In 1984 and 1985, the United States Geological Survey funded Autometric to do a feasibility study to enhance MOSS to support a topological data structure and an RDMS for attributes. The work culminated in a document titled MOSS ARC/NODE and DBMS Design document. The work was coordinated by the Autometric Fort Collins office. The team included Carl Reed, Randy Frosh, Jim Kramer, and Robert Starling. Numerous other individuals provided input and review of the work.
The document was delivered to the USGS in March 1985. The work done to complete the feasibility study was heavily used in the design of the conceptual data model for DeltaMap (aka GenaMap). Below is the introduction from the document.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
This draft report is submitted as a description of the detailed
design specification for implementing an arc/node data structure
in MOSS. Additionally, this report addresses the techniques for
interfacing relational database management systems with MOSS.
The purpose of this draft is to provide the opportunity for
interested technical personnel to review the design and to make
comments that can be incorporated into the final design document.
Please note that the design focuses on those high priority
functions defined in the Functional Requirements Document.
This report is the second deliverable under Phase II of the Feasibility and Design Study for the Enhancement of MOSS. Phase I of this study emphasized the functional requirements for an enhanced version of MOSS. Under Phase I, both the users of MOSS and the literature were interrogated to develop a prioritized list of enhanced functional capabilities in the software. The emphasis of the Phase I effort was on those functions most closely related to an arc/node, or topological, data structure and attribute storage, and manipu1ation. Whi1e there are many areas for improvement in MOSS, these two were deemed the most important. The results of the functional specifications study may be found in a document dated January 1985.
As with Phase I, Phase II focuses on the arc/node data structure and those ana1ytical functions most heavily impacted by such a data structure. Phase II also considered enhancements of the attribute manipulation capabilities, specifically stressing the interface between MOSS and a relational DBMS.