Phil
To go along with what Tony from ADS said, then if you are using proprietary formats to archive the data (such as ESRI coverage/e00/shapefile) you could store the legends along with the data in an equivalent proprietary format. So, if you use ESRI formats to archive the data, you would use .lyr layer files (ArcGIS 8) or .avl legend files (ArcView 3) to store the 'symbology'. Of course this depends on having the software that reads these, and migrating the data to new ones when necessary, but that is no diff from other kinds of archived data.
To supplement this, probably an image of a sample of the data looking as intended would be useful, and indeed a conventional key could be preserved in this way. And it might also be useful to have a purely text-based description of the representation included in the documentation of the dataset, if it is felt to be important, such as "polygons with no fill and solid red outline of 2-point thickness" or whatever.
cheers
Crispin
-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Carlisle [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 18 June 2003 12:09
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [FISH] GIS and archiving
Ed
It's more to do with the actually depiction on the data.
For instance with a monument based GIS you can store all the metadata
about what it is and what its NGR is etc. but how do you go about
showing how it looked in the dataset.
If all you have is the metadata can you rebuild a depiction of the
mapbases and the polygon say for an individual monument?
The discovery metadata spec on the askgiraffe site has an element called
sample which holds a jpeg or tiff image of a sample of the kind of data
depicted in the GIS (see page 54 and the OS example in the appendix)
So again would it be possible to rebuild the sample from the metadata
alone?
If a meteorite wipes out all the copies of intergraph, mapinfo etc. but
we still had the metadata could we rebuild the depiction of the
Stonehenge World Heritage layer on HSIS?
Am I being thick here and is the answer "yes of course you idiot" or is
it as tricky as I'm a-thinking?
Answers on a postcard to.......
Phil
-----Original Message-----
From: Lee, Edmund [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 18 June 2003 11:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [FISH] GIS and archiving
Interesting one Phil,
Is the problem a technical one (what software to preserve the GIS data
on) on an issue of what metadata to use to promote access and
understanding? If it the latter, then the GI Gateway Discovery metadata
seems the obvious way to go see
http://www.askgiraffe.org.uk/datalocator/metadataspecs.asp
(I think thats a current link, but I can't reach it this morning for
some
reason)
This maps to the Dublin Core (fairly roughly in places) which in turn
maps to the National Archives own metadata specification
http://www.pro.gov.uk/recordsmanagement/erecords/2002reqs/2002metadatafi
nal.
pdf
So it shouldn'tbe too much of a task to identify a good set of metadata
elements to support access
Ed
English Heritage
Data Standards Unit
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Philip Carlisle [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 18 June 2003 10:33
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [FISH] GIS and archiving
>
>
> Dear all
>
> I have a query which some of you may have some ideas on. The Naitonal
> Digital Archive of Datasets - the online UK government data archive -
> is currently working on archiving the Countryside Information System a
> bespoke GIS and they're are wondering how to go about
> preserving the map
> bases and depictions without the need to preserve each and every
> software. The data is extracted from the software package and
> digitally
> stored but obviously unless you screen shot every map/layer how do you
> know what the data means.
>
> Has anyone (OS included) thought about how to archive GIS?
>
> This may have implications on......dare I say
> it...........standardized symbology!
>
> There I've said it
>
>
> Phil
>
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