OGC Requests

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) membership seeks comments on an OGC candidate standard, the CF-netCDF Data Model extension to the existing OGC Network Common Data Form (netCDF) Core Encoding Standard version 1.0. 

The CF-netCDF Data Model is a flexible data model widely used in climate and weather forecast systems as well as for other types of environmental data. The candidate CF-netCDF Data Model extension to the existing OGC Network Common Data Form (netCDF) Core Encoding Standard version 1.0 is the latest step in establishing CF-netCDF as an OGC standard for binary encoding.  This will enable standard delivery of data in binary form via several OGC service interface standards.

The OGC netCDF encoding supports electronic encoding of geospatial data, specifically digital geospatial information representing space- and time-varying phenomena. NetCDF (network Common Data Form) is widely used internationally to communicate and store many kinds of multidimensional data, although it was originally developed for the Earth science community.  The netCDF data model is particularly well suited to providing data in forms familiar to atmospheric and oceanic scientists: namely, as sets of related arrays. 

The conventions for climate and forecast (CF) metadata are designed to promote the processing and sharing of files created with the netCDF API.  The conventions define metadata that provide a definitive description of what the data in each variable represents, and the spatial and temporal properties of the data. This enables users of data from different sources to decide which quantities are comparable, and facilitates building applications with powerful extraction, regridding, and display capabilities.

NetCDF was developed and is maintained and actively supported by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) (www.ucar.edu). UCAR and other OGC members introduced the first netCDF specification as a candidate OGC standard to encourage broader international use and greater interoperability among clients and servers interchanging data in binary form. 

The candidate CF-netCDF Data Model extension to the existing OGC Network Common Data Form (netCDF) Core Encoding Standard version 1.0 and information about submitting comments on this document are available below. The public comment period closes on September 21, 2012.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate OGC GeoServices REST API standard. The GeoServices REST Application Programming Interface (API) provides a standard way for web clients to communicate with geospatial technologies, such as Geographic Information System (GIS) servers, based on Representational State Transfer (REST) principles.

Using this API, clients, such as a web browser application, issue requests to resources on the server identified by structured Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). The server responds with map images, text-based location details or other representations of geospatial information.  From a services perspective the API offers a mechanism to interact with map, image and feature services and perform geospatial analysis. This JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)-based, RESTful API is intended to make implementing servers instantly usable by developers working with widely used REST-based scripting and programming languages, as well as mobile platforms. End users can then use these developers' Web applications to discover and access the services and use them in their workflows.

In early 2011, Esri contacted the Open Geospatial Consortium about submitting the GeoServices Rest API as a candidate OGC standard. The API was initially developed by Esri and implemented on the ArcGIS for Server platform. This submission was approved through the OGC process and then a Standards Working Group (SWG), composed of many OGC members, performed a detailed review and rewrote the API as an OGC interface standard, removing Esri-specific software references. The OGC’s adoption of this candidate standard will provide the wider Web developer community with additional standards-based choices for leveraging geospatial information.

The candidate OGC GeoServices REST API standard documents are available for review and comment below:

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) membership seeks comments on an OGC candidate standard, the Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) NetCDF Enhanced Data Model Extension Encoding Standard. This document specifies an extension to the existing OGC Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) Core Encoding Standard version 1.0.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) has issued a Request for Quotations/Call for Participation (RFQ/CFP) to solicit proposals in response to requirements for the OGC Climatology-Hydrology Information Sharing Pilot (CHISP), Phase 1 (CHISP-1).

The RFQ/CFP is available at below.

Responses are due by 14 September, 2012.

A bidders’ teleconference was held on 15 August 2012. More information will be available below.

The Point of Contact is Lew Leinenweber (lleinenweber at opengeospatial.org).

The CHISP-1 sponsors are:

• GeoConnections - Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada
• US Geological Survey (USGS)
• US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Around the world, there is a critical need for improved sharing, accessing, and integration of hydrologic and climatic data.  To meet that need, CHISP-1 will engage leaders in the hydro-climatic community to collaboratively build a duplicable system that uses existing resources – including data portals, standards, technologies, activities, and expertise. These resources are available to stakeholders in all countries.

CHISP-1 will create a virtual observatory system for water resources observations and forecasts in parts of the U.S. and Canada, building on current networks and capabilities to support:

1. Hydrologic modeling of Milk River and Souris River for historical, current and future streamflow and inundation conditions.
2. Modeling and assessment of nutrient flux into the Great Lakes, which requires accessing and integrating water quality data from multiple agencies

Advantages of creating this system in an OGC Pilot Project include:

• Management by a neutral organization
• Use of a mature and trusted vendor-neutral process led by experienced administrative and technical project managers
• Design and development best practices (iterative, agile approach to building a SOA-based system)
• Inclusive process, with open, international call for participation from potential sponsors, and recruiting of industry's best and brightest to staff the development team.

CHISP-1 will exercise OGC encoding and service standards, including the OGC WaterML 2.0 Encoding Standard, the OGC Sensor Observation Service (SOS) standard and others.

CHISP-1 offers many benefits. In addition to leveraging the large body of existing related activities, those activities, and others like them around the world, will be enhanced by and benefit from the pilot outcomes. By pooling resources to accomplish a shared objective, the sponsors and participants in CHISP-1 reduce their development risks and leverage their investment. In addition to identifying and clarifying what is possible, the pilot will identify the key technical and non-technical barriers to continued progress in sharing and integrating hydrologic and climatic information. Because it is an international project with broad industry participation, it will promote understanding and strengthen ties within the existing hydro-climatic community.

Bidder's Conference

-------------------------------------------------------
CHISP-1 Bidders Teleconference Dial-in:

+1 415 363 0833 passcode:665541

WebEx Information:

Host: Leinenweber, Lewis

Start Time: 08/15/2012 : 11:00 AM - 02:00 PM [EDT - US/Eastern]
Duration: 180 minutes
Meeting URL: https://portal.opengeospatial.org/webex_auth.php?AT=JM&MK=798776961&PW=CflSRhNe

Clarifications

The most recent clarifications are dated 2012-08-20

RFQ Issuance Date: 22 February 2012
OWS-9 Bidder's Conference: will be held on March 9, 2012, see below.
Proposal Due Date: 5 pm EST on April 6, 2012.

Go Directly to the Request for Quotation Document 
Go Directly to the Bidder's Conference Information Overview 
Go Directly to the Request for Quotation Clarifications

Overview

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) has issued a Request for Quotations/Call for Participation (RFQ/CFP) to solicit proposals in response to requirements for the OGC Web Services, Phase 9 (OWS-9) Testbed (http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/ows-9).

The RFQ/CFP is available below.

Responses are due by 5 pm EST on April 6, 2012.

A bidders’ teleconference will be held on March 9, 2012. More information will be available below.

The Point of Contact is Nadine Alameh: techdesk [at] opengeospatial [dot] org.

The OWS-9 sponsors are:

• AGC (Army Geospatial Center, US Army Corps of Engineers)
• CREAF-GeoViQua-EC (CREAF is the European Center for Research in Ecology and Forestry Applications)
• EUROCONTROL
• FAA (US Federal Aviation Administration)
• GeoConnections - Natural Resources Canada
• Lockheed Martin Corporation
• NASA (US National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
• NGA (US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency)
• USGS (US Geological Survey)

OWS-9 builds on the outcomes of prior OGC initiatives (http://www.opengeospatial.org/resource/demos) and is organized around the following threads:

-   Aviation: Develop and demonstrate the use of the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) and the Weather Information Exchange Model (WXXM) in an OGC Web Services environment, focusing on support for several Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) project requirements as well as the FAA's Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) and Aircraft Access to SWIM (System Wide Information Management) (AAtS) requirements.

-   Cross-Community Interoperability (CCI): Build on the CCI work accomplished in OWS–8 by increasing interoperability within communities sharing geospatial data, focusing on semantic mediation, query results delivery, data provenance and quality and Single Point of Entry Global Gazetteer 

-   Security and Services Interoperability (SSI): Investigate 5 main activities: Security Management, OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard Application Schema UGAS (UML to GML Application Schema) Updates, Web Services Façade, Reference Architecture Profiling, and Bulk Data Transfer.

-   OWS Innovations: Explore topics that represent either new areas of work for the Consortium (such as GPS and Mobile Applications), a desire for new approaches to existing technologies to solve new challenges (such as the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) work), or some combination of the two.

-   Compliance & Interoperability Testing & Evaluation (CITE): Develop a suite of compliance test scripts for testing and validation of products with interfaces implementing the following OGC standards: Web Map Service (WMS) 1.3 Interface Standard, Web Feature Service (WFS) 2.0 Interface Standard, Geography Markup Language (GML) 3.2.1 Encoding Standard, OWS Context 1.0 (candidate encoding standard), Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards, Web Coverage Service for Earth Observation (WCS-EO) 1.0 Interface Standard, and TEAM (Test, Evaluation, And Measurement) Engine Capabilities.

The RFQ/CFP includes details of these threads as well as details on participation eligibility, selection process and kickoff workshop information.

OGC testbeds, pilot projects and interoperability experiments are part of the OGC Interoperability Program, a global, hands-on collaborative prototyping program designed to rapidly develop, test and deliver proven candidate standards into the OGC Specification Program, where they are formalized for public release.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate OGC WaterML 2.0: part 1 – Time Series Encoding Standard.

WaterML 2.0 is a candidate Open Geospatial Consortium standard for the representation of hydrological observations, specifically addressing time series data. The WaterML 2.0 candidate standard is implemented as an application schema of the OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard version 3.2.1 and makes use of the OGC Observations and Measurements (O&M) model and encoding standards.

The OGC WaterML 2.0 candidate standard supports encoding of hydrological and hydrogeological observation data in exchange scenarios such as: exchange of data for operational monitoring and forecasting programs; supporting operation of infrastructure (e.g. dams, supply systems); exchange of observational and forecast data for surface water and groundwater; release of data for public dissemination; enhancing disaster management through data exchange; and exchange in support of national reporting.

WaterML 2.0 is the result of an international cooperative effort of the OGC Hydrology Domain Working Group, involving hydrological and government agencies, software providers, universities and research organizations from Australia, the USA, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries.

The candidate OGC WaterML Version 2.0 standard documents are available for public review and comment below:

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate OGC GeoSynchronization Best Practices Document.

Frequently, geospatial content providers must collaborate with outside entities to collect new data and/or update their existing data holdings. This may be the case, for example, when municipal, state/provincial and/or federal agencies synchronize their data with closest-to-source providers. Another case is when content providers are crowdsourcing (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing) elements of their data production or supporting volunteer geographic information (VGI).

This candidate OGC Best Practice describes how to use the OGC's open interface and encoding standards to implement services that mediate interaction between geospatial data providers, the content repositories, and the external entities acting as data collectors. Such services support data entry with validation, notification of changes to interested parties and replication of the data content submitted to multiple repositories.

This document defines an OGC Best Practice on a particular technology or approach related to OGC standards. This document is not an OGC standard and may not be referred to as an OGC standard. It is subject to change without notice. However, this document is an official position of the OGC membership on this particular technology topic.

The following organizations submitted this Best Practice to the OGC: The Carbon Project, OpenGeo.org and CubeWerx Inc.

The candidate OGC GeoSynchronization Best Practices document is available for public review and comment below.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate OGC Gazetteer Best Practices Document.

There is growing interest in the development of a common feature-based model for geographic names databases, often referred to as gazetteers. This candidate OGC best practice describes the Gazetteer Service Application Profile of the OGC Web Feature Service Interface Standard.

This document is an OGC Best Practice on a particular technology or approach related to the use of OGC standards. 

The following organizations submitted this Best Practice to the OGC:

• CubeWerx Inc.
• Intergraph Government Solutions
• The Carbon Project
• US Army Corps of Engineers Army Geospatial Center (AGC)
• US Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)
• US Geological Survey (USGS)
• US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

The candidate OGC Gazetteer Best Practices Document is available for public review and comment below:

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comment on Version 1.1 of the OGC City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) Encoding Standard (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/citygml).

CityGML is an open information model and XML-based encoding for the representation, storage, and exchange of virtual 3D city models. It provides a way to describe objects with respect to their geometry, topology, semantics and appearance, and it defines five different levels of detail. CityGML allows users to employ virtual 3D city models for sophisticated analysis and display tasks in different application domains such as pedestrian navigation, environmental simulations, urban data mining, facilities management, real estate appraisal, and location based marketing.

CityGML has been implemented in many software solutions and is in use in many projects around the world. Developed for Urban Information Modeling applications, CityGML plays an important role in bridging Urban Information Models with Building Information Models (BIM) to improve interoperability among the information systems used in the many areas of activity that involve design, construction, ownership and operation of buildings and capital projects.

CityGML is implemented as an application schema of the OGC Geography Markup Language 3 (GML3) Encoding Standard (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml), an international standard for spatial data exchange and encoding approved by the OGC and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

The current version 1.0 of CityGML was adopted as an official OGC Standard in August 2008 and has come to wide use since then. The OGC Technical Committee's CityGML Working Group has received input from the wider community in the form of change requests, proposed additions and suggestions. With this guidance, the Working Group developed the draft CityGML Version 1.1, a minor revision of the current CityGML version 1.0 that maintains backwards compatibility with version 1.0. Version 1.1 includes new thematic modules for tunnels and bridges, the ability to model footprint and roof edge representations for buildings in the coarsest level of detail, and generic attribute sets, as well as a number of additional properties and other enhancements.

 The candidate CityGML Version 1.1 standard documents are available for review and comment below. Comments are due by 14 September 2011.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate Earth Observation profile for the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) 2.0 standard. This profile will facilitate on-line data access to Earth Observation data products.

The OGC WCS 2.0 standard defines a general interface and operations that enable interoperable access to geospatial coverages, such as sensor data, satellite imagery, digital elevation models, and climate/ocean data. The candidate OGC Web Coverage Service Application Profile for Earth Observation products (EO-WCS) defines an interface for interoperable access to Earth Observation data.

The rapid increase of computer power and network accessibility, along with implementations of the OGC WCS standard, make it possible for applications to deliver user selected sensor, image, and statistics data, including human modifications of the Earth's surface and atmosphere. As use of the standard increases, an increasingly wide variety of data will conveniently be brought together in applications such as environment, natural resources, planning, disaster management and public security.

The candidate Earth Observation profile for the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) 2.0 standard documents are available for review and comment below.