Data definition and management techniques for interactive geo-facility applications

Abstract

All utility systems face the problem of producing and maintaining accurate records on their geographic facilities — those facilities located throughout a geographic area for the purpose of providing service to the utility's customers. These records commonly include both alphanumeric and graphic information, such as distribution maps, circuit diagrams and design specifications. Some early attempts to apply computers to cope with this problem have attacked a single piece — for example, map drafting systems have been designed to faithfully reproduce and edit the final graphic report (maps). However, in such systems, the alphanumeric data vital for engineering and design calculations are often lost.

This paper describes a comprehensive geo-facility system. In this system, data management techniques are used to preserve the relationships between a facility and other facilities, and between a facility and the various components of its description. The description of a facility is developed using data definition techniques for both facility attributes and graphic presentation.

The geo-facility workstation supports an x-y tablet input device. A variety of specialized operations can be invoked by pointing to menus located on the tablet. The design of these menus and the relationship of these menus to the facility definition requires additional data definition.

The interaction of the various definition and management functions described above is illustrated with a sample design session.