Purpose and future of this web site.

Purpose:
          This website intends to be both educational and inspirational.  It has not yet developed to be useful for field
          application.

          It is my firm belief that the surveying profession would benefit greatly by taking a leadership role in the production
          and continual maintenance of parcel geometries used in the Cadastral Theme of the National Spatial Data
          Infrastructure.  The users of parcel data would benefit also.  My proposal is for surveyors to consider boundary
          surveying data as its own spatial data infrastucture at the national level.

          By exploring the interactive maps in this demonstration website, a surveyor can get a feel for the amount of data that
          has been collected so far.  This is just a start toward collecting the data for a full data infrastructure.

          By viewing screen captures of the attribute tables a surveyor can sense the amount of data that is collected for the
          points and lines that define boundary surveying data.  This data is in a format that is being proposed as a national
          data standard for boundary surveying data.


Future:
          At some point this data will be published in a more revealing format.  For those streaming the current data it is
          obvious that each geodatabase table becomes a layer on the map.  What is not viewable is the attribute data or the
          metadata. The new format technology will be a "Feature Service" which will include the mapping shapes as well as the
          entire attribute data and metadata.  This will allow the curious user to expose the full attributes of any feature
          found throughout the geodatabase tables.  The data will behave as if it is spatial data infrastructure and tools can
          be built to demonstrate its usefulness.


Call for volunteers:
          The graphic of the western US shows the townships that have been collected by BLM as of the beginning of this year.
          This data is in geodatabase tables that could be published much like the data you see for New Mexico.  All that is
          needed is for some person or organization to commit to serve this free data to the Internet until surveying data
          becomes accepted as national spatial data infrastructure.  At that point the data will be published by federal and
          local agencies who are already the data stewards of land parcel data.

          This data must be published in the most open and accessible format possible.  At this point that format is the Web
          Feature Service (WFS) as defined by the Open GIS Consortium.  If these geodatabases are served as WFS, every GIS
          application can access the data directly.

          There are some qualifications to publishing BLM's data.  The states of Wyoming, New Mexico and Oklahoma have their
          data converted into the proposed surveying standard.  The other states have their data in a similar format - it is
          useful, but not an example of the best design possible.  The time-consuming effort of full conversion revolves around
          control measurements and survey-to-parcel (subdivision, curve) instructions.


What is in it for me?
          From 1985-2012 I was deeply involved in BLM's effort to develop what originally was termed a Multipurpose Cadastre. A
          small group was developing the philosophies and technical approach to implement this vision.  I developed an early
          database model of surveying data based on the data we were working on and extrapolating the needs expected beyond the
          BLM Cadastral Survey specialty.  This database model grew with experience and with feedback from colleagues in BLM.

          When BLM management shut down and discarded efforts toward a true Multipurpose Cadastre there was a period of
          well-deserved disillusion by those left standing.  No effort arose to take its place.  After retirement I resolved to
          implement enough of the vision to communicate these ideas to the broader surveying community.  In the process of this
          personal research I was able to further develop these ideas to leverage the gains in computer technology.

          I would very much like to pass this body of work forward.   I believe that it is not a matter of whether the surveying
          profession will have its boundary data in a spatial data infrastructure, but when.  The sooner the better.

                                                                                                     Dennis K. McKay, May 2016
                                                                                                     Santa Fe, New Mexico