Posted by jeffhobbs on June 28, 2007
We’re still a MGE shop here at San Jose Water for much of our data maintenance. So, I’ve been starting to move some of our more static line/centroid “that should be polygon” data layers from MGE, to a GeoMedia Pro-maintained Oracle Locator database. This will then allow us to actually fill our polygons.
For those that have not used MGE, it doesn’t typically work with area/polygon features. Instead you draw lines into the system and then place a centroid in the closed line work. You then put all of your intelligence on the centroid. The model works very well when trying to maintain topology. Furthermore, I’m told that if you’re only working inside of the MGE environment, MGE can handle spatial analysis without ever needing to have polygons (however can’t say I ever tried to use the analytical functions inside of MGE). Yet again these days it’s getting harder and harder to find people that have…. Anyhow, I digress.
So, I’ve moved the lines and centroids for our Stations feature class into Oracle and then used the Insert > Area by Face… command to create true polygons from my line work. That worked great…but unfortunately these polygons were now “dumb” polygons as the GIS attributes were still on the centroid.
So I was planning on using the aggregation command and then copying the data across to migrate the attribute data from the centroid to its respective polygon. However, before I started, I remembered a custom command I pulled down from the Intergraph Synergy site at one point in time. The name of the command is “Area Centroid Integrator”. From the description file that came with the command:
Area Centroid Integrator is a sample command that allows the user to copy selected attributes from a centroid to the area feature class which contains the centroid.
Anyhow, I ran that command and viola – the primary key (MSLINK) from my centroid was automagically copied to my polygon feature class. Couldn’t have been simpler! In case you’re interested in trying the command for yourself, it can be downloaded from this link.
Please note that the command is designed for GeoMedia/Pro 6.0. Make sure to read the Description.txt file for installation directions. Otherwise, if you’d rather use the unsupported (though I’ve never had a problem with it) GeoMedia Custom Command Installer, it can be downloaded from this site as well.
Posted in Intergraph, MGE | 4 Comments »
Posted by jeffhobbs on June 27, 2007
Too cool. Take a look at the Simpsons movie site. I created my own avatar. Take a look:
Except for the bald head and the pimp hat, – it looks just like me 
Posted in Web Site | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jeffhobbs on June 27, 2007
Started playing with the two new aggregation operators (pipes) in GeoMedia 6.1 today. There appear to be a few bugs, but overall it looks very promising.
For my testing I used the US Sample data set and aggregated the cities and the highways. My summary feature was the cities feature class while my detail feature was the interstates feature class.
Operators
The first operator is labeled "are nearest to". From what I can tell (no documentation yet), this operator will aggregate ONLY the first summary graphic to its respective detail graphic. In other words, if I have 20 cities that are near one highway segment (not the overall highway, but the individual segment), then only one city will receive the respective highway number from the highway segment. Looking at the screen shot below, you’ll notice that each highway number (the second column that’s highlighted) has a respective unique identifier (third column), however no unique identifier is repeated for the same highway number.
Now, when comparing this to the second operator, "accumulate nearest", the opposite is true. With this operator EVERY city has a respective nearest highway. As a result, you DO get repeating highway numbers (second column) for each unique identifier.
The Value
Now the value…that can be a little harder to understand. I personally have never had a need (that I can think of) for an operator like "are nearest to". Anybody have any ideas?
However with the "accumulate nearest", this to me makes a lot more sense. Often times I’ll want to bulk update a set of geometries in feature class B with information from feature class A. For instance, you might want to update your fire hydrants with the nearest one or two street names. In the past, if you’re an Oracle Spatial kinda user, this can be done at the SQL level. However for those that would rather do it in the client GIS, this makes it a lot easier.
Until tomorrow…..
Posted in GeoMedia 6.1 Beta, Intergraph | 6 Comments »
Posted by jeffhobbs on June 26, 2007
Ran across a bug today in GeoMedia Pro. Turned out to be quite the pain in the butt! We have a polygon with holes delimiting our service area. Went to modify the polygon today and add a new section. So I go to use the “Redigitize Geometry” command, place my start and end points, and then start modifying the polygon.
Once I’m done modifying the polygon, I finish digitizing and get the error message:
After working on the problem for a while, I was able to figure out what is causing the problem…the holes in the polygon! As soon as I deleted the holes, I was able to redigitize without a problem. Of course, then I needed to add the holes back…made for a fun time!
If anybody is interested, the trouble report (TR) number is
81455. As it turns out, it’s also a problem with the 6.1 Beta so I had Intergraph file the bug against both 6.0 and 6.1.
Posted in GeoMedia, GeoMedia 6.1 Beta | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jeffhobbs on June 22, 2007
Was listening to a podcast a few weeks weeks ago and they mentioned a web site: davidrumsey.com. He has a whole host of maps. Many of them very cool. I did a fast search for maps of Santa Clara County. Came across a few. If you install the Java Client, you can actually download the maps at a very high resolution. In fact, I downloaded one map at the highest resolution (7 or 8 mb in size) and then plotted it out on our HP5500 at 60 inches in width. It came out great! No pixelation whatsoever!
Posted in Cartography, Web Site | 2 Comments »
Posted by jeffhobbs on June 22, 2007
With one of the recent hotfixes, Intergraph added the ability to add tooltips to legend entries. I hear it was functionality added for the Public Safety piece of Intergraph. Nonetheless, it’s pretty cool.
1) Right click on the legend entry and go to the “Map Window Tooltip” Legend Entry
2) Choose the type of tooltip:
a) None
b) Name – Name of the feature class
c) Attributes – Select one attribute
d) Expression – Build your own expression using functional attributes
In used expression in my case. My expression looked like “”Route Number:” + ” ” + FORMATATTRIBUTE(Input.ROUTE_NUMBER)” which returned this:
Very neat.
Posted in GeoMedia, Intergraph | 2 Comments »
