Program: Zebedee

Title: Reconciler and GIS Builder

Version: 2.2

• Introduction
• Running Zebedee
  • Command-line options
• Menus and Controls
  • Main Menu
• Project Parameters
  • Reconciliation Options
• INI file configuration settings
• Error and Warning Messages

Back to:

• Main Index
• Data Cataloguing Index

Introduction

The Zebedee application allows users to reconcile or cross-reference objects in Attribute Catalogues built in Florence and Dylan with location data, assign objects to a location or a 'parent' object for spatial querying, and export this location information as shape files or load it to an Oracle Spatial database for use in a GIS.

Running Zebedee

First you must create an Archive Project in Florence, and add and populate at least one Attribute Catalogue and a Location Catalogue. Save your catalogues and project in Florence, and open the project in Zebedee.

Once you have a project open in Zebedee, you must create a reconciliation catalogue. For ease of use, select one of the pre-defined reconciliation CDF templates. Now reconcile the objects in the Attribute catalogues with the location information in the Location catalogue using the Reconcile - Add Objects and Reconcile - Add Locations menu options.

You can export your reconciled spatial data as shape files using the Reconcile - Create Shape Files menu option, or load the locations into predefined Oracle Spatial layers using the Reconcile - Spatial Load menu option.

Command-line options

Zebedee can be run with a comman-line similar to the following:

ZEBEDEE [[-remote] -uCONNECTSTRING] [ZEBFILE]

where:

• -uis an optional flag for connection to an Oracle database. CONNECTSTRING specifies an Oracle connection string in the form USERNAME/PASSWORD@DATABASE in the same format as used by Oracle SQL*Plus and other Oracle utilities. If this flag is specified, this connection will override the Oracle database name specified for a catalogue in the CDF.
  If this flag is not specified, Zebedee will attempt to connect to Oracle (if necessary) using OS-authentication as the current Windows user, or display a connection dialogue to enter a username, password and Oracle SID.
  Alternatively, you can connect directly to Oracle without using the Oracle client, by including the -remote flag and specifying a connection string in the form USERNAME/PASSWORD@SERVER:PORT:SID
  where SERVER is the hostname or IP address of the Oracle server, PORT is the port number used by the Oracle Listener, and SID is the system identifier of the Oracle instance. See Using Databases in LEA Applications - Oracle Connection for more details.
  
• ZEBFILE is the name or path of a valid archive project file (with a .zeb extension).

When started with no command-line arguments, Zebedee will display a dialogue box prompting you with three options:

• Create a new project (launch Florence) - since you cannot create new projects in Zebedee, just open projects previously created by Florence, this option gives you the opportunity to run Florence to create a new project.
• Open an existing project - displays a standard file selection dialogue. Select an archive project file, previously created with Florence, to open.
• Open your last project - reopen the previous project saved by Zebedee or Florence.

Menus and Controls

Main Menu

• File

  • New Project
    Launch Florence to create a new archive project

  • Open Project 
    Open an existing project file (with a ZEB extension). The project contains a list of CDFs and the catalogue tables associated with them, which will be displayed in the Project Manager window.
    You can also drag a project file from an Explorer window onto Florence's main window to open the project.

    If the project already contains a Reconciliation Catalogue, you will be prompted to open it, otherwise you will be displayed with a list of options:

    • Use the Default Reconciliation Template - the default Reconciliation CDF template is specified in the [startup] section of ZEBEDEE.INI (see below)
    • Select a Reconciliation CDF Template - select one of the predefined Reconciliation CDFs from the CDF Template dialogue.
    • Select a Reconciliation CDF File - browse for a previously-saved Reconciliation CDF file
    • Create a New Reconciliation CDF - open Dougal to create a new CDF. You must use the Reconciliation LEA Object in your CDF.

    In each case, the specified CDF will be added to the Reconciliation Catalogues section of the project, and an empty catalogue created.

  • Save Project 
    Save the changes to the current project.

  • Save Project As
    Save the current project as a new file. Enter the file name in the Save As dialogue.

  • Import Catalogue
    Import the records from an external database table into the currently open catalogue table. See Using Databases in LEA Applications for the available formats for input
    Select the catalogue to import from the database table selection dialogue.
    The selected database table will be checked to ensure that its field definitions match the currently open catalogue, and its records will be added to the current catalogue.

  • Export Catalogue
    Export the data from the current catalogue into an external file or database table (which is not added to the current project).
    
    Select the As Table menu to export the current catalogue as a database table. See Using Databases in LEA Applications for the available formats for output. Data exported with this option can be later imported back into Florence using the Import Cataloguemenu option, or added to the project as a standalone catalogue using the Project-Add Catalogue menu option if you wish.
    
    Select the As Text menu to export the current catalogue as a text file. A file selection dialogue is displayed. Select one of the following formats for output:

    • Column-delimited ASCII text - data from the catalogue is written to a text file suitable for further editing and printing.
    • HTML - data from the catalogue is written to a HTML table file which can be displayed in web browsers.
    • Comma-delimited file - data is written to a comma-delimited ASCII file suitable for import into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and databases.
    • CD-VU Index files - data from the catalogue is output as a CD-VU index file. The catalogue must have been created with a predefined CDF template. For seismic data you can create the FILES.TXT index for stacked data and the FIELD.TXT for pre-stack data. For scanned images you can create the OBSERVER.TXT for acquisition reports and the SCANS.TXT for final seismic section images.

    If the selected file already exists, it will be overwritten. Catalogues exported as text cannot be imported back into Zebedee using the Import Cataloguemenu option.

  • Export Data Files - See Catalogue Tables and Archive Project Files - Catalogue Data Export for details of this option.
    

  • Page Setup
    Select the printer, paper size and page orientation from a print setup dialogue.

  • Print Preview
    Display a facsimile of the printed output on screen.

  • Print
    Print a report of the currently displayed catalogue.
    Select the printer and paper orientation, and specify whether to print all records or selected records in the Print dialogue box.
    Column widths on the printed report are calculated to be approximately proportional to those displayed in the data grid, so columns with a width of less than 1 character will not be displayed on the printed report. The data grid columns can be resized by dragging the column headers.

• Project - See Catalogue Tables and Archive Project Files - Project Manager Window for details of the Project menu options.

• Reconcile

  • Add Objects 
    Adds data from all Attribute Catalogues into the Reconciliation Catalogue. If the Location fields have already been populated, complete reconciliation information will be calculated for the record. The Reconciliation Build Options determine whether existing records will be updated or skipped.

  • Add Locations 
    Adds data from all Location Catalogues into the Reconciliation Catalogue. If the Object fields have already been populated, complete reconciliation information will be calculated for the record. The Reconciliation Build Options determine whether existing records will be updated or skipped.

  • Synchronise Catalogues 
    Once the Reconciliation Catalogue has been populated with both Object and Location data, it can be used to cross-reference the Object and Attribute Catalogues, so that when a record is selected in any catalogue, this option will jump to the corresponding records in other catalogues. For example, if you select a record in an Attribute catalogue, then select the Synchronise Catalogues menu option/toolbar button, the Reconciliation and Location catalogues will jump to the corresponding record.

  • Generate Summary Report
    Generate and display a text report based on the current Reconciliation Catalogue. The format of the report will be similar to the 3S LOCCHECK Seismic Test report. The report will list reconciled objects and thier location names from the Reconciliation Catalogue. If the Reconciliation Catalogue contains length attributes, these will be listed for the object and its location.

  • Spatial Load
    This will load location data from all objects listed in the Reconciliation Catalogue which have an assigned location which is present in the location catalogue (ie not an 'arbitrary' or 'parent' location object) into an Oracle 9i Spatial database.

    Records are categorised by the Layer Type of their Attribute Catalogue's CDF. The Lynx lookup table LYNX_LAYER_TYPES must be present in the Oracle database for the spatial load to work. This lookup table defines the spatial and business tables corresponding to each Layer Type.

    Location coordinates are read from the location catalogue, or the file pointed to by the Location Catalogue FILEPATH field.
    If the spatial record is already present, it will be updated with the new coordinate values, otherwise, a new record will be inserted

    At present, it is assumed that all location data to be loaded is WGS-84 latitude/longitude. There is currently no provision for projection or datum conversion during the loading process.

  • Create Shape Files
    This will create a shape file for each Attribute Catalogue. Attribute Catalogues must be saved as dBASE tables. SHP and SHX files will be created in the same directory as each of the Attribute Catalogues. If these are already present they will be overwritten.

    Location coordinates for each record in each Attribute Catalogue are looked up in the Reconciliation Catalogue. If found, the coordinates will be written to the shape file. If the Object has not been reconciled, or is reconciled to an 'arbitrary' or 'parent' location, then a NULL shape will be added to the shape file for this record.

    Coordinates read from the Location Catalogue or from files listed in the Location Catalogue are assumed to be latitude/longitude, and each output shape file will use latitude/longitude. There is currently no provision for projecton conversion.

• Catalogue - See LEA Catalogue Tables and Archive Project Files - Catalogue Grid Editor for details of the Catalogue menu options.

• Object - See LEA Catalogue Tables and Archive Project Files - Catalogue Grid for details of the Object menu options.

• View

  • Show Toolbar
    Show/hide the main button toolbar.

  • Show Grid Column Headers
    Show/hide the data grid column headers.
    If the column headers are not showing, a column-delimited text file created with the File - Export menu option will contain no header or column titles, and if the catalogue is printed with the File - Print menu option, no header or column titles will be output.

  • Show Column Descriptions
    Toggle display of the column-descriptions and the field names for the catalogue.

• Window - This contains standard commands for MDI applications to manipulate the catalogue windows:

  • Cascade
    Arrange all catalogue windows so they overlap within the main window.

  • Tile Horizontally
    Arrange all catalogue forms so that they are all the same size, with the width of each catalogue window stretching across the width of the main window.

  • Tile Vertically
    Arrange all catalogue forms so that they are all the same size, with the width of each catalogue window stretching along the height of the main window.

  • Minimise All
    Iconise all open catalogue windows

Project Parameters

Reconciliation Options

The reconciliation options affect how the Reconciliation Catalogue is built and displayed. These options will be saved in the project file.

Build Options

Existing Records - determines whether records which are already present in the Reconciliation Catalogue will be updated:

• Skip - do not update existing records
• Overwrite - updates existing records
• Ask - prompt each time whether to skip or overwrite.

Enforce Validity Checks - if YES then constraints defined in the CDF will be enforced during the build. This may slow down the adding of Objects and Locations. If NO then CDF constraints will be ignored. Use the Catalogue-Validate Records after building to check that the CDF constraints are not violated.

Display Options

The Reconciliation Catalogue can be filtered to display a subset of whole catalogue. You can choose from the following options:

• All records
• Reconciled Objects
• Unreconciled Objects
• Unreconciled Locations

INI file configuration settings

The [startup] section of Zebedee's INI file contains customisable configuration settings that affect the behaviour of the application

• primary template - specifies the GUID of the CDF template to use for the default reconciliation catalogue.
• primary object - the name of the INI file containing the definition of the LEA Reconciliation Object. The default value is RECONOBJ.INI - do not change this value
• location record object - the name of the INI file containing the definition of the LEA Location Record Object. The default value is LOCOBJ.INI - do not change this value
• layer types table - the name of the Oracle table/view/synonym used as the lookup for loading location coordinates into Oracle Spatial layers. This is a table with predefined fields which specifies how to map CDFs into Oracle Spatial layers. The default value is LYNX_LAYER_TYPES. See CDF Layer Types for details of the structure of this table

Error and Warning Messages

The following error and warning messages are produced by Zebedee

Error on command-line

This error is produced while Zebedee is initialising.
The command-line is not a valid LEA command line, or one of the files specified does not exist. See Command-line options above

Error adding objects to reconciliation catalogue

This error is produced while reading the Attribute Catalogues to add/update the Object fields in the Reconciliation Catalogue. See the text of the error message for more details of the cause.

Required CDF attribute missing from catalogue

For use with Zebedee, the Attribute Catalogues must have certain required fields for the reconciliation to work. The text of the error message lists the catalogue and the required field.

See also errors listed in Catalogue Tables and Archive Project Files

See also:
[Dougal - LEA Catalogue Designer]
[Florence - Catalogue Builder]
[The Lynx Exploration Archive Object]
[The LEA Loction Record Object]
[The LEA Reconciliation Object]
[Catalogue Tables and Archive Project Files]
[Catalogue Description Files]
[Using Databases in LEA Applications]