1. GG3019/GG4027/GG5019 www.abdn.ac.uk/geospatial An Introduction to
Geographical Information
Technology and GIS
Systems and Geospatial
Data Analysis
David R. Green
G12 – 2324

2. GeoDatabase Data Models
What is a geodatabase (data model)
ESRI’s ArcGIS Geodatabase Data Models
Marine Data Model (MDM)
Application of the MDM (separate PPT)

3. Data Models ESRI ArcGIS (successor to ArcView) GeoDatabase
The geodatabase provides the common data access and management framework for ArcGIS that enables you to deploy GIS functionality and business logic wherever it is needed—in desktops, servers (including the Web), or mobile devices. With this architecture you have the tools to assemble intelligent geographic information systems (ESRI)

4. Data Models ArcGIS has a well-defined model for working with data
This generic model, called the geodatabase (short for geographic database), defines all the types of data that can be used in ArcGIS—for example, features, rasters, addresses, and survey measurements—and how they are represented, accessed, stored, managed and processed.
The geodatabase is a common framework shared by all ArcGIS products and applications.

5. Data Models

6. Data Models
(Geo)relational model
Geodatabase model

7. Object-oriented data modeling lets you characterize features more naturally by letting you define your own types of objects, by defining topological, spatial, and general relationships, and by capturing how these objects interact with other objects.

8. Data Models
The goal for the ArcGIS Data Models is to provide a practical template for implementing GIS projects.
Common starting point results in the creation of data model design templates that simplify the integration of similar data sets at the local, state/provincial, national, and global levels.

9. Data Models The geodatabase offers you the ability to:
Handle rich data types.
Apply sophisticated rules and relationships.
Access large volumes of geographic data stored in both files and databases.
The geodatabase is more than a manager of geographic data, it also implements sophisticated business logic that, for example, builds relationships between data types, such as topologies and geometric networks; validates data; and controls access.

10. Data Models
The geodatabase supports multiple formats of spatial data including:
· Simple features such as shape files
· Custom features with business logic and editing rules
· Attribute data
· Metadata
· Images
· Raster/Grid data
· CAD data

14. Data Models How does a GIS data model work?
An ArcGIS data model is written in a graphical model language (Visiotm) that provides both a diagram of the data structure as well as UML (Universal Modeling Language) code.
UML code can be directly ported to the GIS to create an empty database structure defining all of the necessary relationships and dependencies.

15. Data Models
Data Dictionary
UML

16. Data Models Health Address Agriculture
Historic Preservation and Archaeology
Homeland Security
Hydro
Local Government
Marine
Petroleum
Pipeline
Telecommunications
Transportation
Water Utilities
Address
Agriculture
Archiving
Atmospheric
Basemap
Biodiversity
Census Boundaries
Defense-Intel
Energy Utilities  
Forestry
Geology

17. Data Models

18. Marine Data Collection
Image courtesy of PISCO, OSU

19. Marine data is collected through a wide range of:
Methods
Instruments
Time scales
Periodicity
Precision
Accuracy

21. Marine Data Model
The marine data model development will provide data managers with a readymade model for marine data so that they can spend more time at sea collecting data and in the lab analyzing their information, and less time at the computer planning the data structure. It should also be useful to GIS practitioners working as academic, government, or military oceanographers, coastal and marine resource managers, consultants, technologists, archaeologists, conservationists, geographers, fisheries managers, scientists, ocean explorers, and mariners alike (ESRI)

22. What is the MDM? A geodatabase template
A new way to spatially model marine data
A database used to assemble, store and query data
Model that captures the behavior of real-world objects
The MDM model provide ready-to-use framework, built on accepted standards, for modeling and capturing the behavior of real-world objects in a geodatabase.
Provide a way to effectively integrate 3D and 4D space and time. This is important because need for model to represent the multidimensional and dynamic nature of ocean data and processes.
Do I need to go into detail about what a geodatabase is??

23. Purpose of Marine Data Model
Basic template for implementing GIS projects
input, formatting, geoprocessing, creating maps, performing analyses
Basic framework for writing program code and maintaining applications
development of tools for the community
Promote networking and data sharing through established standards

24. Georelational to Geodatabase Model
Coverage (Arc/Info) and shapefile (ArcView) data structures
Features are aggregated into homogenous collections of points, lines, and polygons with generic, 1- and 2-dimensional "behavior"
Can’t distinguish behaviors
Point for a marker buoy, same as point for any observation
“Smart Features” in a geodatabase

25. Geodatabase Concepts ESRI's new data object-oriented data model
objects, features, behaviors
Object
in ArcGIS an object is non-spatial
it is NOT a point, line, or area
it has no geographic location
it has no shape attribute in its table
ship, vehicle, … customer, lake, house
Feature
an object that has geographic location
a point, line, area, TIN, raster

26. Geodatabase Concepts Geodatabase
Collection of feature data sets, rasters, TINs
All data in relational tables
Behavior is coupled with features through rules
No more division between ARC and INFO (as in ESRI’s older GIS ArcInfo)

27. Data Models
The common marine data types listed here are evolving and changing with review of the data model.

28. The primary ESRI feature classes are the building blocks of the data model.
These are the most commonly used features that provide a topological structure for the underlying data.

29. Steps in Data Model Process
Data model template – few weeks to months
Mature data model – up to few years
Draft
Model
Review,
Projects
Final Model

30. Steps in Data Modeling (1) Model the user's view of data
what are the basic features needed to solve the problem?
(2) Select the geographic representation
points, lines, areas, rasters, TINs
(3) Define objects and relationships
draw a UML diagram
(4) Match to geodatabase elements
specify relationships, “behaviors”
(5) Organize geodatabase structure

32. A visual representation of the elements of the data model as they relate to important aspects of marine data collection and analysis.
Users’s View of Data

34. UML to ArcGIS 8

35. Some Marine Data Model Links

36. Some of the benefits of the geodatabase data model are:
• A uniform repository of geographic data. All of your geographic data can be stored and centrally managed in one database.
• Data entry and editing is more accurate. Fewer mistakes are made because most of them can be prevented by intelligent validation behavior. For many users, this alone is a compelling reason to adopt the geodatabase data model.
• Users work with more intuitive data objects. Properly designed, a geodatabase contains data objects that corresponds to the user’s model of data. Instead of generic points, lines, and areas, the user works with their objects of interest such
as transformers, roads, and lakes.
• Features have a richer context. With topological associations, spatial representation, and general relationships, you not only define a feature’s
qualities, but its context with other features. This lets you specify what happens to features when a related feature is moved, changed, or deleted. This context also lets you locate and inspect a feature that is related to another.

37. Better maps can be made. You have more control over how features are drawn and you can add intelligent drawing behavior. You can apply sophisticated drawing methods directly in ArcInfo’s mapping application, ArcMap. Highly specialized drawing methods can be executed through writing software code.
Features on a map display are dynamic. When you work with features in ArcInfo, they can respond to changes in neighboring features. You can also associate custom queries or analytic tools with features.
Shapes of features are better defined. The geodatabase data model lets you use define the shapes of features using straight lines, circular curves, elliptical curves, and Bezier splines.
Sets of features are continuous. By their design, geodatabases can accomodate very large sets of features without tiles or other spatial partitions.
Many users can edit geographic data simultaneously. The geodatabase data model supports work flows where many people can edit features in a local area, and then reconcile any differences that emerge.