The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part B4. Beijing 2008
117
In order to meet’frequent database updating demands for the
future, a team that consisted of 20 years veteran storm water
engineer and GIS programmer overviewed the whole database
updating work flow, predicted the new requirements of the
storm water system, analyzed current database management,
and recognized which parts need improvement and how to
improve them, we consistently agreed the following factors
should be considered in the new system
(1) Pipe size, shape, elevation and their connection have to
be known to analyze the capacity of our storm water
system.
(2) Pipe material, installed year, and their condition have to
be known for the maintenance tracking. Since the pipe is
underground, we only can measure the two ends of a
pipe in the corresponding structures.
(3) Structure size (opening size, depth, shape, etc.), lid
material and condition must also be known in order to
analyze the capacity and keep good maintenance.
(4) In addition, the data updating system should include all
the attributes that we need, and the operation needs to be
easy and fast so that the updating work can be
performed in a timely manner.
2.2 The Flowchart of Storm Water Database
Field Name
OBJECTID
StruNo
StruType
LidType
LidSize
RimElev
InvElev
CntPipe
Yrlnstalled
Condition
SurveyDate
Northing
Easting
Data Type
Long int
Text
Text
Text
Text
Double
Double
Int
bit
Text
Date
Double
Double
Length
20
_4_
_2_
10
4
Comments
Automatic number
Structure Number
Structure Type
Lid’s type
Lid’s size
Rim Elevation
Invert Elevation
Count of the pipes
The year installed
Structure condition
Survey date
Y coordinate
X coordinate
Table 1. The Data Organization and Types of Structures
For the pipes: The data organization and types of pipes in
SWDUS are listed in table 2.
Figure 1 is a proposed flowchart of SWDUS. This system
consists of seven modules:
(1) Entering Field Data;
(2) Editing Field Data;
(3) Linking GPS Data to Calculate Pipe Elevation;
(4) Creating Structure and Pipe Layers;
(5) Connecting Existing Data;
(6) Editing the New Features to Control the Data Quality;
(7) Updating the Existing Database.
Such design mainly considered the following factors:
• High automation. From field data collection, data
processing to database updating, a high degree of
automation will benefit users to save post-processing
time and reduce their labor intension.
• Easy Operation. The system is planned to design for
those who have little experiences in ArcGIS software
and/or database operation. Thus, each operation will be
realized by different styles of menu bar, pull-down
menu, submenu, and help function.
• Standardization. In order to be compatible with other
database, such as Oracle, ArcGIS software, the data type
and format including data entry, processing, operation,
etc. will use standard code.
3. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
3.1 Data Model and Organization
Based on experiences in the organization and discussion with
different expert in storm water management, City of Norfolk,
data structure and type of different components are designated
below.
For the structures: The data organization and types of
structures in SWDUS are listed in table 1.
Field Name
Type
Length
Meaning
OBJECTID
Long int
Automatic number
UPNO
Text
10
Up-structure number
UPElev
Double
Up-structure elevation
DNNO
Text
10
Down-structure number
DNElev
Double
Down-structure elevation
UP DNSTRCT
Text
21
Up-down Stru. numbers
MAT
Text
4
Pipe's material code
GEOM
Text
2
Pipe's shape code
• • •
• • •
• • •
• • •
Table 2. The Data Organization and Types of Pipes
For the SW field data: we developed the type of data
organization to represent geometric data and attribute data for
describing SW structures and corresponding pipes (see Figure
2). The Structure number is a unique ID linking GPS data with
SW field data.
Figure 2. The SW Field Data Organization/Linking with GPS
Data
For the linking of the SW field data with GPS data: we
developed algorithms to automatically calculate the elevations
of the pipes, create structure layer and pipe layer based on the
field collected data. In order to ensure the data will be linked
and converted automatically, the following data organizeion is
designated (see Figure 3).