Cutting through the sheets of data in GIS

There is a new sheriff in town when it comes to alignment sheet generation, and it is called SheetCutter. This is an alignment sheet generator that you can do in GIS! An alignment sheet in GIS sounds cumbersome and unproductive and only AutoCAD and/or Carlson can handle the dynamic layout views, script the tables and generate the reports needed to do that.

This is no longer the case. There are several products coming out recently that allow this task to be accomplished through the GIS department. SheetCutter, offered by New Century Software, is one of them, and the focus of this article.

Moving your alignment sheets out of the Engineering Department and into GIS Department can take that time consuming responsibility leading to great benefits on top of the obvious one, which makes your GIS department a profit center and not an overhead expense.

SheetCutter integrates into the ESRI suite of products and allows for access from multiple data sources to auto generate alignment sheets for various pipeline assets. SheetCutter is designed to support many of the industry standard data models but can also be used on proprietary models and works with all license levels of ArcGIS Desktop.

The layout has been designed to similar to the ArcGIS layout using the table of contents window to accomplish the process of creating, maintaining and reproducing consistent same quality sheets. When SheetCutter is combined with its companion product, Template Designer, the user can quickly create new alignment sheets and map generated reports specific to the end user.

There are a variety of pre-defined bands and associated properties offered with the software which include standards such as summary table bands, several varieties of chart bands, linear bands, and map or plan views. The GIS user simply has to add the band and can click and drag to change the band size or location.

According to its website, New Century Software has the built in pre-configured capability to create these different alignment sheets in one program from multiple data sources.

  • HCA and Pipeline Integrity Analysis sheets
  • Risk Analysis Sheets
  • Data validation and/or Class location structure verification
  • Dig Sheets
  • New construction sheets
  • Right-of-Way alignment sheets
  • Engineering as-built alignment sheets
  • Emergency response and/or Public awareness maps
  • Environmental alignment sheets

It is a great benefit to many operators to be able to generate reports and alignment sheets on the fly, based on real time data from the field. It also allows for consistent output and easily readable maps and reports based on company-defined standards by producing alignment sheets from GIS software.

A demonstration of this product and of SheetCutter can be obtained from New Century Software’s their website.

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