OGC Requests

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) Members are seeking comments on the “Observations and Measurements – XML Implementation” candidate standard. This candidate standard specifies an XML encoding for the Observations and Measurements conceptual model.

 The Observations and Measurements (O&M) conceptual model, a joint OGC and ISO standard, provides the theoretical basis for an abstract model encoding for observations and provides support for common sampling strategies. O&M also provides a general framework for systems that deal in technical measurements in science and engineering.

 The candidate OMXML standard and other standards that have resulted from the OGC's Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) effort (http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/markets-technologies/swe) enable developers to make all types of sensors, transducers and sensor data repositories discoverable, accessible and useable via the Web.

 The candidate OGC Observations and Measurements – XML Implementation Encoding Standard and information on submitting comments on this document are available at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/68. The public comment period closes on August 7th, 2010.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to solicit industry input into the second phase of a Fusion Standards Study. Phase 2 of the study focuses on Decision Fusion. Input from the RFI will influence planning for the OGC Web Services, Phase 8 (OWS-8) Testbed. OGC also seeks to establish alliances with other Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) having standards work relevant to fusion.

Decision Fusion, as described in the RFI, provides analysts an environment of interoperable services for situation assessment, impact assessment and decision support, based on information from multiple sensors and databases, e.g., multi-INT sources. The study includes recent advances such as social networking for decision fusion. Though the focus of the study is on military intelligence (“INT”), decision fusion is equally relevant to business intelligence, urban planning, and many other domains.

This RFI is based on requirements and contributions from OGC Member organizations – in particular the National Geospatial-intelligence Agency (NGA) – and industry recommendations from Phase 1 of the Fusion Standards Study.

The RFI contains a review of requirements and existing standards for decision fusion in several domains. Responses to the RFI will be reviewed during a workshop in July 2010.

Responses to the RFI are requested by June 11, 2010 [extended to 25 June]. The RFI includes instructions for how organizations can respond. Please contact George Percivall at gpercivall [at] opengeospatial [dot] org with any questions.

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

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate OGC GeoAPI 3.0 Application Programming Interface.

The GeoAPI standard provides a set of Java language interfaces based on the ISO 19100 series of geospatial abstract models for metadata and feature geometry as well as two OGC Abstract Specifications for metadata and coordinate reference systems. In addition to producing this set of Java language interfaces, the OGC GeoAPI 3.0 Standards Working Group is producing a test suite through which developers implementing the Java interfaces can test their implementations.

The GeoAPI project emerges from the earlier OGC Geographic Objects effort and is the result of the collaboration of participants from various institutions and software communities. The GeoAPI project's goal is to provide a set of interfaces in the Java language to help software projects produce high quality geospatial software. This work is not expected to cover all OGC standards.

The candidate OGC GeoAPI 3.0 Interface Standard and information on submitting comments on this document are available below. The public comment period closes on 1 May 2010.

 

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) Common Service Model Interface Standard Version 2.0. The SWE Service Model provides a common set of data types and defines a common set of interface mechanisms that can be used with other SWE interface standards.

There are two "SWE Common" standards: The OGC SWE Common Service Model Interface Standard is applicable to all services that provide or require information from or about sensors. It is designed for uses cases in which sensors need to be accessed and managed through service interfaces. A related standard, the OGC SWE Common Encoding Standard, provides a standard model (and XML implementation of the model) for the representation, nature, structure and encoding of sensor related data. It is used for describing static data (files) as well as dynamically generated datasets (on-the-fly processing), real-time streaming data, and process and web service inputs and outputs.

Both of the SWE Common standards are designed to be used with other existing OGC® Sensor Web Enablement standards such as OGC Sensor Model Language (SensorML) Encoding Standard, Sensor Observation Service (SOS) Interface Standard and Sensor Planning Service (SPS) Interface Standard.

The proposed OGC SWE Service Model 2.0 Standard and information on submitting comments on this document are available below. The public comment period closes on 25 April 2010.

 

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) seeks public comment on the draft OGC Sensor Planning Service (SPS) Interface Standard 2.0. This draft standard specifies interfaces for tasking a sensor. The standard is designed to support queries that have the following purposes: to determine the feasibility of a sensor tasking request; to submit such a request; to inquire about the status of such a request; to update or cancel such a request; and to request information about other OGC Web services that provide access to the data collected by the requested task.

The proposed OGC SPS 2.0 standard and information on submitting comments on this document are available below.  The public comment period closes on 14 April, 2010.

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) seeks public comment on the draft OGC Web Coverage Services (WCS) Interface Standard Version 2.0.  The OGC WCS standard supports electronic retrieval of geospatial data as "coverages" - that is, digital geospatial information representing space/time-varying phenomena such as satellite imagery or digital elevation models. The WCS 2.0 draft has several significant enhancements over previous versions. WCS 2.0 is harmonized with the Geography Markup Language coverage model, leading to increased interoperability across OGC standards. Further, WCS 2.0 is highly modular and follows the core/extension design pattern, which allows for standard that is easier to understand and implement.

The WCS standard defines a standard interface and operations that enable interoperable access to single or multi-dimensional geospatial coverages.  Services implementing this standard provide an interface with a standard set of operations for accessing original or derived sets of geospatial coverage information. An important aspect of the WCS standard is that it allows access and retrieval of raw, unprocessed imagery, which is often required by rendering and processing services. Further information about WCS can be found at the WCS Service page ( http://www.ogcnetwork.net/wcs ) of the OGC Network.

The proposed OGC WCS 2.0 standard and information on submitting comments on this document are available below. The public comment period closes on 14 April 2010.

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) seeks public comment on the draft OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) Common Encoding Standard Version 2.0.  The SWE Common standard provides a common data encoding that is used throughout the OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards suite. More precisely, the SWE Common model is used to define the representation, nature, structure and encoding of sensor related data.

 

This model is used for describing static data (files) as well as dynamically generated datasets (on-the-fly processing), data subsets, process and web service inputs and outputs and real time streaming data. All categories of sensor observations are in scope ranging from simple in-situ temperature data to satellite imagery and full motion video streamed out of an aircraft.

 

The SWE Common language is an XML implementation of this model and is used by other existing OGC^® Sensor Web Enablement standards such as Sensor Model Language (SensorML), Sensor Observation Service (SOS), Sensor Alert Service (SAS) and Sensor Planning Service (SPS).

 

The proposed OGC SWE Common 2.0 standard and information on submitting comments on this document are available below.  The public comment period closes on 14 April 2010.

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) seeks public comment on the draft OGC Table Joining Service (TJS) Interface Standard. This standard defines an interface for services that provide the ability to join attribute data stored in one database on a network with the corresponding geometry (points, lines, or polygons) stored in another network accessible database.

 

For example, a table on one server may indicate the population of various cities, while a second server may contain the geometry that describes the cities' locations and boundaries. The TJS standard describes a set of interfaces for both servers that would allow the city name to be used as the "common geographic identifier" in order to join the population data to its geometry, thus enabling the user to create a map or perform geospatial analysis on the tabular data. An earlier draft of this specification was called the “Geographic Linkage Service”.

 

The proposed OGC TJS 1.0 standard and information on submitting comments on this document are available below.  The public comment period closes on 14 April, 2010.

The OGC seeks to hire an Executive Director for Marketing and Communications, This full time position is responsible for the planning and execution of a broad range of marketing, communications and education program activities to raise awareness and increase application of OGC standards by technology providers and users worldwide. These activities also encourage participation in OGC programs through membership growth and direct sponsorship of / participation in OGC programs.

Reporting to the President of OGC and working with OGC staff, board, membership and partner organizations, the Executive Director for Marketing and Communications (EDMC) is responsible for planning, budgeting and executing corporate programs designed to promote adoption of OGC standards by developers and users worldwide and to encourage participation in OGC membership and collaborative testbed and related program activities.

As a key member of OGC senior staff, the EDMC will have overall responsibility for ensuring that OGC marketing & communications activities effectively address both technical professionals and decision-makers at program management and policy levels, emphasizing the value and benefits of OGC's consensus standards process to encourage membership retention and growth, investment and participation in Interoperability Program initiatives, use of OGC's compliance testing and certification resources, and uptake of OGC standards within and across communities of interest.

The EDMC will develop and implement a comprehensive outreach and public relations strategy to address industry sectors and domains of interest identified by the OGC Business Plan. EDMC responsibilities include directing conference, workshop, and seminar activities, as well as creation and distribution of press releases, placement of articles and preparation of educational briefings. The EDMC will also direct OGC Technology Office staff responsible for development, operation and maintenance of all OGC public and member related web service support, including delivery of member portal, net-meeting and related collaborative services.

Core knowledge, skills, and abilities:

Essential:

• Demonstrated experience / skill in public speaking, written communications
• Prior experience in marketing, communication campaign development
• Excellent program / project management and budgeting skills
• Understanding of the geospatial and location based services marketplace
• Familiarity with IT, Web 2.0, and social networking concepts
• Familiarity with benefits of applying standards
• Ability to work effectively with others in a virtual work environment
• Ability to adapt work schedule to accommodate international communications when necessary
• Ability to travel nationally and internationally 12-16 weeks per year

Desirable:

• Experience in developing training materials/coursework
• Previous supervisory experience
• Web design experience

Education:

Undergraduate or higher degree, preferably with concentration in one or more of the following areas: geomatics, information technology, communications and marketing

Work Location:

OGC offers a flexible work environment, emphasizing work from home arrangements. Employee location in Europe or N. America near major airport hub is preferred due to travel requirements.

Travel:

This position requires frequent national and international travel, with up to 16 weeks of travel per year.

Salary:

Negotiable.

Benefits:

OGC offers a generous benefits package. Contact us for details.

Submit: 

Interested parties should send resume, CV and/or intent of interest to:   employment at opengeospatial dot org

RFQ Issuance Date: 28 October 2009
OWS-7 Bidder's Conference: 10 November 2009, 11:00-13:00 US Eastern
Proposal Due Date: 1 December 2009, 5:00 p.m. EST.

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

OGC members who wish to observe OWS-7 may do so upon submission of the OGC Observer Agreement: http://bit.ly/8DvwvK

Overview

OWS testbeds are part of OGC's Interoperability Program, a global, hands-on and collaborative prototyping program designed to rapidly develop, test and deliver proven candidate specifications into OGC's Specification Program, where they are formalized for public release. In OGC's Interoperability Initiatives, international teams of technology providers work together to solve specific geoprocessing interoperability problems posed by the Initiative's sponsoring organizations. OGC Interoperability Initiatives include test beds, pilot projects, interoperability experiments and interoperability support services - all designed to encourage rapid development, testing, validation and adoption of OGC standards.

The OWS-7 sponsors are organizations seeking open standards for their interoperability requirements. After analyzing their requirements, the OGC Interoperability Team recommended to the sponsors that the content of the OWS-7 initiative be organized around the following threads:

OWS-7 is organized in three activity "threads":

• Sensor Fusion Enablement (SFE)
• Feature and Decision Fusion (FDF)
• Aviation

 

OWS-7 Sponsors

U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
EUROCONTROL
EADS Defence Communications Systems (DCS)
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
U.S. Army Geospatial Center (AGC)
U.S. Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO)
BAE Systems
PCI Geomatics
Lockheed Martin

 

OWS-7 Threads

In June of 2009, the OGC issued a call for sponsors for the OWS-7 interoperability initiative to advance OGC's open framework for interoperability in the geospatial industry.  Three meetings were conducted with potential OWS-7 sponsors to review the OGC technical baseline, discuss OWS-7 results, and identify OWS-7 requirements.  During the OWS-7 Concept Development phase, a Fusion Standards Study was also conducted, to better inform the requirements for OWS-7 development. 

The definition of fusion resulting from the study was:

 "Fusion is the act or process of combining or associating data or information regarding one or more entities considered in an explicit or implicit knowledge framework to improve one's capability (or provide a new capability) for detection, identification, or characterization of that entity".

There exist many fusion processes deployed in closed architectures with existing single provider software and hardware solutions. The problem in the study was to move those capabilities into a distributed architecture based upon open standards including standards for security, authorization, and rights management.

In the study, fusion was discussed in terms of the three categories shown in the central column in Figure 1‑1:

Figure 1‑1. Categories of Fusion

The sponsors selected elements of the Fusion Study results to include in the two OWS-7 threads described below.  Sensor Fusion is addressed in the Sensor Fusion Enablement (SFE) thread. Object/Feature Fusion and Decision Fusion are addressed in the Feature and Decision Fusion (FDF) thread. 

The threads of OWS-7 build upon the threads of previous OWS test beds, as shown in Figure 1-2. 

 

Figure 1‑2. Evolution of OWS Testbed Threads

The Sensor Fusion Enablement (SFE) thread builds on the Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) and Geospatial Processing Workflow (GPW) thread by including Sensor Fusion topics and applying workflow to sensor fusion.  The Feature and Decision Fusion (FDF) thread also builds on the OWS-6 Geospatial Processing Workflow (GPW) thread, as well as the OWS-6 Decision Support Services (DSS) thread, by including feature definition and workflow of GPW along with decision support topics.

The third activity thread in OWS-7, the Aviation Thread, began as the Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) Thread in OWS-6, which addressed the use of web services, event notifications, and AIXM 5.0 for Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) applications in the aviation industry.  The Aviation Thread in OWS-7 represents an expansion of scope, to include flight planning and aviation operations more broadly.

Sensor Fusion Enablement (SFE)

The SFE Thread builds on the OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) framework of standards that has achieved a degree of maturity through previous OWS interoperability initiatives and deployments worldwide. SFE will focus on integrating the SWE interfaces and encodings with workflow and web processing services to perform sensor fusion.  SFE will continue the development of Secure SWE architecture, as well as the interoperability of SWE and Common CBRN Sensor Interface (CCSI).

Emphasis for SFE during this phase of the OWS testbed will be the following:

• Motion Video Fusion. Geo-location of motion video for display and processing. Change detection of motion video using Web Processing Service with rules.
• Dynamic Sensor Tracking and Notification. Track sensors and notify users based on a geographic Area of Interest (AOI). The sensor and the user may be moving in space and time.
• Trusted SWE in an untrusted environment. Build on OWS-6 Secure Sensor Web development, to investigate secure SOS, SPS in more depth.
• CCSI-SWE Best Practice. Building on OWS-6, develop an ER to be considered by the OGC Technical Committee as a Best Practice.

Feature / Decision Fusion (FDF)

The FDF Thread builds on OWS-6 GPW and DSS work, in particular to advance the state of information cataloguing, Web Processing Services (WPS) profiles, and the Integrated Client. The following task areas have been identified for Feature and Decision Fusion:

• Schema Automation. Transformation from UML to profiles of GML and KML, including generation of constraints.
• Data Discovery and Organization. Use of thematic categories in multi-media data discovery, including augmented metadata for quality of source, fitness for use, and uncertainty of the data values, propagated through usage and workflow.
• Feature and Statistical Analysis. Workflow profiles for feature fusion, including statistical analysis, vector and topological processing. WFS, WMS and WMTS will be used to support statistical mapping.
• Geosynchronization. Web services and client components to support synchronization of geospatial data and updates across a hierarchical Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI).
• Data and Analysis Sharing. The use of OWS Context for collecting links to web services and analysis results.
• Integrated Client. A field-ready client application to support and display sensor information, cataloguing metadata, notification alerts, feature and statistical analysis, and OWS Context. This client will include an embedded WFS server for geosynchronization support.

Aviation Thread

This thread seeks to further 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.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and EUROCONTROL have developed AIXM as a global standard for the representation and exchange of aeronautical information. AIXM uses the OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) tailored to the specific requirements for the representation of aeronautical objects, including the temporality feature that allows for time dependent changes affecting AIXM features. FAA and EUROCONTROL are using AIXM as an integral part of their efforts to modernize their aeronautical information procedures and to transition to a net-centric, global aeronautical management capability. More specifically, AIXM is being used in the net-centric System Wide Information Management (SWIM)-related components of the US NextGen and European Union (EU)'s SESAR programs. Indeed, it is expected that the results of the Aviation Thread of OWS-7 will be contributed to both programs with a focus on recommended OGC specifications that can be applied in the definition and implementation of both SWIM environments. 

WXXM is also jointly developed by FAA and EUROCONTROL, as a proposed standard for the exchange of aeronautical weather information in the context of a net-centric and global interoperable Air Transport System (ATS). WXXM also uses GML tailored to the specific requirements of aeronautical meteorology and is based on the OGC Observation and Measurement Model. WXXM development is harmonized and coordinated with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the organization traditionally responsible for standards in meteorology.

The OWS-7 Aviation Thread will investigate and demonstrate the applicability of AIXM and WXXM along with relevant OGC specifications and web services to applications and tools that support Airline Operations Centers and Flight Dispatch applications. Such applications provide information for representing a Common Operating Picture; supporting flight planning (including General Aviation) and preparation (MET and AIM); calculating weight and balance; estimating fuel requirements; in-flight emergency response; etc. The primary focus in OWS-7 is on ground usage of the information, although provision of information packages to the crew, on the ground and in the air, is also of interest.

To support the above goal, the OWS-7 Aviation Thread will cover the following tasks:

• Evaluation and advancement of AIXM, in the areas of using and testing new AIXM 5.1 features, developing components/tools for generating, validating, converting, and parsing AIXM, addressing feature metadata requirements and performance constraints, and supporting the portrayal of AIXM information.
• Evaluation and advancement of WXXM, focusing on the incorporation and demonstration new weather concepts such as the 4-D Weather Data Cube, including the impact of such concepts on the Event Notification Architecture, the support for probabilistic events, and the definition and usage of the time model in WXXM.
• Advancement of the Event Notification Architecture developed and exercised in OWS-6 to support multiple sources of events and multiple types of events and data changes (AIXM, WXXM), and to investigate different delivery protocols (push/pull), registration and subscription lifecycle management approaches, and domain/schema-specific matching between events and subscriptions.
• Integration of AIXM/WXXM in the FAA SWIM environment, focusing on investigating approaches for leveraging SWIM Interface Management, Messaging and Security capabilities, as well as enabling Aviation clients to access SWIM services in addition to OGC services.