Some days I really can't stand GIS...

[kentauros]

For those that don't know what that is, first it stands for "Geographic Information System" and you can read more at the link :)

Why am I at odds with GIS today? Because, I'm a draftsman. I work with drawings through a drafting program called AutoCAD. Still, it's all about drawing and only a little about data, unlike GIS. It's all about data and very little about drawing, or drafting. I've tried to explain this difference, but I think the lead in our group (a GIS professional with a masters in it) still doesn't understand the concept of drafting.

So, we are all working on a pipeline project and the drawings for which we are responsible are little A4-sized pages of property parcels, depicting the pipeline going across the owner's land. It also depicts workspace for the equipment, materials and people. That space follows the sides of the easement, and is called "temporary workspace". Sometimes they need more workspace than even that, and will add little blocks of it called "additional temporary workspace" or ATWS for short (this site appears to explain some of this.)

Well, about an hour ago I had a drawing come though the QC I'm doing where all of the ATWS had been removed. While it might seem minor, to a draftsman, that's no minor change. Details made for the former ATWS had to be removed and the second page deleted, while the primary drawing page changed to accommodate a smaller detail just for the easement and TWS. Not so much extra work involved, but a major difference between the previous drawing and the new one. The next normal step would be to "rev it up". That is, add a revision number and date to the title-block, plus a short description of what changed. Pretty standard stuff to us drafters.

Not so with GIS. As their software is primarily a database program (a very powerful one at that, used across many different and varied fields of study) the people that use it aren't trained in drafting or our standards, much less the way we see things. And here starts the conflict between us. She sez in reply to one of my email queries about revving it up:

"But the purpose of the being revved up isn't to record the changes of the drawings. It's to replace the revision that has been submitted to the server and if it hasn't been submitted to the server there's no need to rev it up."

What? What does that even mean? After more back and forth between us, I finally figured it out for why GIS doesn't see this as a change and I do:

"This appears to be more of a conflict between how drafting defines a drawing and how GIS defines a drawing.

We see a drawing as a representation of physical work to be done in the field or a shop.

GIS sees a drawing as a compilation of data to be saved."

She didn't really agree with my assessment, either, but I still won't be making a new rev because GIS is in control on this stuff and making these weird decisions on what constitutes a changed drawing and what doesn't.

:rant:

[riderinthestorm]

1. So this is akin to gibberish to me but in fairness I did read through it all the way

Because my daughter's partner is finishing his GIS degree and I figured I'd try to get a grip on what the hell he's doing.

But nope.

Still don't get it.

:thumbsup: Righteous rant though.

[kentauros]

6. LOL!

Thanks! I think :P

What the GIS person told me in email initially was gibberish to me, too! These are really two different professions that should not work together unless both understand the other implicitly, and that was certainly not the case today :crazy:

[RebelOne]

2. That is all Greek to me. But I do know about the AutoCAD program. n/t

[kentauros]

5. You're not alone ;)

The majority of people to whom I've ever mentioned the acronym "GIS" don't know what it is until I say, "Think of Google Maps. That's GIS, at least for the mapping part. The rest of it is a database, for gathering, compiling and analyzing data. People of all professions use GIS to help them better understand their data and make it presentable to people in other fields. Any geo-political mapping is all done pretty much exclusively with GIS now." :)

[JanMichael]

3. I work with GIS on a medium user level and understand your pain.

I'm also a planner who is saddened by the fact that so few of us can draw what we envision. Thus I am determined to start taking autocad classes ASAP in order to better meld the geographic and data driven GIS to the visual built environment.

Sounds corny but it is true.

[kentauros]

4. Well, you'll be happy to know that if you take Civil 3D

they've incorporated plenty of GIS capability into the program, both in using shapefiles and in making them :D

AutoCAD's power comes in the fact that it's primarily an engineering tool and not for gathering and analyzing data like with GIS. What it can do with 3D surfaces just from surveyors' GPS points is mind-blowing. I need to take an intermediate class in it, too, as everything I know about it I've learned on the job. Something a bit more thorough would be best.

[csziggy]

7. Is that the same GIS system that some property appraisers use

On their web sites? Because if it is I hate for a different reason. It's one of the few things I use on the internet that absolute refuses to work with FireFox. I always hope it will work and all it does is continuously reload the page over and over and over and over. Eventually I have to give up, open IE, search for the property, and go back to the GIS system. Because of course, it will not use the link that I copy from Firefox and paste in.

[kentauros]

9. I think what you're seeing is something that GIS is responsible

for "giving" to the rest of the world: XML GIS Web Services

I use Opera for my browser and every time some company I've worked for has set up their map-browsing online, it's always been this xml-map service. And, it has never worked with Opera, either. My guess is whomever set up the internal coding made it specific to IE and nothing else :eyes:

So, you're probably just going to have to keep IE for those few pages and types of online code like this. It's unfortunate that some people are so limited in their thinking from the rest of us, but it is what it is ;)

[csziggy]

11. I figured it was an end product instead of what you are working with

And I've been resigned to using IE for a few websites or functionality on a few.

We just gave away a set of maps that were an earlier version of what you are doing. Dad and his father were both mining engineers here in Florida. While cleaning out Dad's office, my sister found a set of maps for the railroad right of way through the counties in this part of Florida. Some dated to the 1920s, some were as late as the 1960s. The maps included ownership and staging areas as well as the topography and indications of vegetation.

We are not sure, and Dad does not remember, whether Dad did the entire right of way or if granddad had done some of the work and Dad picked up where he left off. Dad got a lot of business because he could take short cuts since he knew the areas so well and had a lot of his father's work to consult.

What is ironic is that much of that right away no long has railroad tracks on it. Where the railroads no longer needed/wanted it, the right of way has often been put into the Rails to Trails program.

We donated the maps to the local history museum and they promised to work with the Rails to Trail people so they know about and have access to them.

[kentauros]

12. That was a cool story and great what you did with the drawings!

It's good someone will be able to use that information again. I was thinking as I read that you might have kept some of the oldest and framed one or two as maps back then look really cool. I sometimes look at the map-library of the University of Texas for the old topo quads. You can find plenty of them here:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps

I know it says "Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection", but I don't know if it's named after pRick or not. It does make for a good reference-source of maps, from all over the world :D

edit: Okay, I found out the name has nothing to do with Goodhair, and is named after two of UT's faculty, Ervin S. Perry and Carlos E. Castañeda. Here's the story of the library from The Handbook of Texas Online :)

[csziggy]

13. Nice site for maps! It could come in handy

I got most of Dad's collection of quad maps for Polk County, Florida. Some were in too bad shape to survive moving, unfortunately, but most survived. I used to use those maps to figure out where to go horseback riding - but had to update them as I did since so many of the areas had been strip mined.

These days I am pulling up maps for genealogical purposes. I love states like Pennsylvania that have the original surveys online all the way back to the original surveys for warrants given out by William Penn. One of the families was involved with the Twelve Mile Circle borderline between Delaware and Pennsylvania. In fact, because of the location of their land grant in a bend of the Brandywine Creek, they ended up at one point in Delaware with no dry land access without crossing a state line. Now that line runs just south of the bend. ( 39°50'30.05"N 75°35'36.10"W) That was one of the few parcels that was easy to locate because of that peculiarity.

Having sources for old maps is perfect for me. Thank you!

[kentauros]

14. You're welcome!

:)

You can also check out the universities in the areas you're searching as well as the various state offices. Many of them are online now, supplying GIS data, too. Short of paying many thousands of dollars for a commercial copy of ESRI's GIS programs, there's a free and open-source program called Quantum GIS. It's not that hard to learn and it's nice to be able to create your maps, including topo ;)

[csziggy]

15. I'll try it out

Since I have had trouble finding maps for some areas that I can customize. Dad used to do it for Mom for her research but I never could do that precise engineering lettering that he could, even before my hands got messed up.

Eventually I want to try to locate and plot some of the pieces of land that I only have the survey descriptions for. But finding the starting points and figuring out the length of chains and perches is NOT easy! The BLO does have a nice guide that got me started, but I am far from precise.

[XemaSab]

8. I took a few classes in it

and it surely does blow. :(

[kentauros]

10. It makes more sense as you get deeper into the schooling,

and if you know you'll be using it as it was intended: as a big, versatile database. Yes, it makes maps, but the people that use it spend the majority of their time organizing and analyzing the data versus directing the software to make maps. That's let to the drafter and why we still have this "disconnect" between the two fields.

Interestingly, GIS can generate product that looks like drafting sheets for drawings, but not really. Clients that know and are used to products made with AutoCAD can see the difference as easily as the rest of us. So, while GIS might still generate those drawings, they basically just turn into guideline drawings for CAD to re-do into something presentable to a client. Big waste of labor, but ESRI (the company that created GIS) is made up of GIS people, not drafters. What do they know about drafting? :P