Project Update 9/5

This week we have been working on a method to facilitate the course-level abstraction we have been discussing. For now I am manually identifying different segments of the building that will be separate in Jianfei's course level model. These segments of the building can be blocked off or displayed separate from their constituents. In the future we hope to make this segmentation feature automatic, but for the sake of time I am manually identifying and labeling them for use in our demo. Progress on a demo is nearly complete and we should have something to present by early next week. We are also striving to have communication to the database established between multiple clients in order to facilitate external changes to the DB. I have also started converting the Atkins library files over to GIS data and the final product should be available within a couple of weeks. I am detailing the steps I go though to convert the data to what we need for this project, and I will provide a document detailing the steps and completion time for them. This document should provide a basis for the process that will be required if we move to automated conversion of this data. Another avenue I am exploring is the use of Archibus data in place of CAD files. Our campus supposedly has Archibus files for each building on campus and judging from this article: http://www10.giscafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?section=CorpNews&articleid=500611, et al, this data can be incorporated into ArcGIS very easily now. I have emailed Fred about access to the Archibus system and the details of this kind of data, I am just awaiting a response.

New CAD files

I have finally received the new CAD files for the library. Throughout this week I am going to be starting the process of converting them to use in our project. I am also going to make a detailed description of how I convert the data so in the future we may move to an automated process for this.

Some other things that are going on is segmenting Woodward hall and also finishing up some scenarios/demo that we can show off.