GIS Toolbar Access to Other Databases

							 GIS Toolbar: Access to Other
         Databases
                  Ken Pathak

           Associate Technical Director
    Engineer Research and Development Center
           US Army Corps of Engineers


US Army Corps
of Engineers®       Engineer Research and Development Center
Overview
                • What is Data Management?
                • Need for Consolidated Data
                  Management Strategy
                • System Concept
                • Benefits Realized
                • Future


US Army Corps
of Engineers®                Engineer Research and Development Center
The Need
  • Central access to project data (e.g. water
    quality, cultural resources, endangered species,
    etc.)
  • A system that requires little expertise
  • Consistent expectations across data types
  • “Most Recent” data required at all times



US Army Corps
of Engineers®          Engineer Research and Development Center
System Concept
 • Retrieval of Data through a common interface
      – USACE
      – Other Agencies (USGS, EPA etc.)


 • Three Mechanisms to Access Data
      – WEB
      – ESRI ()
      – Google Earth




US Army Corps
of Engineers®              Engineer Research and Development Center
Three Access Mechanisms



      DataBrowser through WWW




                                                             Google Earth Access




                      GIS Interface through ESRI

US Army Corps
of Engineers®                           Engineer Research and Development Center
US Army Corps
of Engineers®   Engineer Research and Development Center
US Army Corps
of Engineers®   Engineer Research and Development Center
US Army Corps
of Engineers®   Engineer Research and Development Center
US Army Corps
of Engineers®   Engineer Research and Development Center
US Army Corps
of Engineers®   Engineer Research and Development Center
US Army Corps
of Engineers®   Engineer Research and Development Center
US Army Corps
of Engineers®   Engineer Research and Development Center
US Army Corps
of Engineers®   Engineer Research and Development Center
US Army Corps
of Engineers®   Engineer Research and Development Center
Underlying Technology

   • Web Services for Data Retrieval
        – Displays Metadata as point data on map
        – Provides ability zoom in to area of interest
        – Provides ability to download selected data point
          directly from source
        – Limited processing and translation of data
        – Platform Independent


US Army Corps
of Engineers®             Engineer Research and Development Center
Benefits
• Provides a central clearinghouse GIS data portal for USACE
• Provides “most recent” data to users
• Minimal maintenance required (handled through upgrades)
• Prevents cost-prohibitive replication of data at multiple locations
•   Helps identifies data gaps by providing visualization
•   Quick access to data without being an “data expert”
•   Works through firewalls, encrypted, with authentication
•   Built on a scalable model to accommodate new data sources




US Army Corps
of Engineers®                  Engineer Research and Development Center
                    Benefits (visual)
             Distributed Heterogeneous              Distributed Heterogeneous
                    Data Sources                           Data Sources

                                                             Locate, Assemble
                        Locate,                               and Load Data
     ~70%            Assemble and
                      Load Data
     time                                                                          ~30%
                                                                  Data
                                                              Preprocessing
                                                                                   time

     ~15%                Data
     time            Preprocessing
                                                         Scientific Simulations
                                                           and Experiments
                   Scientific Simulations
                     and Experiments                                               ~70%
      ~15%
                                                                                   time
      time                                               Scientific Analysis and
                   Scientific Analysis and                      Discovery
                          Discovery



                       Old way                                 New way


US Army Corps
of Engineers®                                Engineer Research and Development Center
Future
  • Establish Service Level Agreements with
    Various Data Sources (EPA, USGS etc.)
  • Push Data Sources to provide more
    Metadata
  • Add more data sources
  • Limited Data Translation (Geo-processing)



US Army Corps
of Engineers®        Engineer Research and Development Center