Feature relationships

The Relationship Manager tool maintains two types of relationships between objects:

  • Hierarchical (structure-equipment)
  • Peer to peer (collections)

With the Relationship Manager tool, you can create, edit, and delete structure-equipment and collection relationships in your data. The Relationship Manager tool is on the Maritime S-57 tab that appears when you add maritime data to the Contents pane.

Hierarchical relationships

Hierarchical relationships have designated structure and equipment features. A structure-equipment relationship is created to relate features comprising a navigational aid. Navigational aids are composed of two basic types of objects: structures and equipment. The structure object is considered the primary feature, and the related equipment are considered the secondary features. A lighted buoy is an example of a structure-equipment relationship. The buoy is the primary structure with various equipment attached to it, such as lights and navigational devices, which are considered secondary features.

To create a structure-equipment relationship between two points, the two point features must share the same x,y location. When line, area, and point geometry type features are grouped into a structure-equipment relationship, they must intersect. There may be more than one secondary feature, but only one primary feature is allowed in a structure-equipment relationship.

The following tables list the allowable structure-equipment feature objects:

Structure featureGeometry

BCNCAR

Point

BCNISD

Point

BCNLAT

Point

BCNSAW

Point

BCNSPP

Point

BOYCAR

Point

BOYINB

Point

BOYISD

Point

BOYLAT

Point

BOYSAW

Point

BOYSPP

Point

BRIDGE

Point, line, area

BUISGL

Point, area

LITFLT

Point

LITVES

Point

LNDMRK

Point, line, area

MORFAC

Point, line, area

OFSPLF

Point, area

PILPNT

Point

SLCONS

Point, line, area

CRANES

Point, area

FLODOC

Line, area

FORSTC

Point, line, area

FSHFAC

Point, line, area

HULKES

Point, area

PONTON

Line, area

PYLONS

Point, area

SILTNK

Point, area

Equipment featureGeometry

DAYMAR

Point

LIGHTS

Point

FOGSIG

Point

RADSTA

Point

RDOSTA

Point

RETRFL

Point

RTPBCN

Point

SISTAT

Point

SISTAW

Point

TOPMAR

Point

Peer-to-peer relationships

In peer-to-peer relationships, no feature's existence is dependent on another feature. Collections are considered a type of peer-to-peer relationship and can be grouped into two object classes: aggregations (C_AGGR) or associations (C_ASSO).

Association objects depict at least one feature that, when associated, better represents certain navigational situations. For example, a buoy that marks a wreck can be associated in S-57 to help the mariner see that a danger lies in the area. The buoy is not dependent on the wreck and the wreck is not dependent on the buoy.

Aggregation objects are collections of features that form a higher-level collection object that better describes a system or defines a larger area. For example, an aggregation relationship can be used to form a traffic separation scheme from traffic separation lane parts, boundaries, and so on. In the geodatabase, the collection object is stored in the PLTS_COLLECTIONS table, and its relationships to the features that compose the collection are stored in the PLTS_FREL table.

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