The development of national standards for large-scale Geospatial Data: Utilities
Kevin Backe US Army Corps of Engineers 7701 Telegraph Rd., Alexandria, VA 22315 Richard Grady Applied Geographies, Inc. 100 Franklin St., Boston, MA0211 O
Abstract
The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) was established by Executive Order 12906 (EO 12906) to promote the sharing of geospatial data. In 1995, FGDC created the Facilities Working Group (FWG) to address national standards for large-scale facility management applications. Currently, the F WG is determining the applicability of the Tri-Service Spatial Data Standards (TSSDS) to AM/FM projects. Input from the utility industry has been solicited, with encouraging results. This paper will report on the status of these efforts. Introduction The FGDC was established by EO 12906] to promote the coordinated development, use, sharing, and dissemination of geospatial data. FGDC supports the development of standards to facilitate the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), which was mandated by President Clinton in April 1994. In January 1995, FGDC created the FWG to address data issues that will enhance facility management, including the development of a national standard for utilities systems. Currently, the FWG is developing the Utilities Data Content Standard and other data content standards by building upon the foundation provided by the Tri-Service Spatial Data Standards (TSSDS). The TSSDS is an integrated multi-thematic data content standard created to support the planning, engineering, and management of “military cities.”2 The contents of this standard appears to be applicable to a wide range of organizations, and serving as a solid foundation for meeting broader national objectives, such as large-scale facilities mapping standards for civilian agencies, utility companies, and state and local governments. The need for Standards The need for standards is clearly understood. The benefits of a consistent content standard are many. For example:
Nonetheless, for large-scale AM/FM projects5, there is a dearth of nationally recognized content standards for geospatial data. Currently, there is no nationally recognized content standard for this scale, other than the Tri-Service Spatial Data Standard (TSSDS). On this basis, the FWG chose to build its draft content standard for geospatialb utilities data on the TSSDS. The standards process For standards to be adopted, it is imperative that they be useful and available. Part of ensuring that this happens is to gain consensus from the broadest community of potential users. During the development of the Utilities Standard, the FWG has (and is continuing to) seek input and consult with potential users of this standard.7 Members of this working group, from both the public and the private sector, have solicited direct feedback from the utilities industry and its constituents. This included meetings with long-time industry practitioners, such as Commonwealth Gas Company in Massachusetts; meetings with groups such as the Pennsylvania Mapping and Geographic Information Consortium (PAMAGIC); and, meetings with utility industry professional societies, such as AM/FM International. The Utilities Project Team, under the guidance of the FWG developed the subject standard. Much of the utilities system information contained in this standard was extracted from the Tri-Services Spatial Data Standards (TSSDS). During the development process, the project team examined the information and structure of the TSSDS and decided to use only the logical data model (feature, attribute, domain information). The project team decided that the physical data model contained in the TSSDS, which supports specific implementations (i.e., generates feature schemas for a number of common relational GIS/CADD systems), was inappropriate for an NSDI standard. Also, the Utilities Project Team revised the initial feature, attribute, domain information from the TSSDS. For example, common names were added to each of the attribute codes extracted from the TSSDS. Many of the revisions made for this Utilities Standard will also be incorporated into the next version of the TSSDS. The Utilities Project Team had participants from Federal agencies, professional societies, and local governments, and private industry. Specifically the following organizations were significantly involved in the development of this standard: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; American Public Works Association; Environmental Protection Agency; and, Applied Geographies, Inc. (AGI). Applicability of the standard The Utilities Standard is applicable for any system that captures or uses geospatial data about utility systems. The utility system components addressed in this standard include: electrical monitoring and control, electrical distribution, fuel distribution, industrial waste collection, natural gas distribution, storm drainage collection, wastewater collection, water, and heating and cooling. The goal of the Utilities Standard is to support large-scale (> 1: 10,000), intracity applications for utility systems, including life-cycle management. For example, this standard is applicable to the natural gas distribution system for a multiple-building manufacturing complex, or to the management/maintenance of a private/public water distribution system. The Utilities Standard specifies the names, definitions and domains for utility system components that can be geospatially depicted as feature types and their non-graphical attributes. It is classified as a “Data Content Standard” in the FGDC Standards Reference Model. Data content standards provide the semantic definitions for a set of real world spatial phenomena of significance to a community, such as the utility industry.g Content standards may be organized and presented in a specified logical data model, such as an entity-relationship model using Integrated Definition (IDEF) techniques. IDEF is the name given to a family of over 30 graphical modeling techniques, including techniques used for describing business processes or activities for reengineering a function. These techniques were used extensively on the TSSDS, to validate the logic of the data model. This is another reason why they represented a solid foundation for the FWG’s development of a Utilities Standard. The scope of the standard currently does not include telecommunications and alarm systems. At present this standard may not contain all the feature types necessary to model long distance utilities networks that stretch over long distances and between cities, and is not intended to describe utility systems located inside of buildings. Structure of the utilities standard Agreement on a common format is not sufficient to ensure that exchanging geospatial data is meaningful to both the sender and the receiver. In order to share spatial data, a common data model must be defined and used. In addition, semantic content of a spatial database (i.e., the entities and associated attribute value information) must be well defined and agreed upon by an application community, and documented in the metadata for a given database. The Utilities Standard data model is based upon the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) geospatial data model as presented in Parts 1 and 2 of that standard.9 The SDTS data model depicts the real world represented by features that are characterized by attributes that are assigned attribute values. The Utilities Standard defines utility system feature types and their attributes and specifies the domain (range or list) of attributes values. For the purpose of the Utilities Standard, the following definitions apply:
As previously mentioned this Utilities Standard closely parallels the utilities information contained in the TSSDS. The Utilities Standard also uses a logical data model that is consistent with the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS), which is also known as Federal Information Processing Standard 173. Part 2 of the SDTS is a formal attempt to develop a standardized list of entities, to facilitate data transfer. Extensions to the SDTS data model, including the concept of grouping utility system components (feature types) into feature classes and linking specific attributes to specific feature types, are incorporated into the Utilities Standard. The FWG has also produced several related standards that are currently in various stages of review. These include the following: the Facilities ID Data Standard, the Geospatial Positioning Accuracy Standard Part 4: Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Facilities Management; the CADD Profile for SDTX and, the Environmental Hazards Geospatial Data Content Standard. Implementation The basic contents of this Utility Standard has been implemented at hundreds of sites on GIS and CADD/Facilities Management systems using the TSSDS for specific implementation guidance. Detailed information about implementing this Utilities Standard using the TSSDS physical data model is available for ESRI’s ARC/INFO and ARCVIEW and Intergraph’s MGE GIS systems. 10 This information is available as an example of how to implement this Utilities Standard and is not intended to mandate or recommend any vendors software. Other FGDC standards activities The FGDC is composed of approximately a dozen thematic subcommittees and an additional half dozen cross-thematic working groups, many of which are developing data content and classification standards. *1 For example, standards for soils, vegetation, wetlands classification as well as cadastral, digital orthoimagery, digital elevation data, and metadata content standards are all in development by FGDC subcommittees and working groups. Summary & conclusions The intent of the draft NSDI Utilities Geospatial Data Content Standard to define the set of common semantic information for users that capture and use geospatial information about utility systems. Geospatial information for utility systems is typically captured in CADD or GIS system databases. The subject standard is intended to facilitate the interchange and reduce the redundant data production of utility system data. The existing drafi Utility Standard was developed using a considerable amount of resources and expertise from the Facilities/Installation Management community of the Department of Defense (adopting heavily from the content of the TSSDS), private engineering firms, local governments, and the utilities industry. A thorough review and comment cycle, particularly from professional societies, engineering firms and utility companies, is encouraged. Input from subject matter experts about the existing contents of this standard, its completeness, and usability are necessary in order to achieve a robust standard that is applicable by a broad community of users. References
The authors would like to recognize the efforts of the FGDC/FWG Utilities Project Team for the development of the current Utilities Standard, and the Tri-Service CADD/GIS Technology Center and the US Army Corps of Engineers, Savanna District, for developing the Utilities Entity Set of the TSSDS. 1 The Federal Government’s effort to develop geospatial data standards has been directed by Executive Order 12906which defines a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) to include the technology, policies, standards, and human resources necessary to acquire, process, store, distribute, and improve utilization of geospatial data. Further, OffIce of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-16 (“Coordination of Surveying, Mapping, and Related Spatial Data Activities”) specifically calls for the establishment of a Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to develop the NSDI with representation from all agencies that are directly involved with geospatial data. The Tri-Service CADD/GIS Technology Center (hereafter, called the Center) developed the Tri-Service Spatial Data Standard (TSSDS) in support of comprehensive master planning, environmental planning, and site planning& engineering for military installations and the Corps civil works projects, The TSSDS coding catalog was designed to support (but not limited to) large-scale applications, i.e., 1:4800(1 inch= 400 feet) to 1:600(1 inch= 50 feet). 2 The NSDI Utilities Geospatial Data Content Standard (hereafter, abbreviated to Utilities Standard in this document) has been adapted from the TSSDS Utilities Entity Set by the FWG to serve these national objectives. This Utilities Standard specifies terms and definitions for natural gas, electric, fuel, wastewater and water, and heating and cooling utilities systems. Currently, the FWG is soliciting comments by means of a public review of this Utilities Standard, to determine the general applicability and need for extensions to the current draft of the standard. 3 The ANSI’sNationalCommittee for Information Technology Standards (NCITS) GIS technical committee (L 1) has established four work groups (WG) that are focusing on the following work items: WG1 (exchange standards) - WG1 has accredited SDTS (FIPS 173) Parts 1-3 as an ANSI standard, WG2 (geographic extensions to Stmcture Query Language (SQL)), WG3 (spatial data qual ity), and WG4 (object libraries) - WG4 is focus on defining a standard methodology for developing coding catalogs. 1S0’s Geographic information/Geomatics technical committee (TC21I) has established five WGs that recently defined the following work items: WG1- Framework and Reference Model (Convenor - US); WG2 - Geospatial Data Models and Operators (Convenor- Australia] WG3 - Geospatial Data Administration (Convenor -UK), WG4 - Geospatial Services (Convenor - Norway; and WG5 - Profiles and Functional Standards (Convenor - Canada). For more information on NCITS and 1S0 TC2 11, see the following Web sites: www.statkartmo/isotc2 1I/and www.x3.org/tc.home/l 1.htm. 4 The Open GIS Consortium is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to open systems geoprocessing. OGC envisions the full integration of geospatial data and geoprocessing resources into mainstream computing and the widespread use of interoperable geoprocessing sotlware and geodata products throughout the information infrastructure. For more information on the OGC and its mission and activities see their Web site at www.opengis.org. 5 Although there is no single definition of large-scale, in the context of this discussion, geospatird data at 1:10,000 and greater is the focus of FGDC’s FWG. This range of scale is typical of municipal and utility AM/FM projects. 6 Geospatial data is simply data with implicit or explicit reference to a location relative to the earth 7 The FGDC Utilities Standard can be downloaded off the FGDCWeb site (http://fgdc.er. usgs.gov/Standards/ PR Announcements/Standards/PRstandards.html). Specific comments are sought on the following topics: additional required data content for utility systems (i.e., features, attributes, domains); existing defacto or ad hoc util ities standard(s) (eg., internal organization schema>published documents. etc.); and issues on implementation. 8 One ofthemostimportant typesof standards thatiscriticalto geospatial dataexchangeis adatacontentstandard. Adatacontent standardspecifies the “real-world” objects(e.g.,pipelines, structures, roads, .)for a given geographic information community and their semantic definitions (and usually includes a logical data model) to organize and encode “instances” of geospatial phenomena in a geospatial database. A data content standard could be viewed as the ‘“cookbook”for a geospatial information community from which geospatial databases can be built in a consistent manner and shared within that community. 9 The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in conjunction with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) developed the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) as a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS 173). FIPS 173was issued 28 August 1992. SDTS was designed as an application independent mechanism to exchange geospatial data from the conceptual level to the detailed physical file encoding. SDTS Part I defines a logical specification for transferring geospatial data including a conceptual model, quality specifications, data structure model, and transfer format. SDTS Part 2 defines a feature and attribute register for entities (features), attributes, and attribute values. SDTS Part 3 defines how to use the media independent recording (encoding) standard1S08211 for recording geospatial data on exchange media. SDTS Part 4 defines a profile of SDTS for exchanging vector data. Other SDTS profiles are being developed through the FGDC including a raster profile, point profile, and a CADD profile. Additional information about SDTS can be obtain over the web at the following URL: http://mcmcweb. er.usgs.gov/sdts/ 10 Tri-Service CADD/GIS Technology Center has develop guides for implementing the TSSDS in the following software systems: ESRI’SARC/INFO and ARCVIEW and Intergraph’s Modular GIS Environment. Additional information about the Center, these guides, or the TSSDS can be obtained over the web using the following URL:http://mr2.wes. army.mi1/ 11 More information about the FGDC and the standards being developed can be obtained by accessing the following Uw: http://fgdc.er. usgs.gov, under the hot]ink for standards. | ||
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