OGC Newsletter - October 2002

October 2002

CONTENTS
Presidents Message
OGC's Education and Training Commitment
What`s New on the OGC Website
OGC Interoperability Inititatives
Member Corner
New Members
OGC In The News
Events
Contact
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Back issues of OGC News are available.


PRESIDENTS MESSAGE

OGC Welcomes Provincial, State and Local Governments

For years we have looked for a way to engage governments at the province, state, and local levels in OGC. Now three factors have converged to make engagement at these levels possible.

The most important factor is the consensus work of our members to develop and make OpenGIS® Specifications publicly available. Because of this work, there is now an expanding base of applications and commercial products that actually do interoperate through widely supported industry standard interfaces.

A second factor is the maturation of OGC's Interoperability Program, which accelerates both specification development and delivery and deployment of interoperating applications. So far, fifteen Interoperability Initiatives -- both testbeds and pilot projects -- have been completed, and more are underway or in various planning stages. "Testbeds" enable OGC to bring technology users and providers together to cooperate in the rapid development, testing, validation and documentation of interfaces, schemas and reference implementations -- the documentation from testbeds is introduced into OGC's Specification Program for adoption and then public release to become OpenGIS standards. OGC "pilot projects" are designed to test and demonstrate the interoperability of applications that implement OpenGIS standards, and provide one of the most effective means by which interoperability can be demonstrated and delivered to the user community. Through its Interoperability Program OGC also seeks to deliver improved methodology and tools to test product conformance to OpenGIS Specifications and to determine whether conformant products will interoperate with one another. Such activities are critically important for all levels of government, and necessary for implementing the kind of mature market on which efficient public sector procurement needs to be based.

A third factor is the accelerating need for information sharing. While we acknowledge that everything happens locally, we also understand that the extent of these events is often regional, national and international in context. Indeed, cross-government information sharing is an increasingly vital issue and an essential focus for OGC's engagement with the public sector agencies working to address local to national mandates. Urban populations are growing, putting increasing pressure on an aging physical infrastructure that in most cases cannot be rebuilt without efficient information sharing among diverse government agencies. Actions taken to sustain infrastructure must balance with a myriad of other environmental, economic and social factors. The difficulty in integrating data between cooperating jurisdictions and the cumulative costs of redundant data collection by agencies is proving enough to motivate government planners at all levels to cooperate to find a better way forward. In concert with the efforts of various Spatial Data Infrastructure programs, OGC's programs are working to address these information sharing issues -- helping to improve the tools with which this sort of cooperation is actually possible.

OGC has entered a new phase of its community "outreach", as we respond to the requirement that our programs be more inclusive and focus on delivering the benefits of the OpenGIS technology process to public sector organizations at all levels.

We have, therefore, taken the step of establishing a new, low cost membership program designed to accommodate the special requirements of local and regional government organizations (see http://www.opengeospatial.org/info/membership.htm). In the near future, we will also be offering additional programs and online resources to help users in such organizations establish true interoperability across the various domains of their operation. We look forward to these new activities and the fresh set of perspectives they will certainly bring, to both animate our development projects, and to provide new and productive opportunities for the technology developers and providers who make the consortium process possible.

David Schell, President, OGC

OGC'S EDUCATION AND TRAINING COMMITMENT

OGC is enhancing its commitment to education and training. As part of the Outreach and Adoption Program, OGC is outlining new ways to work with students and teach professionals. Each part of the evolving program reinforces OGC's commitment to interoperability and the widespread use of spatial data and technology.

One aspect of the program is an agreement with the Institute for Professional Education (http://www.ipeseminars.org/) to collaborate on the development and delivery of GIS related training. IPE wishes to develop and begin delivering educational offerings in GIS over the coming months. Because IPE recognizes the major role of OGC in the community, its training offerings will have a major emphasis on geoprocessing interoperability and the work of OGC members. IPE's training classes become a pathway for broadening our message of interoperability to the community. IPE will draw exclusively from OGC members for GIS curriculum development and delivery. IPE GIS training programs will be held initially in North America, with the intent of expanding instruction to Europe at some time in the near future. IPE and OGC hope to begin classes early in 2003.

A second aspect is the new University Program. There are several parts to this initiative. The first one to go live will be an interoperability internship bulletin board, expected in mid-November. On the electronic board students can post their skills, preferred locations, and availability. Those seeking interns can post the nature of work, location, salary, technical requirements, etc. Those posting, both interns and employers, will focus on tasks and skills related to interoperability. Look for other university related resources in the coming months.

In the very near future, OGC will be standing up additional programs focused on interoperability training and education. Stay tuned.

Cliff Kottman, Chief Scientist

WHAT`S NEW ON THE OGC WEBSITE

The following product was added to the list of conformant products
http://www.opengeospatial.org/testing/product/index.php

Oracle Corporation
http://www.oracle.com
Oracle Spatial, release 9i (9.0.1 and 9.2.0) Specification: SFS NG 1.1 (Simple Features SQL, Normalized Geometry)

On 9 May 2002, the Board of Directors of the OGC revamped its intellectual property rights (IPR) policies and procedures. Kurt Buehler, VP & CTO, subsequently briefed these changes at the June TC. The complete postings are on the OGC web site. http://www.opengeospatial.org/about/IPR_Policy.htm

OGC INTEROPERABILITY INITITATIVES

- Conformance & Interoperability Test & Evaluation (CITE) Initiative

Ten proposals were received on 4 Oct in response to the CITE RFQ. Proposals have been reviewed, evaluated and a selection was made. An initiative kick-off is scheduled for November 7th. Look for more details in future issues.

- Open Location Services 1.1 (OLS 1.1):

At the October 24-25 conference in Reston, Virginia USA, participants in the OpenLS initiative demonstrated a set of prototype interfaces and schemas that support interoperability among location services invoked by mobile Internet devices. The demonstration was part of the first Emerging Technology Summit conferences hosted jointly by OGC and the Geospatial Information Technologies Association (GITA).

The demonstration illustrated:

- Integration with mobile terminals, wireless platforms, IP platforms, and mobile position determination systems

- Yellow page search and display

- Route determination and display

- Geocode and reverse geocode services

- Map/feature display

- Map/feature interaction

- Voice-activated direction service and friend finder

Specifications based on the prototype interfaces and schemas will be reviewed in OGC's Specification Program, where they are likely to be refined and then approved as adopted OpenGIS Implementation Specifications.

A second OLS event is scheduled for November 18 in Nice France at the Nice Acropolis. This event is organized by IIR as a pre-conference briefing for the GIS In Telecoms conference entitled "OpenLS Initiative Forum Meeting". The GIS In Telecoms conference is being held this year in conjunction with Location Based Services and TETRA 2002. For more information and/or to register, please see www.iir-conferences.com/gis

- Geospatial One Stop Transportation Pilot (GOS-TP):

The Geospatial One-Stop - Transportation Pilot (GOS-TP) Initiative RFQ was released on October 4th. Please visit http://ip.opengeospatial.org/gos-tp for more information. Proposals are due on November 8th.

For more information on OGC's Interoperability Program, please contact Jeff Harrison at jharrison [at] opengeospatial [dot] org"> jharrison [at] opengeospatial [dot] org.

MEMBER CORNER

Northrop Grumman Information Technology (IT) is a Strategic Member of the OGC because we believe that interoperable geospatial technology is key to more effective use of critical information resources across the nation and the world. TASC, a business unit of Northrop Grumman IT, has benefited from its participation in OGC, by being better able to understand and address common needs for geoprocessing interoperability. While we all can easily agree that open specifications and compatible spatial data infrastructures are important goals for government and business, we also recognize that there is a lot of work required to achieve that end. Organizations such as the OGC are leading the way toward making geospatial information and services available across any network, platform or application.

Our involvement with the OGC in activities such as the Critical Infrastructure Protection Initiative and the Conformance and Interoperability Testing and Evaluation Initiative have enabled us to partner with the geospatial community in finding workable solutions that will move us to real interoperability.

We appreciate the opportunity to work collaboratively with the OGC and look forward to playing a part in making spatial interoperability a reality.

John F. Olesak
Director, Imagery and Geospatial Systems
Northrop Grumman Information Technology
TASC

NEW MEMBERS

The Open GIS Consortium welcomes our members who've joined us since September 2002:

Altarum Institute
http://www.altarum.org
Associate

City and County of San Francisco
http://www.sfgov.org
Associate

ClassCo Inc.
http://www.classco.com
Associate

Infostrata S/A
http://www.infostrata.com.br
Associate

Integrity Applications Incorporated
http://www.integrity-apps.com
Associate

Snowflake Software Ltd
http://snowflakesoft.co.uk
Associate

OGC IN THE NEWS

- OGC in the Press

Open GIS Connection
http://www.geoplace.com/gw/2002/0210/0210ogc.asp
A Spatial Web Is Being Spun
David Schell, GEOWorld, Oct 2002

Letter to Editor
http://www.geoplace.com/gw/2002/0210/0210ltrs.asp
Clarifying the role of OGC in Homeland Security
Christopher Tucker, GEOWorld, Oct 2002

NIMA Center to Set Geospatial Standards
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/1007/pol-nima-10-07-02.asp
Dan Caterinicchia, Federal Computer Week Oct. 7, 2002

Census Tests Boundaries on Web
http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2002/0930/web-census-10-04-02.asp
Brian Robinson, Government e-Business Oct. 4, 2002

- OGC Press Releases

OGC Seeks Sponsors for Web Services Initiative Feasibility Study
http://www.opengeospatial.org/press/?page=pressrelease&year=0&prid=115
Oct 28, 2002

OGC Seeks Quotations/Participation in the GeoSpatial One-Stop Transportation Pilot Initiative and Demonstration
http://www.opengeospatial.org/press/?page=pressrelease&year=0&prid=114
Oct 04, 2002

OGC's President Receives CIO Magazine's 20/20 Award
http://www.opengeospatial.org/press/?page=pressrelease&year=0&prid=113
Oct 04, 2002

OGC Autodesk Becomes OGC Principal Plus Member
http://www.opengeospatial.org/press/?page=pressrelease&year=0&prid=110
Sep 19, 2002

EVENTS

November 18-22, 2002
Nice Acroplois, Nice, France
GIS in Telecoms
http://www.iir-conferences.com/gis

November 22, 2002
OWS 1.2 Demonstration
Gaithersburg, MD
Contact Terry Idol, terry [dot] idol [at] baesystems [dot] com

December 9-13, 2002
Thousand Oaks, California
OGC Technical and Planning Committee Meetings
http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogcEvents.htm

February 3-7, 2003
Annapolis, Maryland
OGC Technical and Planning Committee Meetings
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.