The release of 10.1 is closing in with many of you already in possession of the prerelease version of the software. For those of you using the Telecom Data Model and Fiber Editing Tools you are probably wondering if these will be updated? Well the answer is yes, and for those of you anxious to test things out we are releasing an early beta of the tools running on 10.1 Prerelease.
The 10.1 release of the tools adds some significant changes and improvements:
- Fiber cable configurations are now user editable via an XML file. This allows you to specify any size and configuration of cable. The old drop downs for Buffer Tube and Strand counts are gone. A new GUI is available to allow easy selection of cable configuration.
- Trace reports are now also configurable again via an XML file where the user can specify the fields for each type of object to report on. The report now also gives a tree view of the trace and allows feature locations to be flashed on the map from the report.
- The extension initialization process now only enables the tools only when a valid telecom Mxd workspace is opened. So less intrusive into your other work. This process also checks the tools config file to see if the configuration values are valid for the given workspace. Information and any problems found are sent to a new log window that can be viewed to help diagnose setup problems. While these checks aren’t exhaustive it should catch a lot of the potentials issues.
- The installer Setup.exe is now gone replaced with AddIn architecture versions of the tools and toolbar. As a result all windows are now also dock-able.
- The device and cable feature construction tools are gone with all creation done using out the box construction tools. This will ease the setting up of any new Mxd’s.
- The feature creation process has been optimized and profiled allowing for the creation and population of a 864 strand cable and all its relationships in just a few seconds.
- Data model changes are few with the # Buffer Tubes and # Strands domains being removed. For this reason these tools will NOT work on your old databases without some small changes that we will provide a GP model and some python code to execute.
We wont be releasing the code at this time but will for the final release of 10.1. The beta version of the tools can be downloaded here. The zip contains an Mxd configured against the latest data model. The zip also contains an AddIn folder. This contains the telecom tools and can be installed like any other AddIn (simply double click the .esri.AddIn file – this file is not digitally signed at this time).
NOTE: Please do not run these tools against your existing databases. While it might appear to run ok your database will be corrupted if you do so. Update instructions will be provided with the initial full release of the tools.
If you have comments, feedback or suggestions please feel free to comment below or email us at telecom_templates@esri.com.
Regards,
Team Telecom
Does the new release support fiber cables that contain more than 2 levels of detail (fiber and buffer)? Higher count fiber cables often have 3 to 4 levels (Fiber, Buffer, Tube, Bundle, etc.);e.g., a 576 fiber cable with 12 fibers per buffer, 4 buffers per tube and then 12 tubes per cable). Additional levels can also be used to accomodate DWDM with the smallest level being the channel.
If not, is it on the horizon?
Hi Dan,
Do you have technical reference sheet URLs for these cables types that you can point me at so i can take a deeper look at your requirements?
These types of configuration may well be beyond the scope of the Esri template tools. The 10.1 release of the tools did add a lot more flexibility to the configuration of cables but it does not allow for the modelling of tubes containing micro tubes etc The Esri business partners such as AFO, Telvent, Telcordia/Ericsson, Enghouse, 3-GIS etc i would imagine can model these types of cable configurations.
Send me some more info though and i’ll check it out.
Regards,
mark
Hi Guys,
Well firstly thanks for the great tools and the work behind it all. No matter how I edit the fiber XML config file for the fiber type (# of buffers, # of fibers) it still pops up with the original default as shipped, am I missing something to be able to apply the XML file edits in order to add additional fiber configs (we use multiple types of 48 strand 4×12, 6×8, 8×6)?
Is there a rough “guestimate” as to when the code will be released (or at least documentation)?
Thanks in advance
Peter
Hi Peter,
Apologies on slowness of response. Been out for a few weeks on work related trips.
Regarding the fiber configuration heres the trick… when the plugin installs it actually copies the config files to a different location on your computer so you either need to edit the xml file before you double click the addin to install or edit the location that the addin gets placed. To find the actual location of the file go to this equivalent location on your computer C:Users[your login name]AppDataLocalESRIDesktop10.1AssemblyCache
[Assembly Cache] might not show but just type it into the path it is there!
After that you may have one or more GUID name folders… for me it was this C:Usersmark3773AppDataLocalESRIDesktop10.1AssemblyCache{B3E2DBB9-3148-1551-B221-84CBE2D6024F}
In there you will find the actual xml files the tools use and these are what needs to get edited. You will have to stop and restart editing to pickup any changes.
I need to get the code posted. SP1 releases very very soon (like a few days bar any problems), i’ll recompile on that test any changes and push code then.
Again sorry for delay.
Regards,
Mark
Esri Technical Marketing – Telecommunications Team
PS when you start a telecom editing session via its tool bar the location it is accessing for the fiber configuration xml file is pushed to the log file. So after you start editing click the telecom log tool (last one on toolbar) to see the location of the xml file
Regards,
mark
Thank Mark, Very helpful as always. I managed to find it although the editing (via notepad) messed with the XML by adding a number of non-compliant characters at the beginning of the XML statement which remained unseen until I edited the file in “Xray-XML” editor, then it all worked a charm. Now going to try to figure out a simple way to add the fiber strand colours rather than filtering the “fiber” table and manually changing, (unless you guys have a trick up your sleeve).
Once again, thanks
Regards
Peter