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

[Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas]

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Craig Miller escribió:
> Rupert Essinger designed a visual GIS workflow language in 1991. 
> http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/Publications/Tech_Reports/91/91-6.pdf 
> 
> Max Egenhofer designed an entire Direct manipulation UI around Map
> Algebra.  http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~max/MapAlgebraSurvey.pdf
> 
> Both might be inspiring to someone wishing to have a formal framework
> for documenting GIS workflow in a simple and intuitive way.
> 
>  
> 
> I?m still unclear on what type of GIS data models the original poster
> wants to document as Smallworld, ArcGIS, GRASS, and others all have
> quite different approaches to modeling.
> 
>  
> 
> If it?s OO data, etc then UML class diagrams work great and don?t need
> to be heavy.  In software dev there are many tools that keep the data
> models in sync with the code, there is no reason why the same thing
> couldn?t be created for GIS data modeling.  The diagrams could be GIS
> independent, with underlying drivers to read/write data models for
> particular GIS packages.
> 
>  
> 
> If it is a data model, then there are already tools for keeping an
> Entity-Relationship Model (ERM) in sync with the data table.  Geometry
> is just another data type in the Simple Features view of the world.
> 
>  
> 
> Craig
> 

I agree Craig.

My employer (Prodevelop) has been developing for the Valencian
Government (Spain) a modelling software, Moskitt[1]. In fact yesterday I
was talking with my colleagues about the possibility of spatial-enabling
it adding the geometry type (and other things) to the metamodels.

Among other features, at this time you can create a typical
"alphanumeric" model  with moskitt using UML notation, then transform it
to ERM and then create the DDL to several databases.

So the work to do is to define the spatial data type (and subtypes) and
the traces to ERM and then to DDL. I would also love to see the reverse
path: inspect a database schema, create the ERM and then UML models.

Cheers

[1] http://www.moskitt.org/eng/moskitt0/
- --
Jorge Gaspar Sanz Salinas
Ingeniero en Geodesia y Cartografía
http://es.osgeo.org
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Jorge_Sanz

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