OGC Press Releases

9 February 2012 – Synaptitude Consulting, an international Information Technology consulting services company, and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) have signed a Memorandum of Agreement to cooperate in promoting the use of open geospatial standards in Smart Grid software and services. The two organizations plan to leverage their strengths to enable Smart Grid stakeholders to make the best possible use of the Smart Grid's ubiquitous location information.

“Synaptitude will enable us to better understand the language and needs of the diverse Smart Grid communities and help those communities understand their need for open geospatial standards,” explained Mark Reichardt, President of OGC said. “Our members have done a great job of providing the necessary technology. Synaptitude will help us bring these to a Smart Grid world that needs them.”

“The Smart Grid by definition has geospatial information at its core,“ said Eric Nelson, Managing Principal at Synaptitude who leads their utilities work. “OGC’s open geospatial information interoperability messaging standards can be a key enabler of the Smart Grid’s real-time location-based messaging layer.”   

An OGC Smart Grid Ad Hoc meeting, Geospatial Standards for the Smart Grid, will be held Tuesday, March 20, 8-10 a.m. as part of the OGC Technical Committee meeting in Austin, Texas. The public is invited. The  OGC Smart Grid Ad Hoc meeting is free, but registration is required (please contact via email:  register at opengeospatial.org).

Every Smart Grid component -- transformer, meter, air conditioner, power plant, electric car, solar panel, etc. -- has a location on Earth. In addition, every grid event or phenomenon -- brownout, demand variability, power surge, regulation, transmission loss, etc. -- occurs within some place or space on the grid’s physical network. The same is true for every external event or phenomenon that affects the grid, such as weather alert or cyber-attack. Communicating location, proximity, distribution boundaries etc. will become increasingly important as the power inflow/outflow metering function and associated transactions enter our homes, businesses, cars, and mobile devices. Also, first responders, civil engineers, street crews, and many others will ask “where” questions that can only be answered through inter-process communication between the their systems and the Smart Grid. Similarly, gas and water utilities will need open geospatial standards as their businesses become more complex and IT-intensive.

The OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard is included in the US National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) "Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability, v1.0," and it is included as a spatial encoding in OASIS Energy Market Information Exchange (eMIX) and EnergyInterop standards documents. However, the Smart Grid standards framework involves the participation of many different standards organizations, and much work remains to be done to ensure transparent communication of location and geospatial queries and responses across the Smart Grid universe.

About Synaptitude Consulting

Synaptitude is an enterprise and IT systems consulting services company. We deliver transformational solutions to our clients’ most critical business challenges. Today’s business is deeply interconnected with the technology that supports it. Yet, many organizations struggle to focus their business and technological concerns on the same goals; sometimes it’s as if they are speaking two separate languages. 

Synaptitude excels in providing real-world IT consulting in the following areas and verticals:

• Utilities
• Media and Telecommunications
• Revenue Assurance and Cost Management
• Public Utility Commission Expert Witness testimony
• Back office operational and customer-facing architecture
• Vendor-agnostic package selection
• Trusted Advisor IT Implementation Program Management

For more information, visit: http://www.synaptitudeconsulting.com/solutions/smart_grid_solutions_center

About the OGC

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 435 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.

26 January 2012 - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) membership has voted to adopt the candidate OGC Open GeoSMS Standard as an official OGC standard.

The OGC Open GeoSMS Standard provides developers with an extended Short Message Service (SMS) encoding and interface to facilitate communication of location content between different LBS (Location-Based Service) devices or applications. SMS is the open  text communication service standard most commonly used in phone, web and mobile communication systems for the exchange of short text messages between fixed line or mobile phone devices. The lightweight and easy to implement Open GeoSMS Standard facilitates interoperability between mobile applications and the rapidly expanding world of geospatial applications and services that implement OGC standard interfaces, encodings and best practices.

The Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) contributed Open GeoSMS as a candidate standard to the OGC. Open GeoSMS is already in use in a number of deployed commercial applications in Taiwan as well as in several disaster response applications. ITRI donated software (an Android application) based on Open GeoSMS to the open source Sahana Disaster Management System for use in disaster warning, reporting and relief, and ITRI has offered the software for free download on the Android Market. The Sahana application establishes a synchronization mechanism between Sahana and one or more mobile devices. It provides communication between rescue teams and members and provides location updates to Sahana for relief and rescue coordination. There is also an Open GeoSMS enabled Ushahidi Android app.

The OGC Open GeoSMS Standard can be found at: http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/opengeosms.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 440 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.

23 January 2012, Wayland, Massachusetts. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) is pleased to announce that PIXIA Corporation has raised their OGC membership level to Principal Member. PIXIA has been an active member in the OGC since 2006, contributing to progress in several OGC Technical Committee working groups.

PIXIA plans to increase the extent of their participation, working with other OGC members to advance standards and best practices related to rapid data access in the areas of geospatial imagery, wide area motion imagery (WAMI), and full motion video (FMV). 

The Consortium’s Principal Members exercise influence over the development, release and adoption of OGC standards through their voting rights in the OGC Planning Committee. They also provide valuable industry expertise to support the forward-thinking market strategy of the consortium.

“PIXIA’s move to Principal Membership in the OGC reflects the importance of standards in the broader industry effort to turn image data into knowledge,” said Mark Reichardt, President and CEO of the OGC.  “Their technical commitment to the development and market application of open standards is deeply appreciated, and we are excited that they will be playing an increasing role in advancing the market and policy direction of the consortium as a Principal member.”

Rahul Thakkar, VP of Technology for PIXIA, said, “As the lead advocate for the WAMI web services specification, PIXIA has invested considerable effort in promoting OGC interoperability and research in innovative solutions.”   

About PIXIA

PIXIA provides high-performance scalable data access solutions for Big Data. Its core technology focuses on increased storage Input/Output (I/O), scalability and interoperability to power data to be accessed anywhere within a Cloud environment. Three product lines, HiPER LOOK©, HiPER STARE© and HiPER WATCH^tm, provide a broad range of options to address geospatial and video enterprise storage needs.

PIXIA Corp. is a commercial software company based in Sterling, Virginia, USA. 

Learn more about PIXIA at http://www.pixia.com.

About the OGC

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 430 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.

20 January 2012. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) announced the formation of a new OGC Technical Committee Standards Working Group (SWG) to advance the candidate OGC IndoorGML Standard. The OGC members invite the public to comment on the SWG charter (https://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=47562 ) and will consider comments received before 10 February 2012.

This SWG aims to provide a common schema framework for interoperability between indoor navigation applications, which cover a wide spectrum of application areas such as indoor LBS, indoor web map services, indoor emergency control, guiding services for visually handicapped persons in indoor space, and indoor robotics. Several commercial services for indoor spatial information have been recently launched such as Google Maps and Bing Indoor Maps. In order to meet the market demands from these application areas, we need indoor navigation information as an essential component. There are also strong demands for indoor navigation information from other standardization organizations including ISO/TC204 and IEEE RAS to extend existing standards to cover indoor space as well as outdoor space in a seamless way.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 430 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.

16 January 2012. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC(R)) Board of Directors has unanimously elected The Honorable Jeffrey K. Harris as Chairman of the Board of the Open Geospatial Consortium.

Mr. Harris succeeds OGC Founder David Schell, who will continue to serve as Chairman Emeritus.  Jeff has been an OGC director since 2003 and a member of the Board's Executive Committee.  He has been a key participant in the Consortium's strategic and business planning processes and an influential spokesman for OGC and for the benefits of open standards in both the public and private sector enterprise worldwide.

Jeff Harris has had a long and distinguished career spanning nearly 35 years in the space industry.  He recently retired from Lockheed Martin, where he served as President of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space and President of Lockheed Martin Special Programs.  Mr. Harris also served as President of Space Imaging Corporation, the first company to commercially provide high-resolution satellite imagery and information products of the Earth for cost-effective solutions to today’s global business needs. Prior to joining the private sector, he served with distinction in senior leadership positions in government.  He is now a private consultant to both industry and government on geospatial and space technology programs.

Jeff Harris has a deep understanding of and commitment to the OGC mission.  He also knows the industry, the technology and user needs; he's uniquely qualified to bring the OGC into a larger sphere of influence.  "I am excited and honored to serve as OGC Chairman," he said.  "David Schell has set the bar high for leading this organization into the future, and I look forward to working with him, as well as the entire board and our first-rate staff.  The OGC engine room is clearly defining the international standards that both enable and accelerate the adoption of tools and technology across the entire geospatial spectrum.  The Consortium’s work has been critical to the seamless delivery of discoverable content, ranging from individual users to industry and government, which will be increasingly important as we address future challenges.  I welcome the opportunity to be a part of this journey.”

As Chairman Emeritus, David Schell will continue to be actively involved with the OGC board and will serve as chief strategist for the organization, focusing on resource strategies and strategic relations.  Schell commented:  "For the last 25 years I have been working to make geospatial interoperability a reality. I was fortunate that so many talented people shared my vision and dedicated themselves to do what I could never have done alone. I am very proud of what we have accomplished, and I am equally proud that an executive and visionary of Jeff Harris' stature and proven leadership has agreed to assume OGC's Chairmanship. Jeff Harris and OGC CEO Mark Reichardt comprise a unique leadership team that will ensure the continuation of OGC's innovative role in the standards community and future recognition as a laboratory for spatial information policy and decision support processes."

"I look forward with great enthusiasm to working with David and Jeff," said Mark Reichardt. "We all owe David Schell a tremendous debt for creating and growing this organization and bringing together the team that we have, including our distinguished international board of directors. I'm delighted that David will continue working with us, and that we will continue to move forward under Jeff’s leadership."

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 430 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/.

7 December 2011 - 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 at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/84.  Submit comments on the candidate Best Practices document to requests [at] lists [dot] opengeospatial [dot] org. The comment period ends January 7, 2012. 

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 430 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.

7 December 2011 - 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 at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/83.  Submit comments on the candidate Best Practices document to requests [at] lists [dot] opengeospatial [dot] org. The comment period ends January 6, 2012.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 430 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.