From CAD to GIS to the Geoweb: A Natural Evolution

Computer hardware and software have played a significant role in supporting the design and maintenance of pipeline systems. CAD systems allowed designers and drafters to compile drawings and make edits at a pace unmatched by manual pen drawings. Although CAD continues to provide the environment for a lot of pipeline design, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are also innovating pipeline design through routines such as automated alignment sheet generation. What we have seen over the past two or three decades is an evolution in how we manage the data and information required for decision making in pipeline design and system operation. CAD provided designers and engineers a rapid electronic method for capturing information in a drawing, editing it, and sharing it. As the amount of digital data available to users grows rapidly, CAD has been unable to adequately exploit data’s abundance and managing change in a CAD environment is cumbersome. GIS and spatial data management have proven to be the next evolution in situations where engineering, integrity, environmental, and other spatial data sets dominate the information required for design and operational decision making. It is conceivable that GIS too will crumble under the weight of its own data usage as centralized databases become larger and larger. The Geoweb is likely to emerge as the geospatial world’s evolution. The Geoweb implies the merging of spatial information with the abstract information that currently dominates the Internet. This paper and presentation will discuss this fascinating innovation, it’s force as a disruptive technology, and oil and gas applications.