MARCUS WIGAN mputcr-basecl yst m. fr th delivery of enginecrin• inf r-mation· ue begi nn ing to bec<> me co~ t-effc· tive for a gr wing mnnber of road and civil engineering npplicntions. ptical media. mastering. and authoring requirement arc xpl reel, and the eri u pr blems inherent in ihc C\laluntion of the use mad or· uch systems are con. idered. xamples of the ap1 r priate use of analog (La· ervision) and digiial (D RO 1) forms or optical storage in various tnin von applications ar given. Th· ability to handle high-quality image nnd text. ro acce. s stanclnrds-t1pproved computer pr grnm, r r peciric applicati ns within the ontexc of a''rtified S1< 111d· u· d. and the rapid hange in accc si ility to digital terrain< lnd· a la. tral dilta are about to have ft nmjor impact on road engineering and training.-xa mple~ or hyper! xt nnd expen· y tem I'r thi· purpo. c are 1ww Icing tested 11. part of:: I pro jeer evaluating Ull<.: nh< JllCCU\I'r ion (the third CditiOll) f A 11· 1rnfit111 Rai11faff u111/R1111off, and these methods arc bein, l'aluared for their ability b< th to deliwr inr rmation more cheaply and for their potentlal L impr vc engineering practice. D ROM optical disk delivery forms a key part of thi procc s. The loca-Lional requirements of p< Wement, iraffic. road, and trnn port information systems all point to greater use of G IS method. s a direct result of evcral Ausiralian review of mm· portation urvey darn need and u s, the u· e b th or G IS methods f> r dnra integration and r optical n edia for collated and ec nomic di~ trib ution and archival accc~ have emerged in Au tn: tlia a widely recognized requirements of all future such surveys.

The requirement for mass storage device both with imaging and data capacity hav been gro~ ing for some tirnc. Th combined ability to acce s visual infonnati n random!, as ociated with selected items of information drawn from a mass of data, is attractive to many different road application engineers. A parallel thrust ha. been the w rid-wide growth of the 300-mm a ervi ion disk formal in the markets for computer-ha ed training and museum collection recording and display. Road and tran· purl applications include