>We are a government agency that comments on plans for structures within
>many of our floodplains and watersheds.  For the past two years, I have
>been fighting with a business unit in our office to ensure that all
>engineering drawing or topographical mapping be received electronically
>(CD's, DVD's etc) as well as in a paper format.  The maps or plans are
>often a large size often 3 or 4 feet in size and are the preferred choice
>for the planners and the analysts to read them.  They have now agreed to
>provide electronic copies.

I guess I need to understand a bit better when you say you have "electronic
copies" what it is you actually have.

Are these actual CAD files, with the layers intact, including all 3rd party
application data, etc. or are they "plot files", which are a simple
viewable flat-file image of the drawing/map?  If it's the former, you have
one "situation". if it's the latter, then you have another.

The former would require you to have (and keep current) copies of the
various CAD and GIS software used to generate the maps and drawings,
including all 3rd party applications used to generate components of the
models, maps and drawings and to periodically convert the files to the
latest version of the applications to have access to the images as time
goes along.  This is an extremely costly proposition, and would require
that you have at least one trained user to support the applications.

The latter requires you to have (potentially) a variety of "viewer"
software packages that allow you to see the images and that employ "pan and
zoom" characteristics so you can see (portions) of the images on your
screen because as you mentioned, in most cases, you won't be able to see
the entire image in a scale that you could comprehend.  Projection of the
image is an option, but most of these "plot files" are scaled and when you
project them, they don't actually get larger than they were saved.

So, a part of the solution to the problem may be sitting down with someone
to get a better understanding of what it is you REALLY WANT TO RECEIVE so
you can specify this, and then you'll get something you can work with.

>We're now implementing our EDRMS and my desire is to have complete
>electronic records including the maps.  The thought of re-scanning maps or
>drawings which were electronically created is not practical, hence the
>electronic copy with the paper copy.  We want complete electronic records
>rather than a combination of both.  Our ultimate goal is to do away with
>the paper altogether and have staff use the electronic copy.

Be careful what you ask for =)

I'd discuss with the users of these "information assets" what there use
pattern is and how they intend to use them, and what the actual retention
requirement is for them.  These may be a PERFECT target for part of a
"hybrid" system... where your EDMS may have a thumbnail image and a pointer
to a physical filing system location for retaining the hard copies.  If the
volume is low enough, the retrieval is infrequent enough, and the retention
is short enough, you may not want "viable images" of these assets clogging
up your system, because to get the files in the format is sounds as if you
want them in, the files are BIG... and they won't be able to be viewed
"natively" in the EDMS, they will have to be exported and viewed in a CAD
or GIS viewer application, and the users will still have to use pan and
zoom to view them.


>This is
>meeting great resistance in the organization.  I have told this department
>that we will store (we have a centralized records centre) these paper maps
>for all least the next two years.  The question is:  How are other
>organizations dealing with this issue?  It really is difficult to read
>mapping from a computer monitor even if it is 19" in size.  The cost to
>upgrade 20 monitors to this size is substantial.

If you go to a planning department or architectural firm where they do this
sort of thing all day long and you look at how the drafters/mappers do
their work, you'll find that some of them use 19"-24" monitors, or some of
them use a "dual monitor" setup, where the image can be "stitched" between
the monitors and/or they will view "pieces" of the image on one monitor and
the reduced view on the other, switching to pan and zoom when they need it.

>One solution I had for them was to provide a meeting room with a computer
>and video projector with a large screen or just a large screen TV.  This
>is really difficult to take to offsite meetings though.  Any other
>thoughts?

As mentioned earlier, depending on how the file is generated, this may or
may not work... but you'll likely find that this wouldn't be a viable
solution for the users of these types of "documents".   They like to have a
paper copy they can roll out, look at and mark up as needed.

Larry

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