There are some tools out there that do attempt to overcome the
limitations associated with "physical" (or in this case electronic)
data storage relative to the usefulness, topic, spatial coverage,
thematic importance etc etc etc of the spatial data. They allow the
user to set up "virtual" directory trees and classify the data in one
or more ways which are logical and/or useful to the end users,
regardless of the location of the data in reality. They also allow
querying by the classification categories, spatial queries, thumbnail
viewing of files and workspaces, attachment and reading of metadata etc.
One that runs inside of MapInfo is called Compass, by Meridian GIS of
Perth. There are others that run outside of MapInfo and have more
universal application, including files other than MapInfo files and
3D-GIS packages (two examples are Fractal Technologies' Spatial Data
Server and Meridian GIS''s Compass Enterprise, they are both also out
of Perth.) Some of these run under an IE-like interface and are quite
appealing. All of the ones I have worked with to greater and lesser
extents have their shortcomings but certainly warrant testing out. If
anyone knows of others I'd be extremely interested. If you want some
additional information on any of these let me know.
I think this type of tool is of great importance and in some respects
could allow one to circumvent many of the problems of spatial data
organization, sharing data across a small group or large enterprise
as well as data compliance and related issues.
That said, for our use in Earth Sciences (specifically mining and
exploration) the directory structure that works best is one that
matches the end-users' needs and framework. For us the highest level
is Geographic and from there drills down to repeated categories
of topical information on a project by project basis and gaining
more detail as one drills down through the structure (e.g., North
America/Mexico/Projects/GoldDepositA/Geochemistry or /Geophysics
or/Topographyor /Geology or /Imagery/ASTER etc...) Data sets that
superseded individual areas are stored higher in the geographic
classification (e.g. North America/Mexico/Geology or /Topography data
sets apply to the country level) and so on...
Cinda Graubard
GeoMax
At 07:28 AM 3/7/2006, Bill Thoen wrote:
On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 12:07:23PM +1000,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I'm about to re-arrange the spatial data on my file server and rather
> than make arbitary decisions about placement, I wanted to adhere to any
> internationally-accepted standards on categories of spatial data.
>
> Under a directory \GISDATA I wanted to place various sub-directories, in
> order to divide up the spatial data in a meaningful way.
>
> What should these sub-directories be?
> Is there a metadata standard that divides spatial data into meaningful
> cateogories?
There is no standard for this because there are more than one way to
organize spatial data. A typical scheme would be to develop a hierarchy
based on location: continent/nation/state/county/city, or whatever politcal
divisiions work for each area. Then again, you may want to subdivide data
by vendor and/or format (TAB vs Shape, etc.) or resolution. Sometimes
you'll have to consider temporal or thematic dimensions. You might also
have disk space or user access issues so you may have to manage a library
across several physical disk drives.
Then there's special problems that confound spatial hierarchies. For
example, how do you handle a theme like aerial imagery that has no physical
or logical boundary? Or what about themes that have overlapping boundaries
(like data organized by quad sheets which doesn't neatly line up with
county boundaries?) Then there's data developed for special projects that
may have completely arbitrary boundaries, temporal and user access issues,
vendor and format variations and often unique or synthesized themes.
It would be great if Windows or MapInfo at least could provide something
like Unix's symbolic link. With this we could create multiple organziations
schemes and not need to worry about the physical storage. Window's
"shortcut" file type is the right idea, but they didn't take it far enough.
You can open a MapInfo TAB file by double-clicking on a shortcut --and
that's handy-- but you can't use a shortcut in a workspace, which really is
a limitation.
- Bill Thoen
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