Best Practices

Documents containing discussion of best practices related to the use and/or implementation of an adopted OGC document and for release to the public. Best Practices Documents are an official position of the OGC and thus represent an endorsement of the content of the paper. Schemas for some of these documents can be at the Best Practices Schema Repository.

Document Title (click to download)	Version	Document #	Editor	Date
A URN namespace for the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)	0.4	07-107r3	Carl Reed	2008-05-02
This document describes a URN (Uniform Resource Name) namespace that is engineered by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) for naming persistent resources published by the OGC. The formal Namespace identifier (NID) is "ogc".
Binary Extensible Markup Language (BXML) Encoding Specification	0.0.8	03-002r9	Craig Bruce	2006-01-18
This OGC Best Practices document specifies a binary encoding format for the efficient representation of XML data, especially scientific data that is characterized by arrays of numbers. This encoding format is applicable to any application that uses XML format.
Compliance Test Language (CTL) Best Practice	0.6.0	06-126r2	Chuck Morris	2009-07-21
This document establishes Compliance Test Language, an XML grammar for documenting and scripting suites of tests for verifying that an implementation of a specification complies with the specification.
Definition identifier URNs in OGC namespace	1.3	07-092r3	Arliss Whiteside	2009-01-15
This document specifies Universal Resource Names (URNs) in the “ogc” URN namespace to be used for identifying definitions. These definitions include definitions of Coordinate Reference Systems (CRSs) and related objects, as specified in OGC Abstract Specification Topic 2: Spatial referencing by coordinates, plus several other resource types for which standard identifiers are useful in OGC Web Services. This document specifies the formats used by these URNs, including formats that can reference definitions recorded in the EPSG database and by other authorities. This document also specifies URNs for some specific definitions for which OGC is the custodian.
DGIWG WMS 1.3 Profile and systems requirements for interoperability for use within a military environment	0.9.0	09-102	Cyril Minoux	2009-09-02
This document specifies requirements for systems providing maps using OGC Web Map Service. The document defines a profile of OGC WMS 1.3 implementation standard [WMS1.3], a list of normative system requirements and a list of non-normative recommendations. The Defence Geospatial Information Working Group (DGIWG) performed the work as part of through the S05 Web Data Access Service Project of the Services & Interfaces Technical Panel.
EO Products Extension Package for ebRIM (ISO/TS 15000-3) Profile of CSW 2.0	0.1.9	06-131r4	Renato Primavera	2008-07-08
This OGC® document specifies the Earth Observation Products Extension Package for ebRIM (ISO/TS 15000-3) Application Profile of CSW 2.0, based on the [OGC 06-080r3] OGC® GML Application Schema for EO Products.
FGDC CSDGM Application Profile for CSW 2.0	0.0.12	06-129r1	Patrick Neal, John Davidson, Bruce Westcott	2006-12-26
The OpenGIS® Catalogue Service Interface Standard 2.0.1 - FGDC CSDGM Application Profile for CSW 2.0 explains how Catalogue Services based on the FGDC Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) [http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/projects/FGDC-standards-projects/metadata/base-metadata/index_html] Application Profile for the OpenGIS® Catalogue Service Interface Standard v2.0.1 [http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/cs] are organized and implemented for the discovery, retrieval and management of data metadata.
Gazetteer Service - Application Profile of the Web Feature Service Implementation Specification	0.9.3	05-035r2	Jens Fitzke, Rob Atkinson	2006-07-27
This document defines a Gazetteer Service profile of the OGC Web Feature Service Specification. The OGC Gazetteer Service allows a client to search and retrieve elements of a georeferenced vocabulary of well-known place-names.
GeoPDF Encoding Best Practice Version 2.2	0.5.1	08-139r2	Patrick Graves, Carl Reed	2009-04-16
The intended audience of this document is a developer of software for creating GeoPDF®. It specifies how to create the necessary PDF objects that identify a region of the PDF page as a map and describe the map’s coordinate systems. Map creation and rendering to a PDF page are not addressed. The underlying PDF file format is not addressed. The file format is specified in PDF Reference[1] . The reader will need knowledge of PDF objects and document structure. An understanding of cartographic projections and datums will also be helpful. Information about these can be found in Map Projections – A Working Manual[2] . Though written with the PDF 1.7 file format in mind, this Best Practice is believed to be valid for all versions of the PDF file specification prior to PDF 1.7.
GML Application Schema for EO Products	0.9.0	06-080r2	Jerome Gasperi	2007-08-16
This document defines an application schema of the Geography Markup Language (GML) version 3.1.1 for describing Earth Observation products (EO products) within the HMA (Heterogeneous EO Missions Accessibility) Application Profile for the OGC
GML Encoding of Discrete Coverages (interleaved pattern)	0.2.0	06-188r1	Simon Cox	2007-05-17
This specification describes a GML encoding for discrete coverages. The encoding pattern is a variation from the standard GML Coverage, in that the values in the domain and range are effectively "interleaved" rather than represented as two blocks and encoded sequentially.
GML PIDF-LO Geometry Shape Application Schema for use in the IETF	0.1.0	06-142r1	Carl Reed, PhD. and Martin Thomson	2007-05-17
This document defines an application schema of the Geography Markup Language (GML) version 3.1.1 for XML encoding of various geometric shapes required in the Presence Information Description Format (IETF RFC 3863) Location Object extension - A Presence-based GEOPRIV Location Object Format (RFC 4119).
OGC® KML Standard Development Best Practices	0.6	08-125r1	Tim Wilson, David Burggraf	2009-02-04
This OGC® Best Practices Document provides guidelines for developing the OGC KML standard in a manner that best serves and supports the KML application developer and user communities. It applies to the extension of KML by application developers and the subsequent enhancement of the KML standard by the OGC.
OpenGIS Sensor Planning Service Application Profile for EO Sensors	0.9.5	07-018r2	Philippe M	2008-01-21
The SPS configuration proposed in this profile is intended to support the programming process of Earth Observation (EO) sensors system. This profile describes a consistent SPS configuration that can be supported by many satellite data providers, most of whom have existing facilities for the management of these programming requests.
OpenGIS Web services architecture description	0.1.0	05-042r2	Arliss Whiteside	2005-11-21
This document summarizes the most significant aspects of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services architecture, which the OGC is currently developing. This architecture is a service-oriented architecture, with all components providing one or more services to other services or to clients.
Ordering Services for Earth Observation Products	0.9.0	06-141r2	Daniele Marchionni	2007-08-15
This best practices document describes a profile to order Earth Observation data products. This document expands on the work presented in "Best Practices for Earth Observation Products" OGC-05-057r4, separating the order services from the catalogue services which are now presented in 06-079. The final goal being to agree to a coherent set of interfaces for ordering of EO products to support access to data from heterogeneous systems dealing with derived data products from satellite based measurements of the earth's surface and environment.
Reference Model for the ORCHESTRA Architecture	2.1	07-097	Thomas Uslander (Ed.)	2007-10-05
This document specifies the Reference Model for the ORCHESTRA Architecture (RM-OA). It is an extension of the OGC Reference Model and contains a specification framework for the design of geospatial service-oriented architectures and service networks. The RM-OA comprises the generic aspects of service-oriented architectures, i.e., those aspects that are independent of the risk management domain and thus applicable to other application domains.
Sensor Alert Service	0.9	06-028r3	Ingo Simonis	2007-05-16
The Sensor Alert Service (SAS) can be compared with an event notification system. The sensor node is the object of interest. Each node has to advertise its publications at a SAS (advertise).
Sensor Web Enablement Architecture	0.4.0	06-021r4	Ingo Simonis	2008-08-20
This document describes the architecture implemented by Open Geospatial Consortium’s (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement Initiative (SWE). In contrast to other OGC SWE stan-dards, this document is not an implementation standard.
Units of Measure Recommendation	1.0	02-007r4	John Bobbitt	2002-08-19
Common semantic for units of measurement to be used across all OGC specifications.
Web Map Services - Application Profile for EO Products	0.3.3	07-063r1	Thomas H.G. Lankester	2009-11-05
This OGC document specifies a constrained, consistent interpretation of the WMS specification that is applicable to government, academic and commercial providers of EO products.
Web Notification Service	0.0.9	06-095	Ingo Simonis, Johannes Echterhoff	2007-01-25
A service by which a client may conduct asynchronous dialogues (message interchanges) with one or more other services. This service is useful when many collaborating services are required to satisfy a client request, and/or when significant delays are involved is satisfying the request. This service was defined under OWS 1.2 in support of SPS operations. WNS has broad applicability in many such multi-service applications. It is now used in several SWE scenarios.