Applied subject / Physical environment
Source records are not the physical world.
Physical world data describes places, assets and environments through identifiers, geometries and records created by different systems. Those representations need a durable relationship to the objects they describe.
Begin with identity
01 / From records to infrastructure
A practical resolution problem
Physical world data has to be resolved before it can become reliable infrastructure.
A road, building, pipe, pole, facility or parcel may appear across government datasets, regulatory systems, GIS layers, commercial providers and organisational systems with different identifiers, geometry and attributes.
DDI’s methodology can acquire those representations, resolve how they relate to physical objects, preserve what each source says and make the resulting physical world knowledge usable by other systems.
02 / Category definition
Representations around reality
Physical world data is information associated with persistent physical objects and environments.
The same road, building, utility or other physical object may be described by many systems. Each may use its own identifier, geometry, classification or record structure.
Those differences are meaningful source representations. They are not, by themselves, proof of separate physical objects, and they should not be flattened into one unexplained version of truth.
03 / Record ≠ object
Count what exists, not only what is recorded
Multiple representations do not necessarily mean multiple objects.
A source record tells you that a system holds a representation. Establishing the relationship between representations and the physical environment requires an identity layer that remains distinct from provider or customer identifiers.
04 / Information dimensions
More than coordinates
Physical world meaning extends beyond a point on a map.
- Geospatial and physical-object data
- Spatial representations and records about persistent physical things need to remain related without becoming interchangeable.
- Addresses and coordinates
- Locations can be expressed through addresses or coordinate systems whose meaning and source need to travel with them.
- Geometry
- Points, lines and boundaries supplied by sources remain attributable representations of the physical environment.
- Facilities and infrastructure
- Roads, buildings, pipes, poles, facilities and parcels can be treated as physical objects rather than disconnected records.
- External identifiers
- Provider and system identifiers remain distinct while their relationship to the same physical object can be resolved.
- Evidence and provenance
- What each source says, where it came from and whether positions agree or conflict remain part of the information.
- Relationships
- Physical objects can be associated with other objects, places and surrounding systems without losing their own identity.
- Changing observations through time
- Historical and current observations can be retained so change is not flattened into a single unexplained value.
05 / Provenance
Preserve disagreement
Attribution is part of physical world meaning.
Two providers may describe the same environment differently. One geometry may cover a different area. One position may be provisional while another is established or conflicted.
Useful infrastructure preserves those source positions and their condition. It does not silently convert provider evidence into established physical truth.
06 / A DDI product
From category to implementation
V0 is the implementation of this methodology for physical world information.
V0 resolves different source representations around the V0 Physical Object (V0PO), the persistent physical identity used by V0, while preserving what each source says and where it came from.
Provider and customer identifiers remain distinct from the V0PO. The public V0 read boundary is source-neutral and returns physical objects rather than connector-specific source tables.
Explore V0