SDE implementation to support an enterprise wide GIS
Daniel Gabbard and Pete Moreau, Union Pacific Resources
SDE implementation to support an enterprise wide GIS. The move of data from mainframe to Client Server architecture at Union Pacific Resources (UPR) has created a need for new GIS applications for business units at UPR. These client applications need access to spatial and relational data that is available on Unix servers. Historically UPR was using Esri's library and coverage structures. This paper will discuss UPRC's client server environment, the transition to SDE, data loading, performance statistics, and how UPR's ViewPoint Land, map retrieval, and data loading applications are using SDE.
Esri's Spatial Database Engine--A Seamless GIS Solution.
Don Murray and Dale Lutz, Safe Software Inc.
Traditionally, geographic data has been collected and organized around the "Mapsheet". While the mapsheet centric approach made sense when Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used to automate the map-making process, this method of data organization is not well suited for inherently seamless applications such as decision support systems. For geographic data to be used for decision support purposes, it must be available to both MIS and GIS applications. Esri's recently announced Spatial Database Engine (SDE) claims to meet the needs of the next generation of Geographic Data users. This geographic database product provides a spatial extension to the underlying commercial Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), thereby enabling all data (spatial and non-spatial) to be stored within a single RDBMS. A prototype system has been deployed using Esri's SDE. This system stores cadastral and topographic data at a variety of scales in a single seamless database. The prototype system evaluates Esri's SDE and is compared with an existing system which uses earlier GIS technology. This prototype evaluates many features of Esri's SDE including programmatic feature type creation, data loading integrity checking, and transaction support. The prototype also evaluates the SDE Application Programmer's Interface (API) by performing mapsheet generalization and mapsheet merging operations. In addition to an on-line data browsing and analysis facility, the system also incorporates a data export facility. This facility allows data to be selected using both spatial and non-spatial attributes, providing remote users of the system with the ability to extract data of interest for further processing and integration on their own desktop systems. The data import and export facilities are table driven and can be customized for particular schemas and/or schema transformations. They currently support the Spatial Archive and Interchange Format (SAIF), Esri's Shape Files, Intergraph's DGN, and MapInfo's MIF. To evaluate the administration tools of the Spatial Database Engine an X-Windows based Spatial Database Administration tool was constructed. This GUI is used to evaluate the ease with which users can perform index tuning and other administration operations on the Spatial Database Engine. Keywords: SAIF, Spatial Indexing, Seamless, RDBMS, Esri, Spatial Database Engine, SDE
Issues: Moving GIS Data To-and-From the Field for Update
Griff Jay, PenMetrics, Inc.
GIS is a proven technology that produces marvelous systems, applications, and databases. However, GIS systems often struggle with issues of how to maintain those databases in a timely, efficient, cost-effective manner. Field data collection has been touted as a means to reducing the time lag and expense involved with updating GIS data, and the technologies of the 90s - portable computers, mobile communications, global position systems - have made it possible to take computers into the field to perform field data collection. Those fielding a serious data collection effort will quickly encounter significant issues related to the very process itself of moving the data to and from the field. This paper will explore the issues involved in extracting the right data from the central GIS, combining it with data from other enterprise databases, recognizing and maintaining the relationships between files, maintaining the connection between graphical features and their database records, general geographic coordinate issues, how best to provide instructions for field workers, issues concerning returning data from the field, merging data back into the original databases, and validating the data throughout the cycle - validation before dispatch (i.e. compatibility between files), validation rules at time of data capture, and validation rules at time of merge.
Back to Paper Presentation Abstracts