Tracey Thorliefson (Eagle Information Mapping) is writing a noteworthy and entertaining blog offering advice on how to select a standard pipeline data model. This boils down to a choice between the Pipeline Open Data Standard (PODS, www.pods.org), the ArcGIS Pipeline Data Model (APDM, www.apdm.net) and a Spatialized variant of PODS.
As a relational model, PODS is implemented on a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) platform such as Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server. Also PODS is Geographic Information System (GIS)—neutral. Advantages of RDBMS technology include relational integrity, ease of access via SQL and data processing with stored procedures. One PODS downside however is that its neutrality re GIS systems makes for a multiplicity of vendor solutions to mapping from a PODS database which can hamper interoperability.
On the other hand, the ArcGIS Pipeline Data Model (APDM) builds on ESRI’s Geodatabase object-relational technology. This facilitates the creation of class hierarchies—useful for describing pipeline-specific features like valves and for creating templates for extending the model in a compliant manner. The downside is that SQL cannot in general be used on the data and relational integrity is not strictly enforced. We eagerly await Thorliefsons’s next posting—on the newest of the pipeline data models, PODS Spatial. Follow Tracey on www.oilit.com/links/1005_6.
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