OGC Requests

The membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) is requesting comments from the public on the candidate OGC Document, "The OGC Specification Model - Writing Modular Specifications".

This document, prepared by the Policy 1.0 Standards Working Group, derives from the collective experience of members in developing and implementing OGC standards, geospatial applications, platforms and services. It provides a logical model and template for candidate standards to assure their internal logic and conformance to accepted software development procedures and the OGC's policy and rules regarding the structure of standards and the types of information that they must provide. The policy guidance will make implementation of OGC standards and the construction of compliance tests easier through enforced traceability of requirements to implementation tests, and it will make modularization of both standards and implementations more explicit and consistent across dependent standards and implementations.

This standard has been referred to as the "core and extension model" due to the insistence on a modular structure throughout all parts of a standard and its implementation. Eventually, all OGC standards will be transitioned to the new structure. This will help standardize the manner in which OGC standards are written and implemented, making implementations easier to test for compliance, thus improving interoperability between and swap-ability between implementations.

The 30 day public comment period begins March 12, 2009 and closes on April 11, 2009. Comments will be reviewed and processed by the OGC Membership. The intent is to edit the Specification Model candidate standard and move the document to be an approved OGC standard. The Specification Model Request for Comment document can be downloaded below.

The membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) is requesting comments from the public on the candidate OpenGIS® Web Map Tiling Service (WMTS) Interface Standard.

The candidate WMTS Interface Standard is much like the OGC's popular Web Map Server (WMS) Interface Standard, but it enables better server performance in applications that involve many simultaneous requests. To improve performance, instead of creating a new image for each request, it returns small pre-generated images (e.g., PNG or JPEG) or reuses identical previous requests that follow a discrete set of tile matrices. This proposed standard provides support for multiple architectural patterns - KVP, REST and SOAP.

The 30 day public comment period for this document begins February 26, 2009. Comments are due by March 29, 2009. After the OGC's WMS Standards Working Group has addressed comments received in response to the WMTS RFC the draft documents will be submitted to the OGC Technical Committee and Planning Committee for their review and possible approval as an adopted OGC Standard.

The membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) is requesting comments on the candidate standard OpenGIS(R) GeoLinking Service (GLS) Interface.

The candidate GLS standard defines an interface for services that provide the ability to "link" data that contain information about geographic objects, such as census tract population statistics, with data in another repository that contains the actual geometry (points, lines, polygons). For example, a table of populations of cities on one server may not contain the geometry information that describes the cities' locations and boundaries, while a second server may house the cities' geometry. The candidate GLS standard describes a set of interfaces for both servers that lets the city name be used as a "common geographic identifier" to join the population data to its geometry, so the user can create a map or perform geospatial analysis on the linked data.

The members of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) have submitted a Request for Comments (RFC) on version 0.2.2 of the Earth Observation (EO) Products Extension Package for ebRIM (ISO/TS 15000-3) Profile of CSW 2.0 (OGC document 06-131). (ebRIM is the electronic business Registry Information Model from the OASIS standards organization. CSW (“Catalog Services - Web”) is an OGC standard that specifies a catalogue application profile based on ISO19115:2003/ISO19119:2005 metadata with support for XML encoding per ISO/CD TS 19139  and HTTP protocol binding.)

The EO Products Extension Package for ebRIM Profile of CSW 2.0 draft standard is an OGC Best Practice. It specifies an Application Profile of CSW 2.0 that is based on the OpenGIS® Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard Application Schema for EO Products.

The EC09 OGC Pilot is sponsored by a US agency which will provide cost-sharing funds to offset expenses associated with the initiative. The sponsor and the OGC intend to involve as many participants in the initiative as possible and thus are soliciting proposals that will enhance and/or make use of the initiative outcomes. This RFQ/CFP is soliciting partners to provide and deploy hardware / software for the pilot network. Responses are due by January 14, 2009 and the Pilot Kickoff Meeting will be held the week of 10-11 February 2009, in the Washington, DC area. Technology deployments will be complete by July 17, 2009, followed by a two-week demonstration phase for the remainder of July.

The EC09 OGC Pilot will examine the suitability and performance of OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) and OGC Web Services (OWS) standards for providing open management of and access to sensors of varied types and Web service access by analysts to the resulting data and products. Several use cases and supporting workflows are provided to enable understanding of the design of the pilot. The use cases involve both sensor management and exploitation by a targeting analyst.

The EC09 OGC Pilot RFQ/CFP documents can be downloaded below.

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-6 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-6 initiative be organized around the following threads:

1. Sensor Web Enablement (SWE)
2. Geo Processing Workflow (GPW)
3. Aeronautical Information Management (AIM)
4. Decision Support Services (DSS)
5. Compliance Testing (CITE)

OWS-6 Sponsors

• U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
• Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD)
• GeoConnections - Natural Resources Canada
• U.S. Federal Aviation Agency (FAA)
• EUROCONTROL
• EADS Defence and Communications Systems
• US Geological Survey
• Lockheed Martin
• BAE Systems
• ERDAS, Inc.

OWS-6 Threads

1) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE)

The OGC Sensor Web Enablement framework has achieved a degree of maturity through previous OWS interoperability initiatives and deployments worldwide. OWS-6 will focus on integrating the SWE interfaces and encodings into cross-thread scenarios and workflows to demonstrate the ability of SWE specifications to support operational needs. Emphasis for SWE during this phase of the OWS test-bed will be on:

• CCSI-Enabled CBRN Sensors into the SWE Environment
• Build on Georeferenceable imagery accomplishments of OWS-5
• Harmonize SWE-related information models: SensorML, GML, UncertML, MathML
• Apply GeoRM, Trusted Services, and security models in SWE environment
• Events-based architecture including WNS

2) Geo Processing Workflow (GPW)

This GPW thread aims to build on the progress of previous testbeds with a focus on maturing the interoperability and capabilities of OGC web services in a service-oriented architecture with particular emphasis to address OGC web service security issues. To satisfy mission-critical goals, the architecture must not only provide for integration of a wide variety of service capabilities and resources, it must do so and ensure authenticity, integrity, quality and confidentiality of services and information. To meet these goals, the following task areas have been identified:

• Asynchronous Workflow and Web Services Security
• Data Security for OGC web services
• Data Accessibility
• WPS Profiles - Conflation; and Grid processing
• GML Application Schema Development & ShapeChange Enhancements

3) Aeronautical Information Management (AIM)

The Aviation Information Management (AIM) subtask is a new thread within OWS to develop and demonstrate the use of the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) in an OGC Web Services environment. The AIM subtask shall focus on evaluating and advancing various AIXM features in a realistic trans-Atlantic aviation scenario setting by devising and prototyping a Web Services Architecture for providing valuable aeronautical information directly to flight decks, Electronic Flight Bags (EFB) and hand-held devices (such as PDAs and Blackberries) while the airplane is at the gate or en-route to its destination (for the purposes of OWS-6, the aeronautical information in the latter case does not depend on the knowledge of the airplane's location).

AIXM was developed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Eurocontrol as a global standard for the representation and exchange of aeronautical information. It was designed as a basis for digital aeronautical information exchange and for enabling the transition to a net-centric, global aeronautical management capability. AIXM has been developed using the ISO 19100 modeling framework and has two major components: a conceptual model presented in the form of an UML class model and a data encoding specification which was developed using the OGC Geography Markup Language (GML). Both have been tailored to the specific requirements for the representation of aeronautical objects, especially the temporality feature that allows for time-dependent changes affecting AIXM features. More information about AIXM is available on www.aixm.aero. In support of the above objectives, the OWS-6 AIM thread shall perform tasks in the following areas while ensuring that the integrity of data is preserved throughout all data exchange operations:

• Use and enhancement of Web Feature Service and Filter Encoding specifications in support of AIXM features and 4-dimensional flight trajectory queries,
• Prototype of Aviation client for retrieval and seamless visualization of AIXM, Weather and other aviation-related data, emphasizing time and spatial filtering in order to present just the right information into a given user context anytime, anywhere,
• Architecture of standards-based mechanism to notify users of changes to user-selected aeronautical information.

4) Decision Support Services (DSS)

Decision Support Services having an emphasis on applications of geospatial and temporal information has been a recurring thread in previous OWS testbeds. This thread focuses on presenting and interacting with data obtained from the sensor web and geoprocessing workflows in the most effective ways to support analysis and decision making. The focus for DSS in OWS-6 builds on portrayal, WMS Tiling, and integrated client work from OWS-4, with additional work on 3D visualization and integration of the built environment and landscape. This thread will encompass these capabilities and task areas:

• ISO 19117 and OGC SLD Portrayal
• 3D Portrayal of GML with Fly-through
• Hosting CityGML data with WFS
• Outdoor and indoor 3D route and tracking services
• WMS performance (tiling)
• Integrated Client for multiple OWS services

5) Compliance Testing (CITE)

Validating compliance with an OGC specification means verifying that a software product has implemented the specification correctly by testing the software interface for response and behavior that is outlined in the specification. Verifying compliance to the standard is necessary in order to achieve interoperability. As a result, geospatial application vendors desire to provide their potential costumers a means to verify adherence to OGC standards as a measurable discriminator for the interoperability of software products. Similarly, users desire assurance that acquired software components will interoperate with their existing investments in OGC-compliant technology. The Conformance and Interoperability Test and Evaluation (CITE) thread is intended to provide the geospatial industry (consumers and vendors) a methodology and tools that will test compliance with OGC web services.

The OGC Interoperability Program and the OGC Specification Program have achieved a great deal of momentum as a result of the multiple OGC web service specifications that have recently been published. Key consumers in the geospatial industry are modernizing their enterprises based on the applicability and interoperability of OGC web services. The major geospatial industry consumers require verifiable proof of compliance with OGC specifications in order to reach the desirable outcome of interoperability. Furthermore, as the OGC technology stack has matured, a group of interfaces has emerged that represents a baseline of technology needed to implement a fully interoperable, end-to-end spatial data infrastructure. The CITE threads in previous OWS projects have made significant progress towards having a complete suite of compliance tests for this baseline of interfaces.

A major focus of OWS-5 was on achieving consensus on the format and content of an Abstract Test Suite (ATS). The OWS-5 CITE participants agreed to follow the ISO guidance for writing Abstract Test Suites. The ATS are used to develop Executable Test Suites which are the scripts that the TEAM Engine runs to conduct an automated compliance test. A major focus of OWS-6 CITE will be in clearly documenting the approach to defining Abstract Test Suites. This will be a great benefit to the OGC community as the OGC Architecture Board (OAB) requires that new specifications be published with an accompanying ATS. In addition, a focus of OWS-6 CITE will be to expand the usability of the existing OGC compliance tests by "tailoring" these tests for specific schema profiles and/or data.

The WCS Interface Standard (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/wcs) specifies an application programming interface (API) for requesting coverage data, such as imagery, from one or more distributed sources.

The WCS 1.1 Transaction Extension defines how WCS clients can request that a WCS server import one or more new coverages into that server, update existing coverages, and/or delete existing coverages.

The WCPS Extension adds a raster expression language to WCS which allows analysis and processing of multi-dimensional grid coverage data over the World Wide Web. Resulting coverages can be transmitted directly or made available for download by URLs communicated to the client.

The Request for Comments (RFC) document can be downloaded from http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/49 . Comments are due by July 30, 2008.

CityGML is a common information model for the representation of 3D urban objects. It defines the classes and relations for the most relevant topographic objects in cities and regional models with respect to their geometrical, topological, semantical and appearance properties. Included are generalization hierarchies between thematic classes, aggregations, relations between objects, and spatial properties. These thematic information go beyond graphic exchange formats and allow to employ virtual 3D city models for sophisticated analysis tasks in different application domains like simulations, urban data mining, facility management, and thematic inquiries.

Activities that would benefit from the richness of CityGML data include city planning, real estate, insurance, architectural design, environmental simulation, mobile telecommunication, disaster management, homeland security, facilities management, vehicle and pedestrian navigation, training simulators and others. CityGML will play an important role in the use of Building Information Models (BIM) to improve interoperability among the information systems used in the many domains of activity that involve design, construction, ownership and operation of buildings and capital projects.

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) has issued a Request For Quotations and Call for Participation (RFQ/CFP) to solicit proposals in response to requirements for the Empire Challenge 08 Pilot (EC08 OGC Pilot).

The EC08 OGC Pilot is sponsored by a US agency which will provide cost-sharing funds to offset expenses associated with the initiative. The sponsor and the OGC intend to involve as many participants in the initiative as possible and thus are soliciting proposals that will enhance and/or make use of the initiative outcomes. This RFQ/CFP is soliciting partners to provide and deploy hardware / software and to collaborate on the final technology design for the pilot network. Personnel without clearances will be able to install and maintain software on the network. Responses are due by January 24, 2008 and the Pilot Kickoff Meeting will be held the week of February 26-28, 2008, in the Washington, DC area. Technology deployments will be complete by June 27, 2008, followed by a four-week demonstration phase in July.

The EC08 OGC Pilot will examine the suitability and performance of OGC Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) and OGC Web Services (OWS) standards for providing open management of and access to sensors of varied types and Web service access by analysts to the resulting data and products. Several use cases and supporting workflows are provided to enable understanding of the design of the pilot. The use cases involve both sensor management and exploitation by a targeting analyst.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is contemplating adoption of the KML 2.2 candidate standard. The OGC invites public comment on this candidate standard. All comments will be collated and used in the evaluation of KML 2.2 as an OGC standard. In late first quarter 2008, the OGC committee working on the KML 2.2 candidate standard will seek approval by OGC members for KML 2.2 an OpenGIS(R) Encoding Standard.

The OpenGIS Candidate Implementation Standard specifies XML grammar used to encode and transport representations of geographic data for display in an earth browser. Put simply: KML encodes what to show in an earth browser, and how to show it. KML uses a tag-based structure with nested elements and attributes and is based on the XML standard.

The purpose of this Request for Public Comment (RFPC) is to obtain comments on the proposal for KML 2.2. Documentation of this draft standard can be downloaded below:

Candidate Submission: Thur, 2007-08-30
TC and PC vote to issue request: Fri, 2007-09-21
Begin request period: Tue, 2007-12-4
Close request period: Thu, 2008-01-03