This is a very interesting discussion. :]
I regularly use CAD and GIS programs at work, and have dabbled in traditional RDBMS design. I ran into a problem with an open source GIS program I work with, that reads all features in a shapefile into memory. This limits the use of the program, given the size of many geospatial data sets.
I decided we needed to implement a system for storage of features and geometries that would overcome this memory limitation. I looked at existing RDBMS and Object-Oriented Databases and decided it would be better to start from scratch. I am designing an object oriented-database that will work with CAD and GIS systems. The first implementation will be in Java, but I hope to create an implementation in Python as well.
It will have features like undo/redo (transactions) and mulit-user access. I am no expert programmer, so I'm not sure how great this will work, but I know it will be better than the system we have now.
Scott Huey
On 5/22/06, baalbek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
David Cuthbert wrote:
> This does not mean the design itself should be stored as an RDBMS. As
> I've stated previously, CAD data (both electrical and, it appears,
> mechanical) does not lend itself to RDBMS relationship modeling.
I simply do not agree with this.
A CAD program (like Autocad) is nothing
but an advanced database editor: the program loads data from a binary
file and creates its object (in memory) from the tables that it reads
from the file on the disk.
The point is that this could as well have been stored on tables in a
RDBMS; the process of loading the object once the data has been fetched
(either from a binary file, or a RDBMS) the process is similar.
The advantage of having the data stored in a RDBMS is many, amongst them
the ability to check-out just the data one needs, better administration
of the drawings (consistent plotting, dimensioning styles, fonts, etc)
and a much better tool for gathering statistics of the project (sums of
areas, rooms, doors, etc etc).
What happens in the CAD program (once loaded in memory) is simply
irrelevant to how the data are stored.
Regards,
Baalbek
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