Medellin Utilities go Digital


Modernizing Utilities Takes Geographically Dispersed Talent to Colombia
By Lili Eylon


 You would like to think that most utilities throughout the world have moved beyond using paper maps, but unfortunately the digital dream is not attained in every corner of the planet. Medellin, Colombia is one of those places that until recently, struggled with a combination of paper maps and digital maps to manage their extensive electrical supply network. What they really needed was to digitize all the maps-ultimately, to put the entire system into a GIS to manage the facilities efficiently and accurately.

Located in the northwest portion of Colombia, Medellin lies 5,000 feet above sea level. It constitutes the metropolitan area of the Valley of Aburra and represents the geographical, economic and social integration of 10 smaller municipalities. The total population is 2,451,000 of which 1,700,000 reside in the city itself.

As a result of a tender launched by Empresas Publicas de Medellin (EPM) to map and digitize its electricity supply system, the CIBAF group, an ad hoc consortium comprised of three local, an American and an Israeli company, was awarded execution of the project. The consortium was formed because each of these firms employ Bentley MicroStation technology - they all actually met at a MicroStation users conference!

The company that ordered this project: SIGMA - Sistema de Informacion Geografica para Medellin y sus Alrrededores, wanted a computerized landbase (MicroStation format), full GIS capabilities, an alphanumerical identification system for geographic features (in Oracle), conversion of the electrical network to digital, and an integrated AM/FM system using Intergraph's FRAMME facilities management technology (www.intergraph.com) .

What SIGMA needed was a group of teams that could work well together and provide data from various sources: the field, aerial photography and historic mapping data. Creating a feasible electrical supply network to service this population took two years and cost $5 million. Altogether, some 100 people worked on the entire project.

The Collaboration

Although the Consortium shared the common language of MicroStation, the single largest problem was geographic distance between the participating teams. This gap was bridged in several ways: by having local teams execute the field survey, GPS control points and aerial photography and making sure everyone communicated. The GPS control points descriptions and aerial photographs, as diapositives, were sent by regular mail. But while a number of face-to-face meetings took place in Medellin, most of the bulk information - files and mapping - were transferred by FTP via the Internet. Field survey additions and finished files were sent on and queries sent via email. Argentine-born Julio Kadichevsky provided Spanish-language communication on the Israeli team.

The group working on the conversion of the electrical net and the group working on the mapping and building of the land base had no need to do much communicating with one another. They worked simultaneously, shortening the delivery time of the complete system. Elements of the electrical network such as poles and towers, collected and classified during the mapping activities, were then transferred to the conversion group in order to tie them to other elements of the net.

Precise geodetic infrastructure, photogrammetric mapping with orthophoto creation, 3D GIS tools, seamless raster and vector data base management, intercontinental cooperation in building, and web-enabled management and supervision were challenges to be met in the completion of the project.

"If not for the Internet, the project would have taken many months, if not years longer, and people would have had to be on the spot during all that time," says Itai Melchior, marketing manager for Geographic Data Solutions of Israel's Ness Technologies (www.ness.com ) (Business Groups Sys PhotoGIS.asp)

Ness Technologies, one of Israel's largest IT companies, with more than 2,300 employees, built Israel's national geographical databases - both military and commercial - using Ness TSG-developed software.

Advanced Digital Mapping (ADM - A in CIBAF), a subsidiary of Ness Technologies of Tel Aviv, worked on the technical specifications and urban area mapping: it created orthophotos of the area and did precise photogrammetric digitizing of all ground details.

Overlay of photogrammetric mapping on orthophoto-bridge over Medellin River

One of the three local companies, Bogota-based Fotogrametria Analitica Ltd., (FAL - the F in CIBAF) carried out a field survey, provided aerial photography, and rendered rural area mapping, while CHS Ltd, Medellin, (C in CIBAF); Integral, Medellin, (I in CIBAF), two local firms, did the electrical network conversion with information supplied by the American firm AGRA Baymont , from Florida (B in CIBAF). In spite of the possibility for interaction between these groups, the group working on electrical conversion didn't communicate much with the mapping and digitizing group.