OGC Newsletter - December 2004
December 2004
CONTENTS
President's MessageDGI 2005Website of the Month
DEPARTMENTS:
IP Update, New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe
Back issues of OGC News are available.
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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
Sharing the Return on Investment (ROI)
Emergency managers resource planners, intelligence analysts and other professionals who care about having access to diverse spatial data and services welcome new examples of Web-based geospatial solutions that implement OGC standards. Each new implementation gets a return on others' investments in implemented and deployed interoperable solutions. The organizations that pay for the solutions, of course, also enjoy a return on their investments.
That's how it is with standards. The more broadly they are used, the more the community benefits. The group of organizations in the OGC that made a small investment in developing the OpenGIS® Web Map Service (WMS®) Specification created something that now benefits hundreds of other organizations around the globe. Data in those new WMS-enabled nodes on the Spatial Web are available simply through organizational policy decisions to share and access is no longer encumbered by technical barriers to interoperation.
WMS is a good example because this OGC standard has been around a while. WMS is widely implemented and is relatively simple to implement and explain. But we want all of our specifications to become widely used. Toward that end, OGC staff works with members and partners to undertake well defined harmonization and outreach activities. A key ingredient in this approach is to highlight illustrations of how open standards, implemented in organizational systems and enterprise solutions, have improved business and government service provision, decision making and communication.
We encourage you to send us a brief email about applications that use OGC standards. We welcome well documented user stories, of course, but we also welcome one-sentence notes inviting us to contact somebody about what they have done. These will be published on our website in the "OGC User" online magazine, "Web Site of the Month" in the "OGC News," or perhaps in articles in the geospatial trade press. Success stories are tremendously important. Also, we encourage you to respond to surveys like the return on investment survey currently underway from Geospatial Information Technologies Association (GITA). Help us build the wave!
Mark Reichardt
President, OGC
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DGI 2005
DGI 2005, Europe's first Defense Geospatial event, is taking place on the 25th-27th of January 2005. Featuring some of Europe and North America's leading experts from the geospatial community, DGI 2005 will provide a unique opportunity to meet with the people shaping the development of geospatial ideas and applications.
Louis Hecht, OGC Chair (Europe) will be joined by Air Vice Marshall Stuart Peach, Director General, Intelligence Collection, MoD UK, Dr Vanessa Lawrence, Director General, Ordnance Survey, UK, Brigadier General Dale 'Muddy' Waters, Military Executive, US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Air Commodore Ron Cook, Director of Equipment Capability, ISTAR, MoD UK · Michael M. Thomas, Vice President and General Manager, Geospatial Intelligence Solutions, IS&S, Lockheed Martin, Lt. General Nicolò Pollari, Director, Italian Intelligence And Security Services (SISMI), Rear Admiral Tim McGee, Commander, Naval Oceanography Command, US Navy, Brigadier Nick Rigby, Director, Defence Intelligence Joint Environment (DIJE), MoD UK, and John Loader, Director, UK Business Development - Information Systems Sector, BAE SYSTEMS.
OGC will lead an Interoperability Focus Day featuring cutting edge demonstrations from some of the worlds leading companies -- seamlessly fused together.
DGI will cover the gathering, analysis and dissemination of data and will examine the issues that matter most today, including interoperability, multi-intelligence data-fusion, defining the recognized environmental picture, mapping the urban environment, homeland security, standards, imagery and metadata.
For more information or to register, visit the website.
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The main goal of Lifemapper, hosted by Informatics Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas, is to provide species maps and prediction models. Users can key-in a common or scientific name and get a map, or alternatively, start with a blank map and add species. The maps can also be accessed as a Web Service. The website puts it this way: "The Lifemapper Web Mapping Service (WMS) is a web service that allows clients to utilize the Lifemapper data without going through the Lifemapper website." It goes on to explain how to use a URL to access data. The GetCapabilities URL is
http://www.lifemapper.org/Services/WMS?
Service=WMS&Request=GetCapabilities
Where do the data come from? "The Lifemapper project needs geo-referenced data in order to achieve its goals. We get our data from network of biodiversity databases that are accessible over the Internet. At this time, almost all of our sources utilize the Species Analyst architecture. This implementation involves Z3950 protocol and XML in order to allow direct information retrieval from participating databases over the Internet."
Know of a website that uses OpenGIS specifications to solve a real world problem or demonstrates an interesting use? Drop the editor an e-mail with the details including the URL, organization behind the website, specifications used, technology used and the goal of the website.
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IP UPDATE
OGC Web Services Phase 2 (OWS2)
Interoperability Program Reports for the OWS2 Interoperability Testbed are being finalized and will be made available to the OGC Specification Program for consideration during the January 2005 Technical Committee (TC) meeting. Various TC Work Groups will consider how the results of OWS2 can advance and be incorporated into the OGC Technical Baseline. The OWS2 results include change requests for several existing specifications (e.g., Web Feature Service [WFS], Web Coverage Service [WCS]).
OWS2 advanced several new services including the Web Image Classification Service, Web Coordinate Transformation Service, and a Workflow Chaining Service. OWS2 made great progress in the methods to develop GML Application Schemas. Compliance tests and reference implementations are now available for several new specifications based on OWS2 activities.
OGC Web Services Phase 3 (OWS3)
OWS-3 continues to gather momentum. Multiple sponsors have expressed interest in several topic areas including Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) for both in-situ and remote sensing observations; Geo-Digital Rights Management (GeoDRM); Common Architecture; Geo-Decision Support Services (GeoDSS); and Compliance Testing. A Request for Information (RFI) was released by OGC on "Contextual State Description" Services. A preliminary conclusion of this RFI is that the OASIS WS_Context specification answers many but not all, of the requirements in the CSD RFI. The RFI remains open and responses are encouraged:
http://www.opengeospatial.org/specs/?page=requests&request=rfi20
If you organization has use cases that can be advanced by sponsoring any of the threads identified in the previous paragraph, contact George Percivall (see below). We have begun development of the OWS3 RFQ which will be released in the next few months aiming for an OWS3 kickoff in March 2005.
For more information on the Interoperability Program, please contact George Percivall.
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NEW MEMBERS
OGC welcomes new members who joined us recently.
IMAA-CNR (Istituto de Metodologie per l'Analisi Ambientale - Consiglio Naziionale delle Ricerche) (Italy)
University
Miduell Informatika S.r.l. (Italy)
Small Company
University of Canterbury, Computer Science & Software Engineering (New Zealand)
University
University of Idaho (US)
University
University of Memphis (US)
University
University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK)
University
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- OGC in the Press
Intergraph Successful in GML Relay
December 2, 2004
GeoTango develops 3D Tool for Interactive Visualization
Dec 1, 2004
Mapping and Markup, Part 1
John E. Simpson
XML.com
Nov 24, 2004
ESRI Deploys OpenLS GeoMobility Server at TeliaSonera
Nov 15, 2004
320 New Features in Free Manifold System Upgrade
Nov 10, 2004
Call for Input on Geospatial Digital Rights Management Survey
Government Technology
Nov 5, 2004
Web Mapping with SVG
Roger Harwell
Directions Magazine
Nov 2, 2004
International Standards Organization Adopts GIS Specification
Government Technology
Nov 1, 2004
PA Awarded Federal Information Technology Grant to Enhance Homeland Security Efforts
OGC Announces New Trademark Licensing Fee Structure
December 6, 2004
OGC Requests Information on Contextual State Description Services
November 10, 2004
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EVENTS
January 17-20, 2005
New York, NY
OGC Technical and Planning Committee Meetings
January 25, 2005
London, UK
DGI 2005
February 13-16, 2005
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
GeoTec Event Providing Perspective, Gaining Insight
March 6-9, 2005
Denver, Colorado, USA
GITA's Annual Conference 28 - Crossing Boundries:
April 4-7, 2005
Frascati, Italy
OGC Technical and Planning Committee Meetings
April 16, 2005
Cairo, Egypt
8th International Conference for Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI-8)
June 9-10, 2005
Stockholm, Sweden
ISO/TC 211 20th Plenary
For further info on events please contact Greg Buehler.
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CONTACT
Please send comments and suggestions to:
Adena Schutzberg
Editor, OGC News
Open Geospatial Consortium
35 Main Street Suite 5
Wayland MA 01778-5037
USA Phone: +1 508 655 5858
Fax: +1 508 655 2237
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Copyright 2004 by the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
Updated: 2006-06-06 15:43:24 EDT
