Application of ArcGIS Pipeline Data Model and GIS in Digital Oil and Gas Pipeline

Abstract

With the rapid development of long-distance oil and gas transmission pipeline construction in China, it is highly desirable to build a Digital Oil and Gas Pipeline (hereinafter, Digital Pipeline) to improve pipeline management efficiency and to maintain a safe operation level. The concept of Digital Pipeline comes from Digital Earth, and can be considered a specific application of Digital Earth. We introduce our design and implementation of a Digital Pipeline in this paper. Our implementation focuses on pipeline GIS (Geographic Information System) and VR (Virtual Reality) applications. We mainly introduce pipeline GIS in this paper. The pipeline GIS provides an information framework for Digital Pipeline, it concentrates on two-dimensional (2D) spatial and property data acquiring, storing, processing, analyzing, and sharing in the GIS framework. We divide the pipeline GIS into three modules according to their roles and functionalities: the data management module, the WebGIS module and the data service module. Every module provides corresponding functionality according to user's different data requirement. The data management module is a desktop application that adopts the C/S model. Its objective is to manage pipeline data stored in the GIS server. It also provides professional functionality for pipeline data analyzing, routine administering and maintaining. The WebGIS module is a web-based GIS application that adopts the B/S model. Its purpose is to promote pipeline information sharing by publishing pipeline data to the internet and providing browser-based pipeline data displaying, inquiring, and analyzing. The data service module stores the pipeline database. It provides the data service for the data management module and the WebGIS module. The core of the data service module is the pipeline database, which is an ESRI Geodatabase implementing in terms of a pipeline data model that extending and refining from ArcGIS Pipeline Data Model (APDM). In this paper, we elaborate the pipeline GIS design and implementation process, including the related technologies and their application in the system. The pipeline data model and database construction, and future works are also introduced in detail.