Finished Standardization of Junction Datasets

It was requested that I update the junction file to add capabilities for building with floors greater than 10. My previous code would not work if the floor was above 9 since I didn't allow for an integer that large. This problem is now fixed and the junction files have been uploaded to the newer database that Jianfei created called nij_junctions.

The next things that I will be working on is finding centerline extraction techniques and some more info about CAD and GIS integration.

Almost finished annotating junction file

I have almost completed annotating all of the junctions for the indoor graph model. The only floor I lack is floor 4. While I was messing around with the data today I saw several things that needed to be fixed. One of which is anomolous polygons throughout some of the datasets (most notably woodward_flr3_poly) there are several polygons that need to be labeled or deleted because there are way too many records in the table that aren't needed.

I will probably wait until next week when I don't have anything to do and tackle this. The PostGIS database will also need to be re-updated once I have all of this data finished and compiled. I am hoping that by the end of this month I will have a "1.0" version of the datasets and database completed with little to no errors in the data.

New annotation for network junctions shapefiles

Jianfei brought to my attention the fact that it is very hard to find out what junctions correspond to what on the graph he is making.

So what I am going to do is go through and manually annotate the network junction file to indicate what the junction is. The labeling schema will be similar to this:

Elevators : E###
Stairways: S###
Exit/Entrance: M###
Room: R###(alpha)
Everything Else (null): N###

This should make it a bit easier to interprete when he goes in and creates this floor centerline graph. I also added support for Z-coordinates and a spatial index on these new shapefiles.

Database issues

Today I have been battling some database issues that seemed to be related to the schema in the sql files. For some reason, unless you specify the schema to be public, the database will not show the tables when using the \d command to list all tables.

The way I fixed this was to again go through and redo all of the sql files and specify the schema as public. This seems to be working for the time being and all of the tables are showing up when executing the \d command.

Jianfei showed me his viewer today and it looks great, hopefully now that we have everything working we will start progressing much faster.

Database Update

Since we have just installed a new version of Postgresql and PostGIS with GEOS support, I decided to reload the tables into the database. I also wanted to add a GisT index to make queries a bit faster.

The first thing I did was drop all of the tables that were currently in the database. Then I took the newest shapefiles from my machine and converted them to sql using the shp2pgsql function. I then uploaded the new files into the nij_database under the schema name "nij". The tables are currently there now and i have not only put the woodward files in, but also the cameron files.

Another thing I did was convert the junction files that I had created with the network datasets and put them in the database as well.

I am hoping that Jianfei will have a viewer ready by next week, this will give me a better idea of how things are working and if I need to make any changes to the tables or their geometries.

New versions installed

Looks like the system admin. installed the newest version of GEOS, and PostGIS to the linux machine where the database is kept.

I haven't had a chance to test anything out yet, since I am working on backing up files on removable media.

Tomorrow morning I should be able to put everything through a good test to make sure it's working normal. Hopefully I will break something...

GEOS problems

Seems like we have limited functionality in PostGIS since we haven't yet installed GEOS support. This will add functions that will allow us to extract geometry information from the tables we created.

Currently we are waiting for the system admin. to install this software and set up the other packages that are dependent on it. I have also put in a request to have Quantum GIS installed on the linux box so that we will have a way to view the GIS data we created.

Next week I am hoping we will have a prototype viewer and all of the datasets uploaded with all of the GEOS functionality that we need.

Finalizing woodward database

I have sent the SQL files to Jianfei to upload to the database. These should be the final builds of this data, and hopefully it will work with little to no errors.

I have also been able to test the Quantum GIS tool to view the tables graphically using only the table information. This confirms that the "the_geom" column does contain all the needed information for interpreting geographic information.

The next step will be to keep sending datasets to the database and hopefully develop an entire database of two building as well as a rudimentary viewer to look at these files.

PostGIS information

Today I discovered several good websites for PostGIS information. The first lists all of the functions that are included in PostGIS and how to execute them. That site is http://www.bostongis.org/postgis_quickguide.bqg

The next thing I have found is a viewer that reads directly from PostGIS, this utility is called Quantum GIS, and it is open source and cross platform. The website is www.qgis.org

I am currently working with Jianfei to start construction of our own viewer and also uploading more datasets to the main database.

Database development in Postgresql

Database development seems to be coming along nicely now that I have a good idea of how PostGIS and PostGres work.

In order to load a shapefile into the database I simply use the shp2sql function to convert the file. This also adds a geometry column called 'the_geom' to the table that contains a rather long hexadecimal number. In order to read this you can issue SQL queries to find geometry information such as vertices, areas, and lengths. This will be how Jianfei reads in the information he needs to create an indoor viewer for the building.

Hopefully be next week I will have the kinks worked out on the GIS database end and Jianfei will have a program that can read in these variables through the libpqxx libraries for C++.

I will be going out of town for the rest of the week and return on Tuesday to start finishing this stuff up.