Virtual Environment for Transportation Data Management System

The New Mexico State Highway and Transportation Department has routinely been collecting traffic data and pavement nondestructive testing data (pavement surface deflections) and realized that unless a more efficient way to retrieve and review voluminous amounts of transportation data were developed, the highway engineer would be overwhelmed and some of the data would have to be ignored for practical reasons. The Virtual Environment for Transportation Data (VETD) management system was developed as a proof-of-concept software package to overcome this problem. The VETD management system is a comprehensive front-end software package that allows the user to easily locate and retrieve data files through a map and to visualize large data sets. The user can then invoke numerical or analytical tools to facilitate the decision-making process. The user can also call any off-the-shelf three-dimensional topographical software package to access the virtual-reality representation of the surrounding area associated with the data in question. The visualization routine is unique in that it allows charting of two-dimensional, three- dimensional, or radar-time plots even as the data are scrolled (dynamically accessed) from the database. The front-end package was designed to be easily interfaced with other software by allowing on-screen data to be parsed into other programs as text. This project was funded through the FHWA Priority Technologies Program and was managed by the New Mexico Division of FHWA.