GIS Inspection using GPS and Digital Camera

Bentley MicroStation and MDL Application
The attributes of MicroStation elements are also desired because the engineering drawings for this project were created using Bentley Micro Station. Frequently, a designer has the need to review field attributes and the images of a manhole to make the best conduit slot selection. In order to satisfy these requirements, an MDL based GUI is developed for displaying manhole attributes and attached images. For each manhole, a unique identifier is assigned for the project. In a separated database table, all the image file names are stored with their corresponding manhole identifier. When a user clicks on a manhole querying for the images, the MDL program reads the image table and provides the option to open each of the associated images.

Kodak 120 Digital Camera
The Kodak 120 digital camera proved to be an excellent tool for capturing field images, especially when compared to a camcorder. This digital camera is easier to operate and carry. The built-in flash is sufficient for taking photographs within the manholes. Using a compressed mode, a 100+ high-resolution photo can be taken and stored in the camera’s memory card. The transferring of photo images is extremely easy, because Kodak supports PCMCIA interfacing, in which a user can view and read photo images as if the digital camera memory card is a hard drive of the computer.

ESRI Arc/Info Program
The required project deliverables are in ESRI Arc/Info formats. After the design is completed and the attributes are compiled, the MicroStation files are converted to an Arc/Info coverage file, again, using an AML utility. For QC viewing purpose, CADDScan internally used a MapObjects based viewing application to review and examine and attributes and images. The ability to use an independent Windows based application was proved to be desired as well as effective for this project.

Conclusion
This project demonstrated a successful integrated solution using common and practical tools. Our project finding can be summarized as follows:

The use of Trimble GPS and Data Dictionary significantly reduced the effort of survey and field data collection.
The Kodak digital camera was proved to be an effective tool for field photo taking.
CADD design and database interfacing within Micro Station allowed the designers to viewing attributes and images while performing design.
ESRI’S conversion utility between Micro Station and Arc/Info successfidly converted MicroStation attributes to Arc/Info.
Windows MapObjects application appeared to be highly desirable and productive.