation of Rocky Mountain States, Inc
632:Federation of Rocky Mountain States, Inc
535:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
678:Logical Capabilities of the (USFWS) GIS
676:Reed, Hammill, Gropper, Salmen (1978).
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626:Gropper, Hamill, Reed, Salmen (1977).
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442:. Bureau of Land Management Library.
350:MOSS allowed the user to store both
799:MOSS Code repository (Open Access)
207:Map Overlay and Statistical System
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728:Second Annual MOSS Users Workshop
634:. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
16:Public domain software technology
309:By the middle of 1980, the MOSS
283:was a CDC mainframe running the
453:Workshop, National MOSS Users,
390:"Short History of the MOSS GIS"
124:Data General#Desktop Generation
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258:Geographic Information System
156:Geographic information system
794:from the MOSS Heritage team
484:repository.library.noaa.gov
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319:Bureau of Land Management
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806:Open Source GIS history
576:Forbes, Robert (1984).
281:development environment
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323:National Park Service
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732:Not available online
716:"MOSS User's Manual"
594:"MOSS User's Manual"
315:technology transfer
62:MOSS 1985 / 1985
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653:Carl Reed (1978).
528:has generic name (
287:operating system.
128:HP 9000#Series 500
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662:AutoCarto 3
223:open source
812:Foundation
376:References
339:Autometric
289:Fortran IV
247:strip mine
92:Written in
73:Repository
808:from the
749:ignored (
739:cite book
699:ignored (
689:cite book
607:April 29,
561:April 30,
556:Citeseerx
518:cite book
489:April 30,
465:April 30,
193:/projects
120:CDC Cyber
820:Category
640:cite web
370:metadata
213:), is a
136:Emulator
115:Platform
365:Fortran
327:US Army
241:History
179:mossgis
174:Website
163:License
145:English
96:Fortran
603:. 1985
361:pixels
356:raster
352:vector
285:Kronos
189:.osgeo
83:/OSGeo
79:github
810:OSGeo
669:(PDF)
658:(PDF)
597:(PDF)
460:(PDF)
227:GRASS
195:/moss
85:/MOSS
778:link
751:help
708:link
701:help
646:link
609:2024
563:2024
537:link
530:help
491:2024
467:2024
354:and
211:MOSS
205:The
191:.org
181:.org
151:Type
81:.com
47:1979
21:MOSS
254:FWS
215:GIS
187:www
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.