Geographic information system
Computer Application in Planning

Work Session Page 1 of 4

Facility Documentation & Management for a Gas Network

Key words

Importing CAD data, georeferencing, on-screen digitizing, Open Database

Connectivity (ODBC), spatial and attributive queries, creating thematic maps,

database design, create a spatial map series.

Description

The regional gas supplier for a small town wants to introduce a computer based

facility documentation and management system for its facilities. Up to now only an

analog documentation exists, considering of maps and several lists.

Here a short description of the gas facilities:

The gas mains are divided into three different types

? High pressure mains for the regional distribution of the gas.

? Supply main for the distribution of the gas in a community

? House supply pipes connected the buildings with the gas main.

A high pressure main always ends in a control station, where the supply mains start.

The supply mains are divided into main segments, each of it has a single set of

associated attributes. Each segment is bounded by two nodes. A node may be:

? The starting node at the control station

? A special facility like a reduction, condensate collector, or a slide gate valve.

? An ending flange

? A T-fitting, i.e. the junction of three pipe segments

The house supply pipes end in one or more gas meters, which are associated to the

customers of the gas company.

Computer Application in Planning

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Tasks

1. Set up an ArcGIS application for the gas supply company. Use the data which is

listed below. Before starting implementation, set up a workflow of the different

steps you have to do. As you have to implement many different connections

and queries, first set up a consistent naming scheme (and later stick to it!). The

application should be object based, i.e. clicking on an object like a plot or

building. Use all the information listed below!

2. Geodatabases offer a well-organized means to store your geospatial data layers.

Use advanced techniques to organize your data such as feature da tasets,

subtypes, and relationship classes.

3. Prepare different map documents showing:

a) General land use map without gas facilities, i.e. showing the different types

of land use and building area in use, building area unused, traffic areas, and

residential buildings (including garages), public buildings, and commercial

buildings. For the underground garage, only its outline should be mapped.

In addition, the street names (parallel to direction of the streets!) and the

house numbers should appear on the map. The nominal map scale of such a

map will be 1:1000, prepare a map layout for plotting including the

marginals!

b) Gas network map, i.e. a map showing the different use of the buildings,

emphasizing the buildings which are linked to the gas network and all

facilities of the gas network, including links to the facility images. All the

other data should appear only as background information.

c) Consumer analysis map, i.e. a map showing the rates of change for each of

the average monthly consumption for the buildings connected to the gas

network with respect to the preceding year as chart and the absolute

consumption of 2017 as a thematic map of the building outlines.

4. Prepare a series letter, in which all owners of buildings with a house supply pipe

of steel are informed, that their pipe has to be replaced. Add to letter the date

of the laying of the pipe.

Computer Application in Planning

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Data available

From the cadastral office, Land parcel boundaries and Building outlines are given

as a DWG-file (ATown.dwg)

Both datasets are given as unprojected coordinates with respect to GCS Deutsches

Hauptdreiecksnetz. Except the geometry, there is no additional information stored

in the files.

? Land parcels attributes as a text file, containing the coordinate of an in-

point (centroid) for each plot (ParcelsAttributes.txt). The file has the

following contents:

Code of the lot, cadastral district, numbering district, lot number, area,

easting, northing, date, street ID, house No, land use code.

? Building attributes as a text file, containing the coordinates of an in-point

(centroid) for each building (BuildingAttribute.txt). The file has the

following content:

ID, Street ID, House No, use, class, area, easting, northing, date, code of lot

? The codes of the land use as text file (Landuse.txt). The file has the

following contents:

Land use code, Description

? Streets names as a text file (StreetNames.txt). The file has the following

contents:

ID, easting, northing, street name

? Street IDs and the corresponding street names as a file (StreetID.txt). The

file has the following contents:

Street ID, German name, English name

? A list of the owner of the land parcels as a text file (ParcelsOwner.txt). The

file has the following contents:

code of lot, owner name, owner town

you can use the combination of owner name and owner city to identify

each person uniquely.

? A list of the owner addresses as a text file (OwnerAddress.txt). The file has

the following contents:

name, ZIP, city, street, house No, telephone No

Remark: The text file are using different formats for their columns!

Computer Application in Planning

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There are different possibilities of connecting to a text file:

? Text file connection

? ODBC driver connection

? Importing/attaching the file to an Access mdb

? Importing to an Excel file

You should try different ones or at least understand the pros and cons of the

different approaches.

From the gas supply company:

? Scanned analog map with the gas facilities and their attributes

? A list of the addresses of the costumers with some information about the

billing as a text file (Customers.txt). The file has the following contents:

Gas meter ID, street, house No of gas meter location, name of customer,

tariff, billing type, date of contract

? A list of the gas reading in kWh as a mdb file (GasMeterReading.txt) for the

last five years

Customer ID, Reading_2014, Reading_2015, Reading_2016, Reading_2017,

Reading_2018, Reading_2019

Attention: The gas meter readings are cumulative, they start for a new

customer with 0 but are not reset to zero every year! The date for the

reading is always December 31. The list contains only customers with a

running contract.

? Information about the values as an Excel file (Valves.txt)

? Images of some of the gas facilities as jpeg-files

If not stated differently, all data is given in Gauss-Kruger zone 3 coordinate with

respect to Potsdam datum.