Field Operations Data Model

MapShots believes that automating crop production records is essential to advancing our industry’s ability to efficiently manage our agronomy practices in the face of so many new issues: nutrient management plans, manure management plans, watershed compliance, identity preserved markets, more sophisticated chemicals, and biological engineering, to name a few. For this reason, MapShots has dedicated a significant portion of its resources toward the development of a Field Operations Data Model (FODM™) that was designed specifically to handle the wide range of data that can be captured from our normal agricultural practices.

It is our intent to complete a Version 1 implementation of our FODM™, and then place the components and data specification into the public domain. This sub-web is dedicated to the evolving definition of the FODM™, an industry level discussion forum about the field operations data management in general, and updates on the current status of the development.

Complete technical documentation for FODM is now available.

FODM™ Implementer’s Workshop:

MapShots hosted a FODM implementer's workshop in March 2002 to introduce our FODM™ implementation to other developers. The workshop was attended by representatives of several agricultural software companies.

Describing the Field Operation Data Model:

Over time, we have learned that there are two challenges associated with describing a field operation. The first is to determine the granularity at which you try to aggregate or summarize the information. Do you group information by field, by product, or by combination of products? We have settled on the Infrequently Changing Data (ICD) concept that grew out of A*E*A discussions.

The second challenge is to describe the data that is being recorded about a field process. To meet this challenge, our FODM™ uses a sensor-based metaphor for recording any operating parameters, and it includes a detailed equipment configuration metaphor for associating sensors with the pieces of equipment that are used in a field operation.

Combining the ICD metaphor with the sensor-based data collection metaphor produces an Operating Region (courtesy of VantagePoint). These operating regions become the cornerstone of our FODM™ implementation.

An early draft of our FODM™ proposal can be found at White Papers.

Frequently Asked Questions:

MapShots has been asked many questions about this effort. You can review these Frequently Asked Questions and our responses on the FAQ page.