ProjectWise Geospatial gives spatial context to Municipal Products Group product projects in their original form. An interactive map-based interface allows users to navigate and retrieve content based upon location. The environment includes inte- grated map management, dynamic coordinate system support, and spatial indexing tools.
ProjectWise Geospatial supports the creation of named spatial reference systems (SRSs) for 2D or 3D cartesian coordinate systems, automatic transformations between SRSs, creation of Open GIS format geometries, definition of spatial locations, associ- ation of documents and folders with spatial locations, and the definition of spatial criteria for document searching.
A spatial location is the combination of a geometry for a project plus a designated SRS. It provides a universal mechanism for graphically relating ProjectWise docu- ments and folders.
The ProjectWise administrator can assign background maps to folders, against which the contained documents or projects will be registered and displayed. For documents such as Municipal Products Group product projects, ProjectWise Geospatial can auto- matically retrieve the embedded spatial location. For documents that are nonspatial, the document can simply inherit the location of the folder into which it is inserted, or users can explicitly assign a location, either by typing in coordinates, or by drawing them.
Each document is indexed to a universal coordinate system or SRS, however, the orig- inating coordinate system of each document is also preserved. This enables search of documents across the boundary of different geographic, coordinate, or engineering coordinate systems.
Custom geospatial views can be defined to display documents with symbology mapped to arbitrary document properties such as author, time, and workflow state. For a complete description of how to work with ProjectWise Geospatial, for example how to add background maps and coordinate systems, see the ProjectWise Geospatial Explorer Guide and the ProjectWise Geospatial Administrator Guide.
Maintaining Project Geometry
A spatial location is comprised of an OpenGIS-format geometry plus a Spatial Refer- ence System (SRS). For Municipal Products Group product projects, the product attempts to automatically calculate and maintained this geometry, as the user interacts with the model. Most transformations such as additions, moves, and deletes result in the bounding box or drawing extents being automatically updated.
Whenever the project is saved and the ProjectWise server is updated, the stored spatial location on the server, which is used for registration against any background map, will be updated also. (Note the timing of this update will be affected by the "Update Server When Saving" option on the Tools-Options-ProjectWise tab.)
Most of the time the bounding box stored in the project will be correct. However, for performance reasons, there are some rare situations (e.g., moving the entire model) where the geometry can become out of date with respect to the model. To guarantee the highest accuracy, the user can always manually update the geometry by using "Compact Database" or "Update Database Cache" as necessary, before saving to ProjectWise.
Setting the Project Spatial Reference System
The Spatial Reference System (SRS) for a project is viewed and assigned on the Tools-Options-Project tab in the Geospatial group.
The SRS is a standard textual name for a coordinate system or a projection, designated by various national and international standards bodies. The SRS is assumed to define the origin for the coordinates of all modeling elements in the project. It is the user's responsibility to set the correct SRS for the project, and then use the correct coordi- nates for the contained modeling elements. This will result in the extents of the modeling features being correct with respect to the spatial reference system chosen. The SRS is stored at the project database level. Therefore, a single SRS is maintained across all geometry alternatives. The product does not manipulate or transform geom- etries or SRS's - it simply stores them.
The primary use of the project's SRS is to create correct spatial locations when a managing a project in the ProjectWise Integration Server's spatial management system.
The SRS name comes from the internal list of spatial reference systems that Project- Wise Spatial maintains on the ProjectWise server and is also known as the "key name." To determine the SRS key name, the administrator should browse the coordi- nate system dictionary in the ProjectWise administrator tool (under the Coordinate Systems node of the datasource), and add the desired coordinate system to the data- source. For example, the key name for an SRS for latitude/longitude is LL84, and the key name for the Maryland State Plane NAD 83 Feet SRS is MD83F.
ProjectWise Spatial uses the SRS to re-project the project's spatial location to the coordinate system of any spatial view or background map assigned by the adminis- trator.
If the project's SRS is left blank, then ProjectWise will simply not be updated with a spatial location for that project.
If the project's SRS is not recognized, an error message will be shown, and Project- Wise will simply not be updated with a spatial location for that project.
Interaction with ProjectWise Explorer
Geospatial Administrators can control whether users can edit spatial locations through the ProjectWise Explorer. This is governed by the checkbox labeled "This user is a Geospatial Administrator" on the Geospatial tab of the User properties in the Project- Wise Administrator.
Users should decide to edit spatial locations either through the ProjectWise Explorer, or through the Municipal application, but not both at the same time. The application will update and overwrite the spatial location (coordinate system and geometry) in ProjectWise as a project is saved, if the user has added a spatial reference system to the project. This mechanism is simple and flexible for users - allowing them to choose when and where spatial locations will be updated.
Note: If the spatial reference system referenced by the project does not exist in the ProjectWise datasource, the user will receive a warning and the spatial location will not be saved. The user may then add the spatial reference system to the datasource, through the Geospatial Administrator, before re-saving.