Date of Award

1-1-2009

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Department

Geography

First Advisor

David J. Cowen

Abstract

The University of South Carolina has enterprise geographic data holdings in various Computer-Aided Drafting (CAD), geographic Information Systems (GIS), imaging, and tabular database formats. Integrating these various data would provide significant benefits to the University by enabling or enhancing a number of applications such as facilities management, asset tracking, class scheduling, and others.

The goal of this thesis was to better understand the integration between CAD oriented drawing environments and GIS, to devise tools for incorporating CAD building floor plan data into a 3D GIS application, to place the tools in a workstation environment to enable users to access them, and to solicit and evaluate feedback from the users. Since there are universal needs for this type of integration the research should serve as a timely addition to this technical field.

The goal was accomplished by creating a set of automated tools to import building floor plan data. The project began with an analysis of a single user-specified prototype building. The project was extended to include a user-specified sample of twenty buildings which was used for tool development. The project tools and supporting data were placed on a user workstation, the user was instructed in the use of the tools, and the user worked with a previously sampled building. Observed user experience and user interview responses were incorporated in recommendations for the ultimate campus GIS database, which will eventually include all University buildings and infrastructure.

Using the University of South Carolina as a case study provided benefits to the project by working on a real world application in conjunction with the individuals directly involved in developing the ultimate GIS. The project assisted in the development of a room-oriented emergency notification and response system and other applications. New tools developed in the course of this project were shared with the larger user community.

Rights

© 2009, Michael Frank Morgan

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