OGC Press Releases

June 1, 2012 - 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 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. NetCDF was developed and is maintained and actively supported by the Unidata Program Center (http://www.unidata.ucar.edu) of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).

The netCDF classic data model has previously been established as the core OGC CF-netCDF standard.  With this extension to the core standard for the enhanced data model, complex data structures can be represented very easily, allowing for more efficient programming. In performance-critical applications, the enhanced model provides significant benefits. Moreover, if existing HDF5 (Hierarchical Data Format, release 5) applications that depend on groups, user-defined types, unsigned types, or strings produce or use these data, the netCDF enhanced data model is required. The recently introduced candidate NetCDF Enhanced Data Model Extension Encoding Standard is the latest step in a longer-term plan for establishing CF-netCDF as an OGC standard for binary encoding, which will enable standard delivery of data in binary form via several OGC service interface standards, including the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS), Web Feature Service (WFS), and Sensor Observation Service (SOS) Interface Standards.

The candidate OGC Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) NetCDF Enhanced Data Model Extension Encoding Standard and information about submitting comments on this document are available at  http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/88. The public comment period closes on July 1, 2012.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 445 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.

1 June 2012 - Members of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®), an international standards development organization, invite participation in an Energy & Utilities Geospatial Standards Ad Hoc Meeting to be held on Monday, 18 June 2012 at 1600-1755 BST (UTC/GMT +1 hour) in Exeter, England. This meeting, focused on Smart Grid standards, will be part of the upcoming OGC Technical Committee meeting to be held June 18-21 in Exeter.

In the energy and utility information standards worlds, compatibility with geospatial standards from other domains such as meteorology, urban planning and emergency response is an increasingly critical communication requirement. This group of OGC members, who are finalizing an OGC Energy & Utilities Domain Working Group (E&U DWG) charter, plan to focus on geospatial standards that impact the energy and utility domain, of which one subset are those that are Smart Grid related. At this meeting, the members seek further input on both the draft charter and on Smart Grid standards from the European energy and utility standards community. Those interested in presenting or attending should contact Renee Bogle Hughes <rhughes [at] synaptitudeconsulting [dot] com">rhughes [at] synaptitudeconsulting.com>. As the agenda develops, details will be posted at http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/1206tcagenda.

The ability to communicate geospatial information is seen as a crosscutting requirement in Smart Grid standards efforts worldwide. The OASIS eMIX (Energy Market Information Exchange) standard uses the OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) CIM (Common Information Model) standard is in the process of being "harmonized" with WXXM (Weather Information Exchange Model). WXXM is an industry standard based on GML. More standards coordination and development, however, is required to enable efficient geospatial communication within smart grids and between smart grids and "neighboring" activities such as emergency response, disaster management, urban planning and building energy management.

Many of the OGC's domains of activity – sensor webs, weather, indoor/outdoor location integration, 3D city models, location services, data fusion and others – have significance in the energy and utilities domain. Many OGC members have a stake in the Smart Grid information technology market, the growth of which depends on the evolution of a standards infrastructure that includes location standards.

This meeting (an "ad hoc" meeting in the OGC's formal meeting nomenclature) follows a similar meeting in Austin, Texas on March 20 that confirmed strong interest among US Smart Grid standards players in addressing open geospatial standards for the Smart Grid. International participants at the Austin meeting met subsequently to draft an Energy & Utilities Domain Working Group charter, which will be voted on by the OGC membership at the Exeter meeting.

See details of the OGC Technical Committee meeting and instructions for registration at http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/1206tc.

OGC staff and Renee Bogle Hughes of Synaptitude Consulting will facilitate the meeting. We hope you will attend.

About the OGC

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 445 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.

24 April 2012.  - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) membership has adopted Version 2.0 of the OGC City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) Encoding Standard (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/citygml).

CityGML is a community defined information model and XML-based encoding for the representation, storage, and exchange of virtual 3D city and landscape models. CityGML provides a standard model and mechanism for describing 3D objects with respect to their geometry, topology, semantics and appearance, and defines five different levels of detail. CityGML is highly scalable and datasets can include different urban entities supporting the general trend toward modeling not only individual buildings but also whole sites, districts, cities, regions, and countries.

CityGML provides much more than 3D content for visualization by diverse applications. It allows users to share virtual 3D city and landscape models for sophisticated analysis and display tasks in application domains such as environmental simulations, energy demand estimations, city lifecycle management, urban facility management, real estate appraisal, disaster management, pedestrian navigation, robotics, urban data mining, and location based marketing. Because CityGML is based on the OGC Geography Markup Language Encoding Standard (GML), it can be used with the whole family of OGC web services for data accessing, processing, and cataloging.

CityGML has been implemented in many software solutions and is in use in many projects around the world. In National Spatial Data Infrastructure programs in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Malaysia, Abu Dhabi and other countries, CityGML provides an important platform for the transition from 2D to 3D data. It also plays an important role in bridging Urban Information Models with Building Information Models (BIM) to improve interoperability among information systems used in the design, construction, ownership and operation of buildings and capital projects.

In comparison to Version 1.0, CityGML Version 2.0 defines additional feature types and new feature properties including new thematic modules for tunnels and bridges; the ability to model footprint and roof edge representations for buildings in order to allow users to derive 3D models from existing 2D building data; and generic attribute sets, allowing users a more powerful way to customize CityGML without the need for additional coding. Since all elements of Version 1.0 were preserved, CityGML 1.0 files can easily be converted into V2.0 by a simple substitution of the namespace values. A comprehensive test dataset illustrating all data concepts and structures is available for download at www.citygml.org.

CityGML was originally defined and submitted to the OGC by the Special Interest Group 3D (SIG 3D) (http://www.sig3d.org) of the Spatial Data Infrastructure Germany (GDI-DE), which has also substantially contributed to and implemented the current version of CityGML.

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.

26 March 2012 - The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) announced that the U.A.E. Ministry of the Interior, represented by Abu Dhabi Police GIS Center for Security, has become a Principal Member of the OGC to chair a new, planned international OGC Law Enforcement and Public Safety Working Group.

In addition to advancing technical standards and best practices as voting members of the OGC Technical Committee, Principal Members provide guidance on market direction and Consortium focus, vote to approve nominations to the OGC Board of Directors, and have authority over the development, release and adoption of OGC standards through their voting rights in the OGC Planning Committee.

The Abu Dhabi Police GIS Center for Security aims to contribute to the OGC GovFuture Program and other consortium activities that guide local, sub-national, national & international government organizations in raising awareness and adoption of OGC standards in geospatial systems and geographical information, which are critically important in government decision support systems. Abu Dhabi Police is interested in initiating and leading a Domain Working Group that would be supported by police, emergency and security forces from the UAE, the Middle East region and other world regions. The goal is to drive geospatial technology standards and approaches that support law enforcement, public safety and security, as well as encouraging research, projects, events and outreach that contribute to achieving this goal.

Mark Reichardt, President of the OGC, said, “By becoming a Principal Member in the OGC, the U.A.E. Ministry of the Interior has shown a strong commitment to the open standards community and its leadership in advancing OGC standards for improved decision making across government. It's also important for the Middle East region that we now have an OGC Principal Member from the UAE."

"We are pleased to be the first police force in the world to be a Principal Member of the OGC, and in a position to chair a focused domain working group at the global level," said Captain Mohammed Saleh Al Mansoori, head of the GIS Center for Security in the U.A.E. "This initiative contributes to our mission of becoming an intelligence-led police force by investing in information and knowledge and adopting technology best practices and standards to fulfill our tasks and duties as a force."

About the Abu Dhabi Police GIS Center for Security

The Abu Dhabi Police GIS Center for Security has developed a strategic roadmap to utilize the capabilities of spatial systems in areas of law enforcement, public safety and homeland security. It is setting a new standard on how to plan, think and operate spatially to make location count in law enforcement and public safety.

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.  See the new OGC video: http://www.youtube.com/ogcvideo.

8 March 2012 – The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) has announced a Call for Participation (CFP) in the 5th phase of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Architecture Implementation Pilot (AIP-5). The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) provides leadership in AIP-5 and invites OGC members and other organizations to respond to the CFP. The CFP document is available at: http://earthobservations.org/geoss_call_aip.shtml.

AIP-5 places a priority on these areas:

• Increase GEOSS capacity to support several societal benefit areas (SBAs): Disasters, Health, Energy, Water and Agriculture. 
• Deploy user management and authentication to support GEOSS Data-CORE
• Conduct research to be considered for the GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI)

Responses to this CFP are requested by 11 April 2012. Discussion and clarification of the CFP and the initiation of AIP-5 will be the topic of weekly teleconferences. Agenda and logistics for these telecons are posted at http://www.ogcnetwork.net/AIPtelecons.

The Point of Contact for the AIP initiative is George Percivall, gpercivall [at] opengeospatial [dot] org.

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 empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Learn more about the OGC at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact. See our recent "What is the OGC?" video.

GEO (Group on Earth Observations) is a voluntary partnership of 151 governments and international organizations, launched in response to calls for action by the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and by the G8 (Group of Eight) leading industrialized countries. GEO is coordinating efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS.

See http://earthobservations.org/about_geo.shtml.

6 March 2012. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) announced that Dr. Jinsoo You has become the first Director of Asian Services for the OGC.

In this new role, Dr. You will represent the interests of OGC in the region. He will promote awareness and adoption of OGC standards, help OGC members optimize their engagement in the OGC process, assist with recruitment, and represent OGC in dealing with OGC alliance partners. As the Asian Services Director, Dr. You will support the OGC Asia Forum, which was approved by the OGC membership in 2011 as a mechanism to represent and coordinate the interests of the Asian region in the OGC's international process.

Dr. You has a distinguished record of professional contributions in the field of geospatial information beginning in the early 1990s. His work with organizations in industry, research, academia, and government has reflected his belief that the successful use of geospatial information comes from organizations working together for mutual benefit. He has been involved in OGC activities in his previous work and has helped his organizations better accomplish their missions by aligning with OGC standards.

As the new director of Asian Services, Dr. You will focus on providing OGC services to members in Asia, identifying opportunities in the region for testbeds, pilot projects, and training sessions. He will work with Asian organizations to ensure that Asian requirements are addressed by the international standards of the OGC. He will also represent OGC at meetings and events involving OGC Alliance Partner organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission Joint Technical Committee 1 Working Group 7 (JTC 1/WG7) Sensor Networks and ISO/IEC JTC 1 / Subcommittee 24/Working Group 9 (SC24/WG9) Augmented Reality.

Dr. You has participated in standardization projects for both OGC and ISO/TC 211 Geographic information/Geomatics during the last decade. He has also been involved in the development of urban information systems and geospatial web services. He served as a Co-Chair of the OGC-ISO/TC 211 Joint Advisory Group (JAG) for harmonization of standards from the two organizations. In 2009 he became the Chair of the OGC Korea Forum to seek interoperability and create synergy between the various Korean producers and users of geospatial products and services. As the Chair of OGC Korea Forum, Dr. You has focused on developing a geospatial services network in Korea based on international standards.

Before joining the OGC, Dr. You worked at Yonsei University, Korea as a research professor and at the University of Nottingham, UK as a research fellow for geospatial interoperability research. He also worked as a CTO and a CIO of leading geospatial information technology firms based in Seoul, Korea. Dr. You earned his Ph.D. in GIS for Transportation from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving the Outstanding Ph.D. Award in 2000.

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. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/. See our recent "What is the OGC?" video.

22 February 2012 - The global aviation community is moving forward on the adoption of an international framework of standards that enable communication in a net-centric, globally interoperable Air Transport System (ATS). 

Major government aviation organizations working with large and small aviation companies have developed the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) and the Weather Information Exchange Model (WXXM), both of which are based on the OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard. The OGC has been assisting in the evaluation, advancement and adoption of AIXM and WXXM by leading a series of rapid prototyping testbeds.

The ninth OGC Web Services testbed (OWS-9) will have sponsorship from numerous organizations including the FAA (US Federal Aviation Administration) and Eurocontrol. The Aviation Thread of OWS-9 builds on the Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) and aviation threads of OWS-6, OWS-7 and OWS-8. Participants will further develop and demonstrate the use of AIXM and WXXM in an OGC Web Services environment.  The request for participation and quotes will be issued this week with responses due in April 2012. The kickoff meeting will be held in April, all deliverables are due in December, and a demonstration event will be held in January 2013.

The Aviation Thread will advance the Aviation Architecture to support several Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) Joint Undertaking (SJU) project requirements as well as the FAA's AIM and SWIM (System Wide Information Management) AatS (Aircraft Access to SWIM) requirements. Some efforts in the thread will advance system stability and compliance and others will focus on the SESAR’s ATM Information Reference Model (AIRM). 

To raise awareness of AIXM and WXXM and the value of open geospatial standards, the OGC, in collaboration with EUROCONTROL and the FAA, has organised the ATC Global 2012 workshop “Use of Open Standards in the Modernisation of ATM.” ATC Global (6 – 8 March 2012) is the largest international ATM exhibition of its kind, featuring 200 exhibitors and 40+ free seminars and workshops.

The workshop will cover the role of open standards in supporting and accelerating the ongoing modernization of ATM worldwide and is for ATM data providers, integrators, ANSPs (air navigation service providers), avionics system implementers, EFB (electronic flight bag) implementers, airline representatives, dispatch/operation centre representatives and users of ATM information.

View the agenda here.  Speakers include George Percivall, Chief Architect and Executive Director, Open Geospatial Consortium; Paul Bosman; SWIM/EA Unit manager, Agency AIM focal point, EUROCONTROL; Kevin Haggerty, FAA International Program Officer for Europe, Africa, and Middle East;  Hubert Lepori, AIXM Change Control Board, Information Management / Enterprise Architecture Unit, EUROCONTROL; Frank Suykens, Head of Research & Development, Luciad; Ian Painter, Managing Director, Snowflake Software; Ulrich Kaage, Product Manager, Comsoft; Fatimah Madari, SmartAIM Product Manager, Frequentis; Paolo Stefani, Project Manager, IDS and senior representation from SESAR JU.

The workshop will take place on the morning of Tuesday, 6 March from 10:00 to 13:00 in the Workshop Theatre, Hall 9 at the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition & Congress Centre in the Netherlands. Go to http://www.atcglobalhub.com/register to register as a free exhibition visitor. Make sure to tick the relevant workshop to register your interest in attending. Please arrive at the Workshop theatre, Hall 9 at 09:45 as places are allocated on a first come, first served basis.

About the OGC 

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.

22 February 2012. 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).

• 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)