OGC Press Releases

8 January 2013 - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comments on the current draft of the candidate OGC GeoPackage (GPKG) Standard. The GPKG Standards Working Group will consider all comments when preparing a final draft of the candidate standard. 

Mobile device users who require geospatial application services and associated data and who operate in disconnected or limited network connectivity environments frequently do not have open, available geospatial data to support their applications. Applications include such things as mobile workforce data capture and updates, volunteered geographic information, and real time annotations of map data in an emergency event.

The candidate OGC GeoPackage (GPKG) Standard provides an open, non-proprietary, platform-independent container for distribution and direct use of all kinds of geospatial data. The GeoPackage container and related API will increase the cross-platform interoperability of geospatial applications and web services in the mobile world.  Standard APIs for access and management of GeoPackage data will provide consistent query and update results across such applications and services. 

Future enhancements to the GeoPackage standard, a future GeoPackage Web Service standard, and modifications to existing OGC Web Service (OWS) standards to use GeoPackages as exchange formats will allow OWS to support provisioning of GeoPackages throughout an enterprise or information community.

Interoperability of GeoPackage implementations by several participants is being tested and will be demonstrated in the 15 January 2013 OGC Web Services Testbed (OWS-9) Demonstration. The current reference implementation bases, SQLite and SpatiaLite, are open source resources developed by OGC members. The SQLite reference implementation is sponsored in part by the SQLite Consortium, which includes a number of OGC members. SpatiaLite is built on OS-Geo open source libraries by the president of GFOSS.it and others.

The current draft of the candidate OGC GeoPackage (GPKG) Standard can be downloaded from http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/95.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 480 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.

7 January 2013 - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®), in cooperation with Directions Media, invites you to attend an OGC GovFuture webinar to learn how Canadian organizations are using open standards to support planning, design, implementation, measurement, and visualization of Integrated Community Energy Solutions (ICES).  This free one-hour webinar will be held on 29 January 2013, at 3:00 p.m. UTC (10:00 a.m. EST).  

Ben Clark, Analyst, Climate Change Policy Unit, Ministry of Environment, Government of British Columbia, will describe the value that local and provincial stakeholders are deriving from Community Energy and Emissions Inventory (CEEI) reports for all BC communities and from the ‘next generation’ of buildings data, which provides increased ‘granularization and spatialization’ of energy usage data through Tract and Neighbourhood Data Modelling (TaNDM).

Cory Slinger, Manager of Market Development, Horizon Utilities Corporation (Ontario), will provide an overview of the value, barriers and opportunities for demand conservation programs and Smart Grid, using geospatial information (using their work as an example)  Horizon Utilities Corporation is the first company to ever be named the Sustainability Company of the Year by the Canadian Electricity Association for two consecutive years -- 2011 and 2012. www.horizonutilities.com

Eddie Oldfield will introduce a proposed Energy Spatial Data Infrastructure Test Bed (Open Call) and identify marketplace requirements that can be addressed by interoperable Web services that implement OGC interface and encoding standards. Eddie is Owner/CEO of Spatial QUEST Solutions and a Member of OGC. He is Chair of QUEST New Brunswick Caucus; Member of the National Advisory Committee, QUEST www.questcanada.org; and Member of Resilient Communities Working Group, National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (Public Safety Canada).

Please join us!

Webinar details and registration are available at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/254787154. The webinar will be in English.

This webinar is part of the OGC's GovFuture program for local and subnational governments. The OGC's affordable GovFuture-Local Government and GovFuture-Subnational Government membership levels offer local and sub-national governments unique online resources and an insight into global geospatial policy and technology developments. This OGC membership level focuses on the value of using standards to support civil government activities. GovFuture members have an opportunity to network with their peers worldwide, with representatives from other levels of government, and with suppliers and universities through OGC events and communication channels.

About the OGC

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 480 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.

About Directions Media

Directions Media's mission is to inform readers and serve advertisers. Directions Media strives to be the very best resource for geospatial professionals and information technology workers who want to understand and capitalize on location-based information. Directions Media was founded in 1998 as Directions Magazine, which continues to be the flagship publication. Directions Magazine was the first regularly published online magazine covering geospatial technology. Today Directions Media maintains several online publications including Directions Magazine and the All Points Blog and offers conferences including Location Intelligence and GEO Huntsville.

13 December 2012. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) has issued a call for sponsors of the 10^th annual OGC Web Services Testbed (OWS-10) (http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/ows-10). Sponsors of OGC testbeds provide interoperability requirements that drive rapid development, testing and delivery of proven candidate standards into the OGC Standards Program. OGC standards reduce the business risks associated with the use, operation, influence and adoption of spatial information technologies within enterprises, and they directly improve collaboration between enterprises across government and industry throughout the world. 

OWS-10 will build on the outcomes of prior OGC initiatives (http://www.opengeospatial.org/resource/demos), in particular the recent OWS-9 Testbed (http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/ows-9), which yielded:

-- Aviation: Modern, web-accessible Aeronautical Information Services that can adapt as technology changes.

-- Cross-Community Interoperability (CCI): Improved location search capability, improved ability to track data's origins, real-time fusion of data from multiple sensors, and a standard for a Global Gazetteer capable of real-time translation of spatial semantics to match, for example, "dead end street" with "cul-de-sac."

-- Security and Services Interoperability (SSI): Recommendations for geospatial Security Management, a way to automate the creation of implementable data schemas from abstract models, easier use of OGC Web Services, methods for more efficient design of architectures, and a standard that helps users manage large spatial databases that are being edited by intermittently-connected mobile device users.

-- OGC Web Services (OWS) innovations: New OGC compliance tests and improved interoperability for mobile device apps that use OGC standards in providing location services. 

OWS-10 will also explore new areas, including but not limited to: Decision Fusion (including Augmented Reality, Model Interoperability, Provenance in Workflows, and Linked Data); Sensor Web Enablement (including Internet of Things concepts); and Mobile Solutions, Points of Interest, Semantic Mediation, and Semantic Intelligence. OWS-10 scenarios will explore technical solutions that will be useful in addressing critical issues such as  location privacy, data access policies and pricing.

OWS-10 Sponsor Meeting

Interested organizations are invited to participate in the first OWS-10 Sponsor Planning Meeting from 8-10 am on 17 January 2013 at the Esri campus in Redlands, CA. At this meeting, potential sponsors will review the OGC standards baseline, discuss OWS-9 outcomes, and capture initial OWS-10 requirements and plans. Sponsors of OGC Interoperability Program initiatives provide requirements, use/business cases and funding for OGC testbeds and pilot projects.

Participation in this planning meeting does not constitute a commitment to sponsor OWS-10. Sponsor and participant commitment will be part of a subsequent Request for Quotation / Call for Participation (RFQ/CFP) process. The OGC also welcomes the participation of other Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs), as SDOs' cooperation and SDO members' cross-participation are necessary to avoid overlapping work programs and future obstacles to interoperability.

If your organization is interested in this initiative and/or the planning meeting, contact Nadine Alameh at nalameh [at] opengeospatial [dot] org or George Percivall at gpercivall [at] opengeospatial [dot] org.

OWS-9 Demo

Interested organizations are also invited to attend the January 15 OWS-9 Testbed Demonstration and Exhibition, which has been organized as part of the OGC Technical Committee Meeting at the Esri campus in Redlands, 14-18 January 2012. Attendees at the January 15 OWS-9 Demonstration and Exhibition will witness firsthand the capabilities, results and value of the OGC’s collaborative testbed process.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 475 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/.

13 December 2012. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) invites interested organizations to attend the January 15 OWS-9 Testbed Demonstration and Exhibition. This event will be held as part of the OGC Technical Committee meeting at the Esri campus in Redlands, California, 14-18 January 2012. 

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 spatial encoding and interface standards into the OGC Standards Program, where they are formalized for release as adopted OGC Standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. 

In OGC testbeds, sponsoring organizations provide requirements and funding. Participating technology providers provide standards development that is aligned with their product development programs. OWS-9 sponsorship totaled $2.65 million USD and attracted an in-kind contribution of more than $5 million. The ten OWS-9 sponsors from the US, Canada and Europe who shared the costs and contributed the requirements have missions ranging from environmental management and civil government mapping to maintaining common operating pictures in disaster zones and battlefields. Working on specific interoperability problems detailed in the sponsors' use cases and scenarios, the 45 industry participants in OWS-9 have delivered extraordinary value:

• Aviation: The Aviation world got open standards support for modern, web-accessible Aeronautical Information Services that can adapt as technology changes.

• Cross-Community Interoperability (CCI): Communities sharing spatial data got a better location search capability, improved ability to track data's origins, real-time fusion of data from multiple sensors, and a standard for a Global Gazetteer capable of real-time translation of spatial semantics to match, for example, "dead end street" with "cul-de-sac."

• Security and Services Interoperability (SSI): Communities sharing spatial data got recommendations for Security Management, a way to automate the creation of implementable data schemas from abstract models, easier use of OGC Web Services, methods for more efficient design of architectures, and a standard that helps users manage large spatial databases that are being edited by intermittently-connected mobile device users.

• OGC Web Services (OWS) innovations: Technologists involved in spatial communication technology got new OGC compliance tests and improved interoperability for mobile device apps that use OGC standards in providing location services. 

The OWS-9 sponsors responsible for these important advancements in spatial technology include:

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

For more information and to register for the OWS-9 Testbed Demonstration, please visit here. 

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) has also issued a call for sponsors of the 10^th annual OGC Web Services Testbed (OWS-10) (http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/ows-10). OWS-10 will build on the outcomes of the OWS-9 Testbed (http://www.opengeospatial.org/projects/initiatives/ows-9) and other prior OGC initiatives (http://www.opengeospatial.org/resource/demos).

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 475 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available spatial standards. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/.

5 December 2012. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) announced the formation of the 3D Portrayal Standards Working group (3D Portrayal SWG). This group is chartered to progress the Candidate OGC Web 3D Service Interface Standard and the OGC Web View Service Discussion Paper to the state of an integrated, adopted OGC standard.

The OGC members convening this group invite the public to comment on the 3D Portrayal SWG Charter and will consider comments received before 14 December 2012.

The proposed OGC 3D Portrayal v1.0 standard will provide a standard interface for web-based scene graph rendering and image based rendering of 3D city models.
The OGC envisions that this standard will be implemented by providers of 3D city models (cities, national mapping organizations and private data providers); GIS, CAD and BIM vendors; and mass market software vendors interested in geographic based applications and the consumer.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 475 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact. 

10 December 2012 - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) reports an important milestone in efforts to have the OGC WaterML 2.0 Encoding Standard adopted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Commission for Hydrology (CHy) as an official WMO/ISO standard.

Representatives from 51 WMO member countries attended the CHy session from 6-14 November 2012 in Geneva and adopted Resolution 7/1, which requests the WMO "Secretariat to take the necessary actions, under the direction of the AWG (CHy Advisory Working Group), to commence a process, including testing, that could potentially see WaterML 2.0 become a WMO standard for information exchange managed by WMO (supported by the WMO/OGC Memorandum of Understanding) and to register this standard as a joint WMO/ISO standard." Furthermore the CHy requests WMO member countries "to actively participate in testing and applying WaterML 2.0 in pilot projects and operational applications and to report their experiences and suggestions to the WMO/OGC Hydrology Domain Working Group...."

The wording of the resolution was chosen carefully and reflected the various participating members' positions on water information standards, but represents an acknowledgement of the need and significance of this work, and a commitment to work to get full WMO endorsement. This was a consensus based consultative process, all the more significant considering that the resolutions are prepared in the 6 WMO official languages (Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, French and English).

OGC WaterML 2.0 is an important new international standard for encoding and exchanging time series water data. It is suitable for the exchange of a broad range of water information typically associated with surface and ground water resource systems. WaterML 2.0 Time Series supports encoding of hydrological and hydrogeological observation data in exchange scenarios such as:

•   Exchange of data for operational monitoring and forecasting programs
•   Supporting infrastructure operation (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
•   Exchange in support of national reporting

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 475 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.

3 December 2012. The Australian Cooperative Research Center for Spatial Information (CRCSI) has joined forces with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) through the signing of a memorandum of understanding. The relationship with OGC will be especially strong with the CRCSI’s Spatial Infrastructures research program.

“We’ll be using OGC and other open standards in our research to help direct development of the next generation of spatial infrastructure in Australia and New Zealand”, says Dr Geoff West, Science Director of the CRCSI’s Spatial Infrastructures research program.

CRCSI input to the OGC will inform the direction of research for existing and new OGC standards. Dr West explained, “By using OGC standards, we ensure our research communicates directly with other systems.”

The agreement will leverage the collective expertise of many of the CRCSI’s partnering organisations to position research outputs for rapid utilization.

Further to the linked research goals, CRCSI and OGC will share outreach and marketing materials to increase awareness of the increasing influential role of open standards in location based research. Joint activities may include introduction of interoperability requirements into the OGC consensus process, and the sponsorship/funding of CRCSI research interoperability and compliance testing requirements in OGC’s Interoperability Program testbeds and pilot initiatives.

“We are particularly pleased with this new partnership. It will expand our reach internationally and accelerate the rate at which we learn about and contribute to international standards developments” says Peter Woodgate, CEO of the CRCSI.

Mark Reichardt, President and CEO of the OGC noted, “We are delighted to have CRCSI’s participation and leadership in the OGC international process.  The impact of research organisations like CRCSI in the OGC international process is significant.  Research organisations understand the power of open standards to support the rapid transition of research results into broad community application.  They also benefit by partnering with other OGC public and private sector members to cooperatively advance important research objectives. ”

About CRCSI

The Australian and New Zealand Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI) conducts research and development projects that involve collaboration between government, corporate and academic resources. CRCSI creates new wealth for its participants and the nation through innovative research and application and commercialization of spatial information technologies; through education; and through building collaborative partnerships. CRCSI currently has around 95 partner organisations.

About OGC

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 475 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled.

29 November 2012. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) invites participation in a Groundwater Interoperability Experiment (GWIE2).

This activity, which began on 23 October 2012, will develop and test the candidate OGC Groundwater Markup Language (GWML) 2 standard by harmonizing and advancing existing initiatives such as GWML1, the EU-INSPIRE effort, GeoSciML, and others. Participants will then prepare an engineering report with the intent to develop it into a data encoding specification that will be advanced toward adoption as the OGC Groundwater Markup Language 2 (GWML 2) Standard. This activity is being carried out within the Hydrology Domain Working Group, which operates under the auspices of the OGC and the World Meteorological Organization.

GWML 2 will meet the requirements for a human-readable and machine-readable transfer standard for groundwater feature data, including data about water wells, aquifers, and related entities. GWML 2 will also serve as a reference for hydrological observations related to these features. (See the OGC WaterML2.0 Encoding Standard.)

The OGC members that are acting as initiators of the Interoperability Experiment are:

• Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
• European Commission (JRC)
• Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)
• US Geological Survey (USGS)

A summary of the activity plan, requirements for participation, schedule, and kick-off meeting details are available at: http://external.opengeospatial.org/twiki_public/HydrologyDWG/GroundwaterInteroperabilityExperiment2.

Expressions of interest for participation are due by 27 December 2012.

Contact Boyan [dot] Brodaric [at] nrcan [dot] gc [dot] ca for further details or to register as a participant.

OGC testbeds, pilot projects and interoperability experiments are part of the OGC's Interoperability Program, a global, hands-on collaborative prototyping program designed to rapidly develop, test and deliver proven candidate specifications into the OGC's Standards Program, where they are formalized for public release. These initiatives enable users and providers of geospatial technology to share the costs of developing standards that provide a foundation for "future-proof" enterprise architectures. Providers reduce their costs of developing and maintaining interfaces and encodings while gaining industry recognition, the confidence of an initiative's sponsoring organizations, and the market growth that results from open standards.

An OGC Interoperability Experiment is a rapid, low overhead, formally structured OGC-facilitated activity in which members achieve specific technical objectives that further the OGC Technical Baseline.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 470 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact/.