Codes to remember

In order to store attribute data for the network dataset nodes, I have decided to use codes in the database to differentiate each point from another. These are the codes I am using for reference:

5555 - stairway
4444 - building exit
3333 - hallway node
2222 - elevator
1111 - null

If the 'ID' attribute of the floor junctions shapefile has a 3 integer number then it is assumed to be a room number, not a code. I am hoping that using this will allow Jianfei to differentiate in his program a little easier, and give him a way to connect and represent important connection points.

Here is a screengrab of the 3d network dataset created using ArcScene, I was going to post it yesterday but Blogger was acting up:

Information about PostgreSQL and PostGIS

PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source relational database system. It has more than 15 years of active development and a proven architecture that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, data integrity, and correctness. It runs on all major operating systems, including Linux, UNIX (AIX, BSD, HP-UX, SGI IRIX, Mac OS X, Solaris, Tru64), and Windows. It is fully ACID compliant, has full support for foreign keys, joins, views, triggers, and stored procedures (in multiple languages). It includes most SQL92 and SQL99 data types, including INTEGER, NUMERIC, BOOLEAN, CHAR, VARCHAR, DATE, INTERVAL, and TIMESTAMP. It also supports storage of binary large objects, including pictures, sounds, or video. It has native programming interfaces for C/C++, Java, .Net, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, ODBC, among others, and exceptional documentation.


PostGIS
PostGIS adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. In effect, PostGIS "spatially enables" the PostgreSQL server, allowing it to be used as a backend spatial database for geographic information systems (GIS), much like ESRI's SDE or Oracle's Spatial extension. PostGIS follows the OpenGIS "Simple Features Specificationfor SQL" and has been certified as compliant with the "Types andFunctions" profile.

Conclusions
While I have not been able to test out this database technology, it seems very promising for our applications. I will hopefully have a working version of this open source technology and have a test database set up in it. Then I should be able to evaluate the performance of this system.

Network Dataset Progress and Website completion

Network Dataset Progress
Today I have focused mainly on updating the network datasets to include attributes and have nodes for each room. This process was rather time consuming, since I had to refer to a CAD drawing to determine room numbers then manually enter in the data into the database. I have so far finished two floors and hope to have all four finished by the end of this week.

Project Website Progress
I have finally finished the initial design for the project website. So far I have all of the pages set up with some content in them and a link to this blog's RSS feed. The only thing that needs to be done is some simple formatting, maybe some graphics, and finally the remainder of content that is available. I would provide a link, but as of now the site hasn't gone public yet.