OGC Newsletter - April 2002

April 2002

CONTENTS
Presidents Message
News From the April OGC Meeting
OGC at FIG
What's New on the OGC Website and Beyond
Interoperability Program Update
Member Corner
New Members
OGC In The News
Events
Contact
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Back issues of OGC News are available.


PRESIDENTS MESSAGE

Non-technical users of geoprocessing in Europe will soon feel the impact OGC's ongoing work. The European Commission, informed and motivated by the European national mapping agencies and strong research and commercial communities, has gained considerable experience in Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) programs. Their comprehensive approach has addressed SDI in a series of targeted programs funded as part of broader European Union "Frameworks" which span years and provide for coordinated progress in the various elements of SDI development. The published plan for the Sixth Framework, which begins later this year, shows promise for additional support for projects to build national and pan-European infrastructures.

Louis Hecht, Chair of OGC-Europe, says, "OGCE, OGC's European arm, has much to contribute to the geospatial programs of the Sixth Framework. Programs like GINIE, ETeMII, GETIS and INSPIRE, and organizations including EUROGI, Eurogeographics and AGILE have set the scene for a remarkable increase in production and use of geospatial information. The advanced state of location services in Europe contributes to this potential. The timing is perfect for European private sector technology providers, with products based on OGC Web Services, to catalyze this activity."

OGCE is currently involved in the EC-funded GETIS (Geoprocessing Networks in a European Territorial Interoperability Study), working toward consensus on the geoprocessing framework that will provide interoperability of geospatial information and a competitive market platform in Europe. GETIS will focus on "data domains" (like "NSDI Framework layers" in the US) that have value in a wide range of activities. The GETIS effort requires that use case scenarios be used in defining requirements for geospatial interoperability interfaces, and the original "data modeling" plan is being revised to address instead "application schemas" that recognize the critical importance of OWS (OGC Web Services) in the new European geoprocessing framework.

I encourage European readers of this newsletter to contact Louis to discuss how they might benefit by helping OGCE bring open distributed geoprocessing to Europe.

David Schell
President, Open GIS Consortium

NEWS FROM THE APRIL OGC MEETING

BAE Systems hosted more than 140 participants for the OGC TC/PC in Reston Virginia, April 8 - 12. An FGDC Standards Working Group coordination meeting was held concurrently, allowing OGC and FGDC members to interact. A very effective and well-orchestrated demonstration of the results of the OGC Military Pilot Project was held as part of our Wednesday evening reception.

There was a considerable amount of significant work done during the week's SIG and WG meetings:

The newest OGC employee, Carl Katz, Director of Documentation and Knowledge Management, was introduced. Carl brings a strong documentation and knowledge management background to the OGC. He fills a long vacant position in our organization.

The Web Feature Server Revision Working Group held its first meeting and made considerable progress towards releasing version 1 of the specification.

An RFC proposal team, led by Cubewerx, presented the Style Layer Descriptor (SLD) specification proposal. The TC recommended the specification be released for public review under the rules of the OGC RFC process.

The RFP 12 submission team, led by Oracle, presented the technical content of their response to RFP 12, Feature Geometry.

Nadine of GST made an excellent presentation of the work done on the OGC Web Services initiative on Architecture (The Architecture Draft Interoperability Program Report) in the Architecture SIG.

The Catalog Revision Working Group met and made considerable progress on version 1.1 of the specification. The specification will be voted on via electronic ballot for adoption.

The WWW SIG considered a proposal for an XML POST version of the Web Map Server specification and moved that it be released as a public OGC Discussion Paper.

At the Imagery Exploitation SIG, Jeff Lansing, Polexis and the team presented the Coverage Portrayal Service DIPR. The TC moved to release this document as a public OGC Discussion Paper.

In the Earth Observation SIG, John Evans (GST) and Stephane Fellah (PCI) gave an excellent presentation on the Web Coverage Server IPR.

In the Natural Resources SIG, Simon Cox, CSIRO, gave a presentation on the Observation and Measurements IPR.

In the Natural Resources SIG, Tom McCarty (SAIC) gave a presentation on the Sensor Collection Service DIPR.

In the GML SIG, Mike Botts (University of Alabama, Huntsville) gave a presentation on the SensorML (XML for sensor metadata and geometry) DIPR.

The GML 3.0 Revision Working group continued to meet at all hours to bring closure on all the open actions and work items. GML 3.0 will be ready for OGC member review in time for the June meeting.

Many of the presentations of IPRs and DIPRs are the direct result of the creative work being done in the Interoperability Program initiatives. These documents form the basis for new OGC interface specifications. The SLD RFC is an example of the next step in moving initiative work through the formal Technical Committee review process that leads to the adoption of public OpenGIS® Specifications.

Carl Reed, Executive Director, OGC

OGC AT FIG

IG (International Federation of Surveyors 2002 XXII Congress) ran the week of April 22, 2002 in Washington DC. Interoperability played a key role in several tracks and on the show floor. OGC's Cliff Kottman joined GSDI Secretariat Alan Stevens, University of New Brunswick's John McLaughlin and the USGS's John Moeller in a Special Session on GSDI. A second session examined the US vision for GSDI. Other sessions examined data sharing on the Web using GML

Intergraph was showing off its WMS Viewer in the booth and explaining the role of the Web Map Server Specification and how the upcoming Web Feature Server Specification will enhance users' abilities to bring together geographic data on the Web.

WHAT'S NEW ON THE OGC WEBSITE AND BEYOND

OpenGIS Geography Markup Language (GML) Implementation Specification 2.1.1 is now available. http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml

The OpenGIS Project Document 02-017r1, OGC Web Map Service Implementation Specification Part 2: XML for Requests using HTTP POST, edited by Jeff de La Beaujardière is available in PDF format.

OGC Request 14: OpenGIS Styled Layer Descriptor Implementation Specification will be available soon. http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests

Cadcorp's SIS OLE DB Provider 6.0 has tested conformant to the Simple Feature Specification for COM. http://www.opengeospatial.org/resource/products/compliant/#Cadcorp

Snowflake Software announced GO Loader, a software tool for modeling and loading GML (Geography Markup Language) data into Oracle spatial databases. http://www.snowflakesoft.co.uk

INTEROPERABILITY PROGRAM UPDATE

The OGC Interoperability Program (IP) is a global, collaborative, hands-on engineering and testing program designed to deliver proven candidate interface specifications into the OGC Specification Development Program.

Multi-hazard Mapping Initiative (MMI)

After an unexpected delay, the Multi-Hazard Mapping Initiative is once again proceeding toward a demonstration of the sharing and collaborative exploitation of natural hazards data. This demonstration is scheduled for May 9, 2002 at 1:30. Scenarios for the planning and mitigation of natural hazards focus on California and North Carolina. A number of geographically dispersed servers host the data, which is accessed using OGC interfaces. FEMA is the initiative sponsor and participating companies include CubeWerx, Compusult, Harvard Design and Mapping, ESRI and SAIC.

Conformance & Interoperability Test & Evaluation (CITE) Initiative

The OGC has announced a Call for Sponsors for the OGC Conformance & Interoperability Test & Evaluation (CITE) Initiative. Set to commence in May 2002, the CTIE Initiative will focus on the development of a conformance-testing engine, test guidelines, and test scripts for testing and validation of products with interfaces implementing OpenGIS Web Map Server and Web Feature Server Specifications, Geography Markup Language (GML), and other OpenGIS Implementation Specifications.

OGC Web Services - 1.2 (OWS - 1.2)

Sponsors of OWS-1.2 are currently evaluating responses to the Request for Quotations The kickoff is planned for May 20th, in Herndon, VA, just outside Washington D.C.

Military Pilot Project (MPP-1)

At the request of sponsors, the MPP-1 demo was presented at the 40th Technical Committee meeting, following the Wednesday night reception. Senior officials from agencies in the U.S., Canada, and other dignitaries were present to have a look at the results of participants' hard work. The demonstration reaffirmed that interoperability can work in real world situations.

Critical Infrastructure Protection Initiative (CIPI-1)

The third CIPI planning meeting was held in March. Sponsors are moving forward towards multiple potential pilot projects. The initiative is expected to have a "Call for Communities" seeking those working in similar disciplines such as mapping organizations or transportation agencies to define areas for exploration.

Geospatial One-Stop Transportation Pilot (GOS-TP)

The Geospatial One-Stop is a part of the new US Office of Management and Budget E-Government initiative to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and customer service throughout the Federal Government. The strategy, adopted by the President's Management Council (PMC) in October 2001 implements the "Expanding Electronic Government" reform outlined in the President's Management Agenda. Geospatial One-Stop will revolutionize E-Government by providing a geographic component for use in all Internet based E-Government activities across local, state, tribal and Federal government. The implementation of the Geospatial One-Stop will:

- Provide standards and models for the geospatial framework data content;

- Provide an interactive index to geospatial data holdings at the Federal and non-Federal levels;

- Initiate interaction between Federal, state, and local agencies about existing and planned spatial data collections; and

- Provide an online access point to geospatial data.

OGC's initiative aims to provide an end-to-end pilot demonstration of the Geospatial One-Stop implementation for Road Transportation Network. Specifically, this initiative will include development of an Object Model for Road Transportation Network in the Unified Modeling Language (UML); development of a capability to generate Geography Markup Language application schemas (GML) from UML models; and demonstrations of Web Feature Servers on top of at least two legacy transportation data systems.

Organizations interested in sponsoring or participating in OGC Interoperability Program initiatives should contact Jeff Harrison at (703) 491-9543.

MEMBER CORNER

Cadcorp is a relative newcomer in the GIS software community, and as such, transparency with other systems is a vital element in our growing success. Central to our activity of creating leading-edge GIS products is our membership of the Technical Committee of the OGC. Together with the rest of the TC membership, despite variations in size, nature and interest, we have the genuine objective of achieving interoperability of GIS software, geographic data and its distribution.

Cadcorp has invested significant resource to OGC; not only attending meetings and contributing to the specification process, but also, and perhaps more significantly, by delivering these standard interfaces to end users in our commercially available software, Cadcorp SIS - Spatial Information System. A glance at the OGC Implementing Products and Conformant Products web pages will underline this, demonstrating our commitment to both implementation and conformance.

Furthermore, being UK-based, the release of the GML2-based Ordnance Survey MasterMap product has meant that both we, and our UK users, are now making practical, everyday use of the very latest in OGC specifications. In a nutshell, much of OpenGIS guides our development work and we remain heavily committed to it.

Martin Daly
Technical Director
Cadcorp Ltd

NEW MEMBERS

The Open GIS Consortium welcomes our members who've joined us since March 2002.

Booz Allen & Hamilton
http://www.bah.com
Technical Committee

DeLorme
http://www.delorme.com
Associate

gate5 AG
http://www.gate5.de
Associate

Geographical Survey Institute
www.gsi.go.jp/ENGLISH/
Associate

PlanGraphics
http://www.plangraphics.com
Associate

OGC IN THE NEWS

-OGC in the Press

Insist on Interoperability! http://www.geoplace.com/gw/2002/0204/0204opn.asp Louis Hecht Jr. outlines why and how to put Interoperability at the top of your technology and procurement policy requirements.

- OGC Press Releases

Apr 19, 2002 Carl Katz Joins OGC as Director of Documentation and Knowledge Management http://www.opengeospatial.org/press/?page=pressrelease&year=0&prid=93

April 18, 2002 OGC and AMI-C Partner to Explore Cross Industry Interoperability for Location Services http://www.opengeospatial.org/press/?page=pressrelease&year=0&prid=92

April 5, 2002 OGC Demonstrates Geographic Web Services Interoperability http://www.opengeospatial.org/press/?page=pressrelease&year=0&prid=91

Apr 04, 2002 OGC To Support I-TEAM Initiative With Technology Assistance Group http://www.opengeospatial.org/press/?page=pressrelease&year=0&prid=90

Mar 29, 2002 OGC Project to Advance Geo-Interoperability for Sustainable Development
http://www.opengeospatial.org/press/?page=pressrelease&year=0&prid=89

EVENTS

June 10-14, 2002
London, England,OGC Technical and Planning Committee Meetings,
Hosted by Cadcorp, Ltd.

July 22-26, 2002. Vancouver, B.C., Canada GML Developer Days Galdos Systems will hosting the first ever GML Developers' conference focusing on Geography Markup Language (GML) the emerging world geo-spatial data standard. OGC is sponsoring the event, which includes public and OGC only sessions. http://www.gmldev.org/

September 9-13, 2002 Noordwijk, (Holland) The Netherlands OGC Technical and Planning Committee Meetings hosted by Shell International Exploration and Production, Inc.

OGC Events Calendar
http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogcEvents.htm

For further info on events please contact Greg Buehler,
gbuehler [at] opengeospatial [dot] org.

CONTACT

Please send comments and suggestions to:

Adena Schutzberg
Editor, OGC News
adena [at] opengeospatial [dot] org

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Copyright 2002 by the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.