The development of a conceptual design that demonstrates the feasibility for creating, storing, and exploiting 3-D topology in a commercial geographic information system will establish a new standard for the industry. Founding the design on the ISO 19107 Spatial schema standard, issued in 2003, and the Open GIS Consortiums Web Services standards will solidify the development and enable federal and civil organizations to procure standards based architecture. More importantly, the instantiation of a 3D Topology standard in commercial DBMS will provide the enabling tools for software based automated data maintenance in a real 3D world.
Benefits: The benefits of readily accessible, user-friendly GIS products that both display and provide analysis of the 3D environment extends beyond the military warfare needs to other governmental functions at the federal, state, and local level, particularly in the areas of security, fire, rescue, and law enforcement. In the commercial arena, these products would enable companies with significant infrastructure to more effectively manage their assets. Since Laser-Scans proposed approach would enable the application of 3D technology in either stand-alone products or in conjunction with existing database products, the ability of the industry to quickly identify new applications is enhanced.
Keywords: 3D, Topology, Modeling, Implementation
