OGC’s GML provides broad adoption across many industries and is natively supported by numerous software applications. Since GML is an extension of XML, it utilizes common generic technologies that are simple, proven and well resourced. This allows us to develop a new data interchange standard to service the pipeline industry’s needs that will work out of the box with an assortment of commercial and open-source GIS software applications such as ESRI, QGIS, AutoCAD, Bentley, Integraph. These and many other software application will be able to read PipelineML GML files without any form of modification.
GML provides the ability to define the 0 (point), 1 (linestring), 2 (surface), and 3 dimensional representation of objects such as pipeline components, facilities, etc. as they are installed in the field. Additionally, it provides the extensibility to allow us to define custom attributes for pipeline components such as Nominal Wall Thickness, Maximum Operating Pressure, SMYC, Grade, Specification, etc. Further, we can utilize existing OGC/ISO metadata standards to provide an assortment of information about the origins and activities related to a PipelineML data package such that it can support the needs for regulatory requirements related to Traceable Verifiable and Complete (TVC) record keeping procedures.
Each PipelineML data package can be consumed/imported into a backend data model such as PODS, APDM, ISAT, UPDM, etc. Then, the PipelineML data packages/files can be archived on a file system to provide additional point-in-time snapshots of pipeline data.