Vendor Accent

When CAD meets GIS

Demand for seamless integration of CAD and GIS is on the rise. The software helps professionals exchange data and collaborate more efficiently throughout a project lifecycle, says Srinivasan Venkattapan.

Today, engineering, GIS (Geographical Information Systems), surveying and IT departments are collaborating to share design data often and effortlessly. Leading players in digital design and infrastructure design solutions are working towards integrating CAD (Computer Aided Drafting/ Design) and GIS solutions. It is important to understand the specific strengths of both CAD and GIS technologies and the need for their integration. CAD is defined as the use of computers for creating and editing drawings, whereas GIS is an electronic system for storage, retrieval, manipulation, analysis and display of geographically-referenced data.

Inseparable links

Historically, CAD has been identified with powerful data entry and editing tools for engineering design, and GIS with data and analysis related to physical space and mapping. Many organisations employ both the tools in different departments to utilise specific features. Data from original design (CAD) drawings were frequently imported for use in the mapping (GIS) environment. Unfortunately, this was a one-way trip with data losing accuracy. Rarely does GIS software support engineering data.

Now with engineering and GIS professionals, and their clients requiring tighter integration, the requirement for tools to capture, create and maintain accurate data is important. Data may be used for reasons such as survey, mapping and engineering design.

Users expect these tools to integrate through the complete process and lifecycle to be able to pass on digital geographic or design data transparently between members of a project team at any point and later to associates and secondary users.

It has been a challenge for GIS vendors to move towards data integration and lifecycles as they have historically focussed on data analysis without engineering support. Also, GIS companies have focussed on only one or two aspects of GIS, engineering and survey. A company may specialise in infrastructure management by developing an electricity management system, but rely on other vendors for survey and data capture tools that are seldom well integrated. Similarly, traditional GIS vendors generally do not have a comprehensive understanding of civil engineering requirements. Although companies have formed partnerships in the past, the results have been a mixture of poorly integrated systems without the scope of free flowing data.

However, it was in the mid-1990s that industry leaders in digital design solutions entered the GIS industry with mapping and civil engineering solutions. These products were well accepted, primarily because they easily integrated data formats into a single display and analysis system.

State-of-the-art GIS solutions available today have evolved to incorporate survey tools, specialised transportation design, mobile data distribution and centralised server storage in addition to many others.

Specific roles and their evolution

Before the 1980s, most drawings, including maps, floor plans and engineering designs, were created manually by using paper and ink or expensive time-sharing CAD systems. Time-sharing was something that was used in the early stages of computing. Companies such as NCR, IBM, Wang, Hewlett-Packard, ICL and Perkin-Elmer set up computing centres and sold computing time to companies that needed to do number crunching or process their payroll. These client companies supplied their data on disk packs (the size of a suitcase), open reel tapes, or for the more modern computers in those days, 8” floppy disks and paid for the amount of actual CPU time used to process their jobs, hence the term ‘time sharing’.

The advent of software bringing CAD to the PC in 1982 revolutionised design forever. A number of the initial CAD applications were in the manufacturing, architectural and mapping segments. Numerous maps were created using PC-based CAD solutions. CAD solutions evolved to encompass powerful tools to create intelligent, real-world objects. Users can create and edit precise geometric objects with no loss in accuracy, since engineering data requires precision to a fraction of a centimetre or inch.

CAD has now become the primary tool for engineering teams to design water & sewer projects and telecommunication facilities, and for surveyors to produce topographic plans and sub-division layouts. In some cases, the underlying land base was brought in from GIS data, while in others the CAD system was used to create the land base. This demonstrated the need to move data between systems on multiple occasions.

Early attempts to use CAD for GIS data creation and management were hampered by several limitations, including lack of data connectivity, isolated storage systems, single user access to data and crude editing methods. However, new software has successfully integrated CAD and GIS by overcoming these limitations and combining accurate data entry, precision design & editing tools, and GIS management and analysis. Traditional GIS companies have recognised the limitations of their technology and have employed complex databases to model real-world objects; they, however, proved inadequate to prove geometric objects. In a modern GIS workflow, data moves from its original sources to government agencies, inspectors, design firms, environmental consulting firms, construction firms and facility managers. At each step, data may be converted from one format to another, and is often printed, circulated and subsequently re-entered resulting in loss of accuracy.

Seamless integration

Today, newer, state-of-the-art integrated software has overcome limitations of traditional GIS by managing both CAD and GIS features in a seamless and accurate database environment. Leading solution providers and integrators recognised that users need to create both traditional GIS features and engineering design features, and that data passes through a lifecycle including survey and mapping to design, construction and management. CAD tools are often the best choice for data creation because of their precision, ease of use and familiarity with technology. Whether printed or published on the Web, design documents must be accurately rendered with the objects and appearances that users expect.

Design software companies today offer integrated CAD and GIS solutions for survey, mapping, civil engineering and infrastructure lifecycle management. These solutions create, integrate and manage CAD and GIS features with no loss of accuracy and detail. They help users to combine multiple data formats in a single display, and perform analysis from a single product. Users are also demanding that vendors support open systems and data formats as the GIS industry consolidates. Data is expensive to create, and it is imperative to use data well into the future with the newest solutions to generate a return on investment.

Therefore, to ensure seamless integration of both CAD and GIS tools, engineering professionals must work together efficiently to be successful. This success will determine the profitability of an entire organisation and not just a single department.

The author is Industry Solutions Manager, Infrastructure Solutions Division, Autodesk, Asia Pacific.

He can be reached at
srinivasan.venkattapan@autodesk.com