Coordinate Design & Information System (CDIS) is a technology that was first made public a decade ago in a February, 2001 article published in Professional Surveyor Magazine that can be read at www.profsurv.com/magazine/article.aspx?i=704 explaining what was to be a revolution in technology with a promise to obsolete CAD and GIS based systems.
CDIS offered a blend the coordinate geometry accuracy of land surveying technology with precision spatial information useable for engineering and surveying applications and eliminating the need for CAD. Instead of CAD, the drawing was a direct result of the calculations, thus significantly reducing (if not eliminating) CAD induced errors (and liability).
When CDIS was introduced the world had been dependent and invested upon existing CAD technologies. With the economy booming, and billing based upon creating man-hours, the idea of a technology that can have one person replace the work of 3 or 4 simply would have reduced profit potential to consultants. This was a case of a solution that did not catch on in part because of the world profiting on inefficiency. That ‘world’ ended in the recession.
To understand how CDIS was developed we need to go back to the days before CAD systems existed, to the mid 1970’s. In those days there were many competitors for the lucrative surveying and civil engineering industry. Names like HASP, Holguin, PacSoft, and Land Innovation dominated the industry. Each would have their own methods to produce a drawing (before CAD), and each would use the actual computed coordinates to produce the lines and arcs that would make up land development plans. Hewlett Packard dominated the technology industry and was the clear leader in creating operating systems tuned specifically for engineering accuracy with the ability to draw the resulting coordinates on screen and by pen plotter.
As non-engineering professionals (Architects and Planners) who demanded DXF and DWG CAD formats from the engineering and surveying consultants (in the mid to late 1980’s) the pressure was on to use CAD instead of dedicated systems specific to the tasks of engineering and surveying. For the most part, if these non-CAD based solutions could not provide these conversions Architects demanded, they would lose a tremendous amount of market share. It was 1985 when the base structure that evolved into CDIS was first developed. One evening I had received a call from one of my sales reps in California, Dianne Vogue, who suggested that we could automatically determine a boundary by having the software automatically pick up the point numbers that defined the linework (in CDIS the linework is the geometry), and thus we could reduce human error, self check parcels, and automatically define exact meets and bounds of computed tracts.
A series of functions were created to automatically define these ‘parcels’ (‘shapes’ in a GIS system) that could be stored with specific names. The point ‘numbers’ defined the drawing, so the parcel perimeter could pick up the ‘point numbers’ automatically. Since the parcels could be named, the technology could keep track of paving, lots, buildings, etc. Named parcels could then be defined by color.
By the beginning of the 1990’s all of the basics for CDIS were in place and were implemented in a UNIX X-Windows based product from Land Innovation, Inc. For the next decade this technology evolved and when it eventually became available on Windows for the PC, the term CDIS was created as a marketing identity.
What CDIS offered was a precision mapping tool that would define actual boundary data instead if the ‘polygon’ based data typical of GIS, create far more intelligent drawings than possible with CAD based solutions, and did all of this with a fraction of time and effort of other technologies available a decade ago. The advantages are why the United States AirGuard and Navy selected CDIS technologies over CAD and GIS based systems.
However, the overall market did not respond to CDIS, in part because they were heavily invested in existing CAD based technologies, and CDIS was not a low priced solution, nor was the ‘re-learning’ curve very fast. The companies that did climb on board the CDIS train were rewarded with a higher production rate than CAD with more impressive drawings, and information critical to decision making that would not be practical to produce in other systems.
Beyond CDIS: Positional Based Coordinate Geometry
While CDIS was a huge leap above CAD and GIS technologies, it was still point number based. One reason CAD (or for that matter GIS) proliferated over other technologies was that the end user could use their technology without having to learn or deal with the cumbersome coordinate geometry demanded for surveying and civil engineering applications.
In order to produce a system that could topple the industry leaders, the cumbersome point number based geometry needed to be reinvented. It was not until the processing power of computers advanced to the about the time as Windows XP was introduced, was it practical to develop a new form of coordinate geometry, one that tracked ‘position in space’ instead of point numbers.
We do not live in a point number world, we live in a world where objects (property, buildings, etc) have a specific location in relationship to a fixed point. The corner of your property is not a particular point number, but it is a particular northing, easting and elevation. The location can also define a particular type of surface or area. By tracking position instead of assigning point numbers, the complexity of point number based coordinate geometry is eliminated, yet the lines and arcs that define site plan information has all the capabilities of the original CDIS technology and more.
With the original CDIS technology being point number based, the common corners where lines and arc joined would require that point to have a unique number. The problem is that it is easy to stack point numbers while designing, especially if the person designing is not fluent in point number based coordinate geometry. With positional based coordinate geometry stacked points are not possible, thus that problem is eliminated.
Beyond CDIS: Intelligent Spatial Information
The original CDIS was powerful, but the information generated could be duplicated with CAD, however, with much more effort in CAD. Spatial data with intelligence means that the surface can not only be identified by color (like CAD) or texture (unlike CAD), but also if that surface is pervious or impervious allowing automatic tracking of environmental impact (to land surveying precision). The surface can be defined by depth to aid in automatic job costing, by height for representing structures for 3D animations (using a gaming engine which eliminates complexity of learning and using 3D technology). To enhance that drawings wow factor, shadows and transparencies can also be applied to intelligent shaping.
Beyond CDIS: A single file – real world coordinates.
CDIS was supposed to eliminate multiple files as well as multiple coordinate systems, both being another limitation of CAD and GIS systems. However the original CDIS system required many external files as drawing became more complex. It was not until the advent of Performance Planning System (PPS) that the entire job could be saved and easily transported without a single external reference.
Beyond CDIS: Morphing User Interfaces
Most technologies today take their human toll in eye strain and overall stress. Cascading pull-down menu’s, miniscule command lines (requiring tedious commands), multiple pop-up’s and spread-out short cut button’s may be light years ahead of computer interfaces from the early 1980’s DOS and CPM days, but they are far from being human friendly. This new era provides a morphing user interface where a function button turns into a graphically endowed input area. This allows the mouse target to remain in the vicinity of the command, keeps the eye in the same location as the button press and allows much more screen area to be used for input explanation and output definition.
Human interaction and stress levels plummet with the morphing user Interfaces. All of these features are available today with the evolution of CDIS technology.
We are thankful to Sir Richard Harrison for submitting this very useful information to us.
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