Feature Article: Bridging the gap between Engineering and GIS

The Gap

A major rift exists between the engineering and geographic information system (GIS) departments in many local governments.

Engineers require precision. They have used CAD software for years for their design and mapping projects. They cannot use GIS software to create design drawings effectively. Engineers recognize the need to manage their assets and many want access to the analysis functions offered by GIS software.

GIS professionals need to incorporate infrastructure data into their information systems. Since there is no simple way to migrate CAD drawings into a GIS, many local governments spend significant effort exporting, importing and recapturing data. Some may even have dedicated staff that re-digitizes the original drawings.

As a result,

• Effort is wasted
• Data is duplicated and hence data integrity and currency is compromised
• Neither group is 100% sure of the accuracy or currency of the infrastructure information
• Multiple data sets are maintained - attributes are edited once in engineering and once in the GIS

A bridge is required to span the gap between the engineering and GIS departments. This bridge must permit engineering staff to create and maintain drawings in CAD while simultaneously providing accurate data to the enterprise GIS. At the same time, GIS information such as parcels and parcel related attributes should be available to the engineers as reference layers.

Open GIS Standards Provide the Foundation

What engineers and GIS users require is a transparent way of sharing data that is maintained only once. Given the proprietary formats of both the CAD drawing files and the GIS data, the solution cannot be provided by the CAD and GIS software vendors.

The Open Geospatial Consortium ( www.opengeospatial.org ) was established to address inter-operability issues and to provide inter-operability specifications that are agreed to by the broad geospatial community.

These standards provide the foundation for the CAD - GIS bridge.

Oracle Provides the Supporting Piers

Oracle was an earlier adopter of the OGC standards and incorporated these standards into the original Oracle Spatial extension to Oracle.

Oracle Spatial has evolved significantly since its initial introduction and all core GIS functions have been incorporated into Oracle Locator which is an integral part of the standard Oracle database. The implications of this include:

1. For the first time, an entity's geometry is stored in an open and accessible format directly with the record in an industry standard database
2. Both the geometry and attribute information can be obtained by CAD and GIS products developed by multiple vendors.
3. Both basic and complex spatial operations can be performed against an object directly within the Oracle database
4. For many applications that do not require a map, Oracle can provide GIS functionality directly. For example, notifications based on mailing addresses obtained by buffering a parcel, can be performed directly within Oracle.

Munsys Provides the Bridge

While Oracle provides the core technology to support the integration of CAD and GIS, application software is required to build the actual bridge. This bridge is provided by the Munsys infrastructure mapping software. (www.munsys.com )

Munsys utilizes AutoCAD as its primary graphical editing tools - enabling engineering users to operate in a familiar environment.

Munsys alters the AutoCAD environment by storing all drawing objects in Oracle geometry fields along with the associated attributes. Rather than opening drawing files, users query the layers that they want to view or edit into AutoCAD. Users can query by attribute and/or geographic constraints.

But Munsys does much more than simply store and retrieve graphical entities. Each Munsys application provides a set of business rules that ensure that the mapping information is topologically correct and that primary attributes have been collected before records are posted to the database. These rules help ensure the engineering data integrity while also capturing attributes so that the data is GIS ready. As all the data is stored in Oracle it can be accessed directly by GIS systems with no need for exporting or translation.

The Munsys Bridge Opens New Integration Paths

With data stored in native Oracle Geometry fields to OGC standards, adopters of this approach have a wide variety of new and significant opportunities for system integration.

Suddenly CAD and GIS software provided by different vendors can transparently share the same data and users are free to select the best tool for a specific task.

The use of Oracle to store the core data provides even greater opportunities for integration. The same core geographic information can be linked to maintenance management, financial and other enterprise systems used by various other departments within the organization.