Help in setting up geometric network

Question

We are trying to build a geometric network for our water utilities. I took the ESRI instructor lead geometric network class
but don't know enough about water utilities and the function of the devices to know what the connectivity rules or network weights. Unfortunately my water department has limited knowledge of  GIS and has been of little help.
Is there anyone out there that is willing to share with me a feature dataset that has their water geometric network so I can look at what would be typical for the settings in the geometric network.

Katy

KathleenWallis · Answer

I have an additional question. I am trying to clean up the topology of water utility assets that were brought over from CAD.
I know that mains cannot overlap mains however can laterals overlap laterals? The CAD drawing had several places where 
two laterals were on top of each other that run to two meters that are in the same box on the sidewalk.. I assume they need to be 
re digitized to show them running parallel close to each other but not on top of each other?

THANKS

WesMiller · Answer

You may also be interested in The Local Government Information Model—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop there is a geometric network for water and sewer with predefined fields and domains. You'll also be able to take advantage of COTS ESRI has a available.

WoosterBe10 · Answer

Hi Katy,

I work for a municipality. While I did not create the geometric network for our water system I have some experience with networks.

There are eight feature classes that participate in our network.

Crosses

Hydrants

Mains

Nodes

Water Tanks

Tees

Valves

Junctions

All are simple junctions except for the mains. The mains have the role of complex edge.

We have a feature class of water meters. Currently the meters are not in the geometric network but will need to be added so we can take advantage of ESRI's Utility Isolation Trace App. I've been testing the Trace App with a file geodatabase of our water system where the meters are part of the geometric network. I'm not sure if it is a requirement for meters to be included in a network for all tracing tools. It is for the app. You may want to include meters in your geometric network if you plan on doing tracing.

ESRI has a suite of tools that you can download for ArcGIS called the Water Utility Network Editing and Analysis solution. It includes two Add-Ins for ArcMap and a toolbox. I've only used one tool from one of the add-ins to create a feature class of water laterals but it looks like there are a lot of very useful tools with both add-ins that can be used with water water networks. They may be very helpful with your water network.

I hope this has been helpful. Let me know if you have any questions.

Steve Maskol