LIS - Standardization
Need for Standardization
There is an immediate and utmost need for standardization of technologies and interfaces in use by various states to ensure creation of a compatible LIS at the national level in future.
As things stand now, different states across the country have adopted various technologies for computerization of graphical and textual records. As discussed earlier, these technologies fall into one of the three categories - CAD-based, GIS-based and True LIS solutions. The present data exchange capabilities of most software are limited to exchange of graphical records in a drawing form and textual record in database form. There is a need to address the protocols for interfacing and exchanging diverse information being stored by virtue of differing survey techniques and standards across the countries.
In the absence of such standardization, the country may well end up with different states adopting different software technologies, which are unable to communicate totally with each other. In other words, the new generation of digital survey records will be similar to old manual records - each state with its own standard!
There are two aspects to standardization:
- Software interfaces standardization - for graphical data, textual data and survey specific data.
- Identification of a viable product that can be adopted at national level, allowing local use of either the same or alternate technologies.
Open Architecture
A major issue that has to be catered for any standardization is the concept of Open Architecture. Any software product used for LIS applications must
- Have a open graphical and textual data exchange protocol
- Have a open protocol for exchange of survey specific data
- Have the capability or flexibility to adapt to data input from current and new survey equipment or methodologies.
Any standardization adopted must clearly identify the protocols and input methodologies. Proprietary interfaces cannot be eliminated due to the efficiency they provide in the design and operation of a product, but a product may be called compliant as long as it supports bi-directional data exchange as per protocols defined by the LIS standard.
Customizability
Survey and Land Records departments across the country are one of the oldest Govt. departments and the manual systems used by them are based on time-tested and honored procedures laid down over 100 years. As such, any new technology that is introduced into the system must be highly customizable to local needs. This is to
- enable ease of operation
- cause minimal disruption to the traditional record keeping system
- easy migration to the new technology
- easier acceptance of the technology
In other words, the same technology or product may not be useful for all the states unless some effort is put by the developers in tailoring the product to local variations.
4. VISION LIS 2000 - An indigenous solution
Background
VISIONLABS, a pioneer in indigenous software development in Scientific and Engineering applications, has developed an LIS software solution known as VISION LIS 2000, to meet every requirement of Land Records computerisation and also looks beyond into the future of Land Management.
The complete software is tailor made for Land Management applications and complete source code level support is available.
The development is a product of 5 years of meticulous research, which involved interactions with many senior experienced officers involved in Land Management portfolios, Central Survey Office, numerous State Land Records Departments and analysis and testing by various Surveyors and field executives. VISION LIS 2000 is the product of over 200 man-years of coordinated effort put in by Software Engineers, Surveyors and User Departments.
Components of VISION LIS 2000
VISION LIS 2000 is a software suite comprising of
- VISION Surveyor - Survey Records computerization software following the traditional survey methods used in the country in last 150 years.
- VISION MapMaker - Digital Mapping software for computerization of field sketches or village maps where field survey data is not available.
- VISION Cartographer - A comprehensive GIS for integration of Record of Rights data and any other user specific databases to the village spatial records. Also suitable for building any higher level spatial analysis application
- VISION Office - Multilingual support using common Windows protocols suitable for data interchange/storage using any general Windows based application. BIS ISCII Compliant interface.
This power suite of software caters to every possible Land Management application and is a product without any parallel in terms of functionality and utility.