[OSGeo-Discuss] Documenting GIS Data Models (Again): Using DXF

[Brian Russo]

I think it's an interesting problem to solve (Sharing gis models/processes),
but...

* Way too heavyweight for us, I don't have time/interest to build &
maintain sheets of DXFs manually
* Of little practical use for us since our processes typically grow pretty
organically with small meetings and whiteboards/stickies, eventually we are
going to stop maintaining these 'heavy' model diagrams.
* Probably more useful for very large teams defining massive workflows with
well-defined requirements/outputs, but I don't really work on those types of
problems often (nor personally know many that really do anymore - and they'd
probably already have some dialect of UML or ERM)
* Can't easily convert those DXFs into GDB/DB schemas or into the processes
themselves, etc, so hence little use at the tech level

It might be more useful to define a simple standardized set of symbols that
handles 80% of what we do, and then for more complex processes just lets you
name it, treat them like blackboxes and just annotate them or something.
Personally I would just probably use simple data flow & entity-relationship
diagrams. If there was a simple system that modelled common spatial analysis
processes via symbols then I might be interested in that.

I'm skeptical on the real world utility of building/maintaining large sets
of diagrams that A) Don't fit into the business process generation/capture
processes and B) Don't easily convert into the actual code/schemas
underlying.

Perhaps figure out what the problem you're really trying to solve is. I.e.
What am I trying to achieve via sharing models?

- bri

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Landon Blake <lblake at ksninc.com> wrote:

>  I posted a few weeks back I posted about possible ways to document and
> share GIS data models. I decided to move forward with a graphical approach.
>
>
>
> I started building diagrams to document my GIS data model for the Public
> Land Survey System in the United States. I am drawing these diagrams in a
> CAD program. When I get things ironed out I hope to release the following
> items to the GIS community:
>
>
>
> -          My completed GIS data model in DXF format that can be used as
> an example or template for other models.
>
> -          A set of CAD “blocks” that can be used to build similar
> diagrams.
>
>
>
> If I like how things come together with the diagrams, I might try
> converting the diagrams to SVG. The diagrams would be much prettier in SVG,
> but I am quicker with CAD than I am with Inkscape, and I want to get a
> prototype completed quickly.
>
>
>
> This will make a lot more sense when you get to see the example diagrams.
>
>
>
> I welcome any collaboration on this effort. If there is interest, I could
> move this discussion to the Standards mailing list. It would be great to get
> input from interested parties now, while the diagrams are still taking
> shape.
>
>
>
> Landon
>
>
>
>
> *Warning:
> *Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against
> defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is
> not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination,
> distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you
> have received this information in error, please notify the sender
> immediately.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20090909/65c96246/attachment-0002.html>