[OSGeo-Discuss] Sharing GIS Data Models

[Landon Blake]

I recently started work on a GIS for a small sewer district at my day
job. I'm currently using diagrams I created in Inkscape
(http://inkscape.org/) to illustrate the following elements of my GIS
data model:

1) Simple Feature Attributes
2) Individual Feature Level Metadata

When the data model documentation process is complete I hope to also
have diagrams for the additional elements of my GIS data model:

1) Topology Data
2) Feature Relationships
3) Feature Editing History

The diagrams will be combined with a short written guide to document
the data model. I plan on sharing all of the data model, including its
design, the SVG and PDF files of the diagrams, and the written guide.
I'd like to release all of that under a Creative Commons License. If I
can find time, I'll tweak the diagrams to create templates that could
be easily applied to other data models.

Is there any interest among other OSGeo members in these data model
documents and templates? If there is, I'd love to gather feedback from
interested parties. If there was enough interest, I'd like to talk
about hosting an open data model page similar to the one here:

http://support.esri.com/en/downloads/datamodel

I'd could commit to maintaining the data for the sewer data model, and
hope to add data models for the Public Land Survey System and Flood
Control Infrastructure before the end of the year. If there isn't
interest in doing that as part of OSGeo, I'll put up a set of GIS data
model pages here:

http://www.ccvgpg.org/

Ultimately my goal is to encourage better documentation and sharing of
GIS data model design. Inkscape is a really wonderful vector graphics
program that makes it possible to do this in a beautiful way using
common templates.

If there is any interest, I'll share what I've got so far, and will
move the conversation to the OSGeo standards mailing list.

Thanks.

Landon