8 January 2013 - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comments on the current draft of the candidate OGC GeoPackage (GPKG) Standard. The GPKG Standards Working Group will consider all comments when preparing a final draft of the candidate standard. 

Mobile device users who require geospatial application services and associated data and who operate in disconnected or limited network connectivity environments frequently do not have open, available geospatial data to support their applications. Applications include such things as mobile workforce data capture and updates, volunteered geographic information, and real time annotations of map data in an emergency event.

The candidate OGC GeoPackage (GPKG) Standard provides an open, non-proprietary, platform-independent container for distribution and direct use of all kinds of geospatial data. The GeoPackage container and related API will increase the cross-platform interoperability of geospatial applications and web services in the mobile world.  Standard APIs for access and management of GeoPackage data will provide consistent query and update results across such applications and services. 

Future enhancements to the GeoPackage standard, a future GeoPackage Web Service standard, and modifications to existing OGC Web Service (OWS) standards to use GeoPackages as exchange formats will allow OWS to support provisioning of GeoPackages throughout an enterprise or information community.

Interoperability of GeoPackage implementations by several participants is being tested and will be demonstrated in the 15 January 2013 OGC Web Services Testbed (OWS-9) Demonstration. The current reference implementation bases, SQLite and SpatiaLite, are open source resources developed by OGC members. The SQLite reference implementation is sponsored in part by the SQLite Consortium, which includes a number of OGC members. SpatiaLite is built on OS-Geo open source libraries by the president of GFOSS.it and others.

The current draft of the candidate OGC GeoPackage (GPKG) Standard can be downloaded from http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/95.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 480 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.

7 January 2013 - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®), in cooperation with Directions Media, invites you to attend an OGC GovFuture webinar to learn how Canadian organizations are using open standards to support planning, design, implementation, measurement, and visualization of Integrated Community Energy Solutions (ICES).  This free one-hour webinar will be held on 29 January 2013, at 3:00 p.m. UTC (10:00 a.m. EST).  

Ben Clark, Analyst, Climate Change Policy Unit, Ministry of Environment, Government of British Columbia, will describe the value that local and provincial stakeholders are deriving from Community Energy and Emissions Inventory (CEEI) reports for all BC communities and from the ‘next generation’ of buildings data, which provides increased ‘granularization and spatialization’ of energy usage data through Tract and Neighbourhood Data Modelling (TaNDM).

Cory Slinger, Manager of Market Development, Horizon Utilities Corporation (Ontario), will provide an overview of the value, barriers and opportunities for demand conservation programs and Smart Grid, using geospatial information (using their work as an example)  Horizon Utilities Corporation is the first company to ever be named the Sustainability Company of the Year by the Canadian Electricity Association for two consecutive years -- 2011 and 2012. www.horizonutilities.com

Eddie Oldfield will introduce a proposed Energy Spatial Data Infrastructure Test Bed (Open Call) and identify marketplace requirements that can be addressed by interoperable Web services that implement OGC interface and encoding standards. Eddie is Owner/CEO of Spatial QUEST Solutions and a Member of OGC. He is Chair of QUEST New Brunswick Caucus; Member of the National Advisory Committee, QUEST www.questcanada.org; and Member of Resilient Communities Working Group, National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (Public Safety Canada).

Please join us!

Webinar details and registration are available at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/254787154. The webinar will be in English.

This webinar is part of the OGC's GovFuture program for local and subnational governments. The OGC's affordable GovFuture-Local Government and GovFuture-Subnational Government membership levels offer local and sub-national governments unique online resources and an insight into global geospatial policy and technology developments. This OGC membership level focuses on the value of using standards to support civil government activities. GovFuture members have an opportunity to network with their peers worldwide, with representatives from other levels of government, and with suppliers and universities through OGC events and communication channels.

About the OGC

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 480 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.

About Directions Media

Directions Media's mission is to inform readers and serve advertisers. Directions Media strives to be the very best resource for geospatial professionals and information technology workers who want to understand and capitalize on location-based information. Directions Media was founded in 1998 as Directions Magazine, which continues to be the flagship publication. Directions Magazine was the first regularly published online magazine covering geospatial technology. Today Directions Media maintains several online publications including Directions Magazine and the All Points Blog and offers conferences including Location Intelligence and GEO Huntsville.