# Presentation: 672670

## Ten Years of Creating, Reviewing and 

**Ten Years of Creating, Reviewing and **
**Releasing Geologic Map Databases: **
**Lessons Learned**

**Todd T. Fitzgibbon**
- GIS Manager
- Western Geologic Mapping team
- U.S. Geological Survey
- 345 Middlefield Rd. MS-975
- Menlo Park, CA 94025
- tfitz@usgs.gov

## Background 
I. 		What is a digital geologic map?
II. 	Parts of a digital geologic map
III.	Versions, components & revision lists
IV.	Digital review
V.	Packaging for release
VI.	Web release
VI.	Paper release
VII.	Looking forward
VIII.	Conclusions

- I. 		What is a digital geologic map?
- II. 	Parts of a digital geologic map
- III.	Versions, components & revision lists
- IV.	Digital review
- V.	Packaging for release
- VI.	Web release
- VI.	Paper release
- VII.	Looking forward
- VIII.	Conclusions

## Background

- 1980s	Digital cartog. - Scitex; GSMAP
- 1987	Arc 4.0 (AML), Sun server, LAN
- 1988	Basic data model, Alacarte core
- 1991	Alacarte 1.0 toolkit released, ftp
- 1993	First OFR geologic database pub
- 1994	First WRGIS pubs web server
- 1997	WGMT - all maps must be digital

## I. What is a digital geologic map?

- We have a semantic problem...
- No commonly agreed-upon terms
- More fundamentally, what is a digital map...?

## What is a digital map?

- Two kinds:
- 	1. Cartographic
- 	2. Spatial data

## 1. Cartographic

- digital
- graphic, page coordinates
- visual communication focus
- symbols
- legend
- pdf, postscript, image formats
- can be plotted

## 2. Spatial data

- digital
- geographic, real-world coordinates
- analytic focus
- attributes
- data dictionary
- shapefile, SDTS, coverage, grid
- not directly plotted

## Geologic Map Through Time

- _Product__	__	__Pre-digital__	_    _Now__	__Future_
- Printed map	 yes		    yes	yes
- On-demand map	 yes		    yes	yes
- Spatial data			    yes	yes
- Cartographic files		    yes	yes
- IMS graphics					yes
- SDE features					yes

## I. Lessons Learned

- Define your terms
- Don’t assume your definitions are known
*“**Do you have digital geology for xxx area?”*
- 		Pdf graphics? Vector GIS files?
- More and more formats through time
- What exactly is the definitive map?

## II. Parts of the Digital Geologic Map

- In Western Geologic Mapping Team, 3 parts:
- 1. Data documentation
- 2. Spatial data files
- 3. Cartographic files

## 1. Documentation files

- 1. FGDC metadata for catalog and search
- 2. _[Readme](file:///../WRGIS/Fawnskin_final/Fawnskin_Readme.pdf)_ for human eyes, user manual
- 3. Core metadata in RDBMS for participation in query and analysis (e.g. NAM DM)
- 4. Cartographic metadata for map-on-demand
- 5. Feature-level metadata (who mapped it, when, GPS?, air photo interp?)

## 1. Documentation files...

- Also geologic reports, explanations
- Formats -
- ASCII is searchable
- Pdf is the best for readability
- PS for printing (no longer commonly created)
- HTML for native web access (costlier to create)
- RDBMS for query

## 2. Spatial data files

- Thematic _[layers](file:///../../Tour7/tour7_nosa.apr)__ (vector, raster, tables)_
- Standard: geology, structure
- Base map and image layers
- Formats -	AV	Arc	AE	Other
- Coverage	x	x	x
- Export		x	x	x	x
- Shape		x	x	x	x
- SDTS			x

## Slide 14

## Slide 15

## 3. Cartographic files

- _[Geologic map sheets](file:///../WRGIS/Beatty/bty_map1.pdf)_
- _[Geologic explanation sheets](file:///../WRGIS/Beatty/bty_sht2.pdf)_
- Formats:
- Postscript for high-fidelity printing
- Pdf for viewing, faster downloading
- Image formats (tiff, etc.) as necessary
- Do not distribute amls and symbolsets

## II. Lessons Learned

- Metadata - one size does not fit all
- Spatial data - many formats
- shapefile most universal
- Export file (.e00) next most widely read
- Cartographic files - is Postscript obsolete as a format for Web delivery, replaced by pdf?

## III. Versions, components and revision lists

- Versions now required (start with 1.0)
- Changes are being made to older maps
- Parts and components had to be explicitly identified in order to create revision lists
- What is the publication? The plotfile? Readme? Geologic report? *All of the above*.
- _[Revision lists ](file:///../WRGIS/rev%20list.txt)_

## III. Lessons Learned

- We need to be clear about what we mean by a particular publication. Identify the parts being discussed if there is any possibility for confusion.
- Revisions, even the smallest, must be rigorously documented and archived.
- Each downloadable component can be revised independently of others.

## IV. Digital review

- Digital review checks data for completeness, correctness, documentation
- Problems include incomplete topology, inconsistent projections, damaged files
- Required as a formal review step in WGMT
- Simple _[checklist](file:///../Digital%20Review/review_form.txt)_

## Review.aml

- Written by Scott Graham, USGS WGMT
- Like Norton Utilities for geologic maps
- Checks spatial data layers and tables
- Prepares report
- Sign-off requires perfect checkup report
- Currently supports Alacarte Data Model
- Being re-written in Arc ODE using VB

## IV. Lessons Learned

- Digital review is necessary - errors do occur and must be corrected.
- Automated review (review.aml) is possible only when the datasets are standardized.
- The digital procedure that a publication underwent should be communicated to the user. “Did they check for sorted -ids?”

## V. Packaging for release

- File format conversions
- e.g. export coverages to .e00
- Compression with gzip
- Bundling with tar as necessary

## V. Lessons Learned

- Packaging formats change through time as standards, formats and software evolve.
- Providing more formats is good but expensive. Provide those that users generally use.
- Should we provide ArcView projects for each publication as well?

## VI. Web release

- Release on publication server
- Standard URLs
- http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of99-xxxx
- All files for a pub in one directory
- /export/ftp/pub/open-file/of99-xxxx
- Standard web page template, one page per publication

## Publication Web Server Issues

- Availability, reliability
- Security
- Catalogs, indices
- Help pages
- Archiving, rollback, tracking
- Cost, efficiency, scalability
- Management and administration

## Publication Web Server Issues...

- Customer support at three levels
- Webserver issues
- page link broken, how-to ?s -> Webmaster
- Technical issues with the publication
- can’t import e00 --> project GIS specialist
- Scientific questions about the publication
- is this unit susceptible to liquifaction --> author

## VI. Lessons Learned

- A publications Website is a high-maintenance operation. Fewer might be better.
- People *do* download our spatial files, even large ones. They complain when they have problems. We must respond.
- Who is responsible for a publication after the project ends or the authors leave?

## VII. Paper release

- At first plotted 25 copies for OFSS
- Tried sending Postscript files to local copy shop where customers could obtain them
- Now official _Map on Demand_
- Offset printing for show-case maps (I-maps)

## VII. Lessons Learned

- A paper map is an incredibly useful view of a spatial database. We must continue to provide high-quality and inexpensive maps.
- A graphics file that creates a perfect plot will not create a perfect printed map. The realities of ink and printing presses still require additional production steps.

## VIII. Conclusions

- Managing change
- focus on that which is of lasting value - the data
- have a plan but don’t get into plan-paralysis or, conversely, endlessly churn new technology
*	**A bad decision in IT lasts a couple of years **	**but a non-decision lasts forever*

## Standardization sure helps!

- Efficient automated production requires consistency of data!
- Lovingly hand-crafted spatial data products are expensive.
- How much should we/can we standardize digital geologic maps?

## Into the future...

- Should we move from digital GQs to  online data layers (*a la* SDE)?
- Should Map-on-demand provide for custom geographic extents and thematic choices?
- Must users always download a dataset in order to get an answer? Or should be provide queryable maps online (*a la* IMS)?

## References

- Digital mapping techniques page, includes review.aml:
- http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/techniques
- Examples of geologic map publications on
- http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/data.html
*Thank you!*