OGC Newsletter - July 2003

July 2003

CONTENTS

Southeast European Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference (SEE-SDI 2003)

DEPARTMENTS:
IP Update, New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe

Back issues of OGC News are available.

PRESIDENTS MESSAGE

OWS-2 Testbed to Begin

Over the last two years, OGC members have been very successful in developing OGC Web Services (OWS), a set of OpenGIS(R) Specifications that enable diverse geoprocessing systems to interoperate using the IT industry's Web Services infrastructure. OWS has become the core technology of the Spatial Web, which represents a paradigm shift in the way people will find, publish and use geographic information and services. Vendors are implementing these specifications in their products, customers are buying the products, and agencies of all sizes are refining their procurement plans to be sure they get solutions that give them all the benefits of ope Web access to geospatial data and processing services.

The Consortium is now moving to the next phase of OWS development. In the near future, OWS-2 begins. OWS-2 is being sponsored by General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Navigation Technologies, Northrop Grumman Information Technology, Photon Research Associates, Questerra, SPOT Image, Sun Microsystems, the US Department of Defense, the US Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), Webraska and other organizations.

Guided by the sponsors' requirements, participating technology providers will mature the OGC Technical Baseline and further develop the geospatial interoperability framework the sponsors need. The sponsors seek to continue development of an industry standard foundation based on Web Services technology that will reduce the need for custom protocols and interfaces, enable the migration of legacy systems to a Web-centric environment, and allow them to easily incorporate future Web Services enterprise productivity enhancements. OWS-2 will help mature the most important OGC Web Services (Web Map Server, Web Feature Server, Web Coverage Server, Geography Markup Language, Web Registry Service, Location Services and other OpenGIS Specifications) so they comprise a robust, effective, end-to-end Web Services framework to meet major spatial enterprise information access, dissemination, and update requirements. This work will proceed in activities focused on Information Interoperability (helping to make geospatial information from multiple organizations seamlessly usable), Sensor Web Enablement, Decision Support and Image Handling, Common Architecture, G-Commerce and OpenGIS Location Services. One goal of OWS-2 is to "profile" or "extend" OGC Web Services with the basic message exchange and description models of mainstream Web Services. The final major piece to OWS-2 is an effort to promote the development of test platforms using commercial software to ensure that OGC Web Services deliver the interoperable functionality required in today's market.

I applaud the commitment of these sponsors, some of whom have worked together in OGC for almost a decade to make interoperability a reality. And I extend a personal invitation to other organizations to become part of OWS-2. It's not too late to make a difference. What kind of interoperability solutions would be most helpful to your organization? Web Services, and OGC Web Services, are rapidly moving to the mainstream. OWS-2 provides an opportunity for you to support and steer this progress so that the results will be optimal from your point of view.

For additional information on OWS-2, please contact Jeff Harrison, OGC's Executive Director, Program Development (703-491-9543, jharrison [at] opengeospatial [dot] org).

David Schell, President, OGC

GML DEV DAYS CONFERENCE

The 2nd Annual GML Developers Conference 2003, GML Dev Days, was held July 20-24 in Vancouver, B.C., hosted by Galdos Systems and sponsored by nine companies and agencies. 100 attendees from 16 countries participated. Kurt Buehler, OGC's Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, gave the first of three keynote addresses. Twenty-seven papers were presented, two panel discussions were held, companies exhibited GML products and services, and courses on GML, SVG and OGC Web Services were offered. The papers covered a broad range of implementation topics and reports on new applications being developed and deployed around the world, including Paul Daisey's report on the US Census Bureau's evaluation of TIGER/GML GML 3.0 in the OGC CIPI-2 WebTIGER and WebBAS pilot projects, and Fiona Bruce's report on Ordnance Survey's use of GML in the delivery of several of their products.

A joint ISO/OGC GML Revision Working Group meeting was held for two days following the conference. Key issues were resolved and GML is clearly moving forward to achieving ISO standard status. http://www.gmldev.org/

UPCOMING INTEROPERABILITY EVENT

The Institute for Defense & Government Advancement will host the 2003 Interoperability conference, a forum for the exchange of ideas on ways to address interoperability in the US military. This conference will include high-level discussions from the Services, OSD, Joint Staff, Combatant Commands, Federal Agencies and Industry on ways to manage process and systems integration across the Department of Defense and related federal departments. Sessions will address ways that interoperability in the information age can create synergy in the Department of Defense enterprise and increased joint warfighting advantage in the operational theater. OGC is supporting this event, scheduled for October 15 - 17, 2003 at the Doubletree Hotel Crystal Cit, Arlington, VA.

The Spatial Technologies Industry Association (STIA) along with many sponsors will host GEO-INTEL 2003, an event for private sector executives, Department of Defense and intelligence community leaders, White House and federal government officials, Members of Congress and Congressional staff, state and local government officials, homeland security directors, and emergency management and public safety administrators. GEO-INTEL 2003 will highlight the role of geospatial technologies in securing our homeland from terrorist threats and defending our Nation from Weapons of Mass Destruction. OGC is participating and invites members and interested parties to attend as well. The event runs October 14-17 in New Orleans.

SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE CONFERENCE (SEE-SDI 2003)

OGC members are invited to participate in the Southeast European Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference (SEE-SDI 2003), to be held 23 and 24 October 2003 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The aim of the conference is to present the status of spatial data infrastructures in South East Europe, to demonstrate their political, economic and social importance, and to review and discuss the funding and partnerships that are coming together to fund them. There will be high level political and business participation from countries of the region. Results of the European Commission funded GISEE project, ³GIS Technology and Market in South East Europe,² will be presented. There will be presentations on international partnerships and SDI financing sources, including Sixth Framework support for GMES, Galileo, INSPIRE and other programs. The conference will be preceded by tutorials on interoperability and on INSPIRE, the European Spatial Data Infrastructure initiative. OGC members are invited to participate as sponsors and exhibitors. Presentations are by invitation only.
www.tu-sofia.bg

IP UPDATE

Conformance & Interoperability Testing & Evaluation Initiative (CITE)

The CITE development team has established methods to test and evaluate OpenGIS Specification conformant interfaces and products that implement them. A series of beta testing periods for the Web-based conformance testing engine, along with tests for WMS, WFS and GML was completed in June and July. The CITE team received valuable feedback from OGC membership and have recently released an updated suite of conformance testing tools. The final beta period will run from 31 July to 13 August. If you have software that could be tested, please participate in the next beta test! Release of this conformance engine is planned for the beginning of September. To participate, please contact Jennifer Marcus, CITE Initiative Manager, jen [at] opengeospatial [dot] org.

Critical Infrastructure Protection Initiative Pilot One, Build 2 (CIPI-1.2)

CIPI-1.2 is focused on standing up a node of OGC services and clients at a site supporting the Department of Defense. In addition, CIPI-1.2 is developing Web Feature Service (WFS) Extensions, examining aspects of geospatial security and continuing the schema translation work that was one of the outcomes of GOS-TP (see below). The initiative has so far produced two Draft Interoperability Program Reports (DIPRs) for the WFS Extensions, one on a basic GML 3 schema profile and another on working with GML 3 topologies and complex geometries. Additionally, there is a DIPR on the extended schema translation effort. The DOD node will be an operational node that is an instance of the Critical Infrastructure Collaborative Environment (CICE) Architecture that was submitted for comments at the last Technical Committee meeting. Overall, CIPI-1.2 provides users and vendors with hands-on experience with implementations of the OpenGIS Services and GML 3 Specifications.

Geographic Objects Initiative (GO-1)

This testbed is completed and has entered the specification process. Through GO-1 a set of platform independent models and software classes for building applications was developed. Implementations of these classes are being exercised through a series of pilots for the initiative sponsors, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). The Geographic Objects approach, which is based on UML models and Model Driven Architecture, has been shown to work well. It is expected to provide a very useful foundation for interoperability among diverse and complex decision support systems, among other applications. The "Application Objects Interoperability Program Report (IPR)" was presented at the June 2003 OGC Technical Committee (TC) meeting. The team expects to present this IPR at the October TC meeting for consideration as a Request for Comment (RFC), and a final vote of approval is planned for the January TC meeting.

Geospatial One-Stop Transportation Pilot (GOS-TP)

The GOS-TP pilot illustrated that transportation data held in different databases, schemas, and file formats under different servers can be translated on the fly (through OpenGIS Web Feature Server Specification conformant interfaces and XML tools) into a common GML application schema. The application is nearing completion and will be demonstrated at the US DOT in August. The technical issues will be presented at the October Technical Committee meeting. The initiative involved building four active server nodes hosting transportation data (representative of the data of the State of California, the State of Oregon, Jackson County Oregon, and Siskiyou County California), accessible and viewable through a simple prototypical Web-based application.

OGC Web Services 2 (OWS-2)

OWS-2 moved forward in July with a successful review of the Request for Proposals (RFP) document. The Request for Quotations (RFQ) is now under development. Initiative Sponsors have been working with the IP team to further develop the list of interoperability requirements to be addressed. This is a key testbed initiative, with growing momentum and scope and a growing list of sponsors. (See the President's Message above.)