Digital cadastre modernisation programs are well underway in most jurisdictions across Australia. These will significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of the register of real property that underpins our economy.
Greater accuracy of land parcel boundaries will allow much closer alignment with GPS, high-resolution imagery, LiDAR, and other high-precision data collection methods.
This new alignment will underpin initiatives such as digital transformation, digital twins, asset tracking, and improved safety in the field.
Improved data quality has been shown to be a major contributor to improved safety outcomes in the field and to increased efficiency in network control, network design, and storm and emergency management.
Where is the hyperspace button?
Moving your data to this new higher accuracy spatial nirvana is straightforward with the right tools. Network and asset information collected over many years needs to be spatially adjusted to align with the new land-base/cadastral boundaries. This spatial adjustment is known as conflation.
A successful conflation project needs to be robust, mathematically rigorous, highly scalable, have a systematic process and workflow with dashboard monitoring, and perhaps most importantly, have minimal impact on business as usual.
Enterprise-grade conflation
1. Get it right the first time – Data is a valuable asset built up over many years. Any conflation tool must have rigorous quality assurance as well as the ability to roll back.
2. On time processing – The conflation project needs to be done in an acceptable time frame. Automation should be an integral part of the solution.
3. Capability – Conflating that data should be done by specialists who know what they are doing and who will deliver a quality result. Rubber-sheeting software or manual tools should be avoided since they represent the risk of degrading rather than improving data quality.
Beware of the traps
Some believe that, once they have the new cadastre data sets, they can make the necessary adjustments manually using rubber sheeting, where you bend your current network map to a new location by using a conforming shift to make adjustments.
The challenge is that rubber sheeting can be wildly inaccurate, while manual processes take way too long and are far too arbitrary.
Best practice solution
Accurate conflation must be based on a rigorous mathematical model supported by a high-performance adjustment engine. There must be the ability to apply constraints to maintain straight lines, angles, and exclude outliers.
There must be allowances for business rules. Which objects or features should be adjusted? Are there any that have been placed using GPS coordinates? Topology must be preserved and connectivity is critical in utilities and telecommunications networks. There must be the ability to recursively apply the adjustments to all alternatives/versions within the geospatial database.
Want to find out more? Contact we-do-IT on (03) 9098 8617 or email info@we-do-it.com to speak with a conflation expert.
ABOUT WE-DO-IT®
For more than 25 years, we-do-IT has been providing right-shoring solutions for utilities, telecommunications, and the defence sector. we-do-IT already has conflated large portions of cadastre maps in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the United States, and other countries, routinely working with leading global utilities to provide low-cost, high-quality geospatial conflation data.
This sponsored editorial is brought to you by we-do-IT. For more information, visit we-do-IT.com.
