Active Objects and Dynamic Topology for Spatial Data Re-engineering and Rich Data Modelling

Many organisations such as national mapping agencies have collected large datasets of spatial data, often by digitising existing map series. However, they are discovering that the current and future demands for spatial datasets and mapping do not match the simple data models and unstructured feature data that they have at present. To create the required rich data models and appropriate mapping using the established GIS and digital mapping software tools has been a major challenge, which has not often been economically viable. However, there are now appearing new software products based on active objects in intelligent spatial object databases, which provide the necessary tools and infrastructure to make these tasks economically possible. This paper overviews the data modelling, dynamic topology, and active object capabilities of a commercial spatial data manipulation product, and shows how they are being used for large-scale spatial data re-engineering to create new national framework datasets and generalised mapping. It also covers some of the challenges remaining, such as conflation of existing datasets to improve quality.