[OGC News] OGC News - July/August 2007

Fri Aug 17 10:11:46 EDT 2007

OGC® News July/August 2007

CONTENTS

- President's Message: 2007 Kenneth D. Gardels Award
- CTO's Report on the July 2007 TC and PC Meetings in Paris
- News and Opinion From The Blogosphere
- Website of the Month
- News Item
- Announcement

DEPARTMENTS

- New Members
- OGC In The News
- Events
- Contact
- Subscribe/Unsubscribe

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Back issues of OGC News are available:
http://www.opengeospatial.org/press/?page=newsletter

*****

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: 2007 KENNETH D. GARDELS AWARD

At the July OGC meetings in Paris, Clemens Portele of interactive
instruments GmbH was awarded the OGC's ninth Kenneth D. Gardels
Award.

Clemens has been deeply involved in a range of important OGC programs.
The success of OGC's cooperative endeavor with ISO owes much to
Clemens' diplomacy, patience and persistence. His leadership role
in the INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial InfoRmation in Europe) Data
Specifications Drafting Team contributes to a process that influences
the progress of European policy with respect to OGC standards. He has
also provided important support to a range of OGC documents including
the GML application schema for use by OASIS, a GML version of the
Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM), and the GML Simple
Features Profile, to name a few. I ask that you visit the OGC website
to read his award citation and the citations of previous award winners
at http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/awards.

The occasion of Clemens' award merits some words about Kenn
Gardels and the mission of our Consortium.

The Gardels Award was conceived to memorialize the spirit of Kenneth
Gardels, a founding member and director of the OGC. Kenn was a man who
dreamt of making the world a better place through open communication
and the use of information technology to improve the quality of human
life. The OGC Board selects the annual award recipient from
nominations provided by a committee comprised of previous Gardels
awardees.

Kenn coined the phrase "Open GIS". He was active in
popularizing the open source GIS "GRASS" and was a key
figure in the early Internet community of people who used and
developed that software. Kenn was well known in the field of GIS and
was involved over the years in many programs related to GIS and the
environment. He is remembered for his principles, courage, and
humility, and for his accomplishments in promoting spatial
technologies as tools for preserving the environment and serving human
needs.

Kenn embraced the concept of "Think globally, act locally."
This phrase originated with scientist René Dubos at the United
Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. The phrase grows
ever more meaningful with humanity's growing concerns about
climate change, population growth, pollution, energy constraints and
the "flattening" of the world community. "Think
globally, act locally" is particularly meaningful for the
geospatial community, because our technologies help people rationalize
seemingly broad and at times intangible issues into a local context,
and because the environmental themes Gardels and Dubos cared about are
so obviously tied to geospatial features and phenomena.

I am, as Kenn would be, grateful to each of the people who have
received the Gardels award. I am grateful for their extraordinary
efforts and their leadership in our unique community, and for helping
to advance the interoperability mission of the Consortium. Clemens has
earned the appreciation of the others who participate in the OGC, but
he would be the first to point out that this is a collaborative effort
in which we are all helping each other achieve common goals. For me,
it is truly an honor to be part of this community.

-Mark Reichardt

*****

CTO'S REPORT ON THE JULY 2007 TC AND PC MEETINGS IN PARIS

The 61st OGC Technical Committee meetings were held the week of July
9th in Paris, France. The meetings were sponsored by Platinum Sponsor
Ionic Software and Silver Sponsor BRGM. Over 180 individuals attended
and participated in the various Working Group meetings.

During the meetings, the following document actions were approved:

As an OGC Best Practice:

-  CityGML Engineering Specification (07-062)
-  GML 3.1.1 Application schema for Earth Observation product (06-080)
-  Ordering Services for Earth Observation Products (06-141)
-  OpenGIS® Sensor Planning Service Application Profile for EO
  Sensors (07-018r1)

As an OGC Discussion Paper:

-  OGC 07-056r1 - Annex to OGC Policy and Procedures - The
  Specification Model
-  OGC Web Services Architectural Profile for the NSG (OGC Document
  07-009r2)
-  WMS Application Profile for EO Products (06-093)

As a revision to the OGC Abstract Specification:

-  ISO 19123:2005, Coverage geometry and functions as an OGC Abstract
  Specification Topic 6.

The members approved the formation of three new Revision Working
Groups for
the following candidate standards:

-  GeoXACML
-  Image Geopositioning Service
-  WFS Gazetteer Application Profile

The members also approved releases of corrigendums (minor corrections)
to both the Catalogue and Web Coverage Service standards.

And finally, the members approved standards adoption votes for:

-  OGC Location Services version 1.2 Core Services
-  OGC Loation Service Tracking Service Specification as an extension
  to Core Services

The next Technical Committee meetings will be held in Boulder,
Colorado during the week of September 17, 2007.

-Carl Reed

*****

NEWS AND OPINION FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE

Below are some of the discussions of OGC specifications in the
blogosphere since the last edition of this newsletter:

8 June: In "It's About Place (Part 2)"
[http://sramanamitra.com/2007/06/08/its-about-place-part-2/] --
contributed to Sramana Mitra's blog by Cal McElroy -- he discusses
some of the history of location technology, and toward the end of the
article he notes, "While OGC set out to liberate geographic data
from proprietary GIS and mapping systems, ultimately they sparked a
revolution that will enable location intelligence in any application
or web service."

On April 18, blogger Steve Lombardi at Virtual Earth spelled out the
promise of GeoRSS:
[http://virtualearth.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2BBC66E99FDCDB98!8586.entry]
"a standard way to exchange map information with the potential
to impact geo technologies the way rss/atom have changed the way we
deal with news and other information."

17 April: Jelle Hielkema at the UNSDI HUCO blog
[http://unsdihu8.blogspot.com/2007/04/geonetwork-opensource-as-reference.html]
shared the announcement reported by Jeroen Ticheler of FAO NRCE, that
they have implemented the Open Geospatial Consortium Catalog Services
for the Web (OGC-CSW) specification. "As a result of the project,
GeoNetwork opensource is the so-called Reference Implementation of the
CSW specification for the OGC."

4 April Sebastian Good, who blogs at "It is what it is" asks
what REST means for GIS
[http://www.palladiumconsulting.com/blog/sebastian/2007/04/god-rest-ye-merry-polygons.html]
, and goes on to comment that "... The Open Geospatial Consortium
(OGC) guys have had a good amount of luck getting some useful
standards into widespread use."

30 March. Chad in "The Earth Is Square" highlighted the
release by NGA
[http://earthissquare.com/2007/03/30/national-geospatial-intelligence-agencys-standards/]
of "Geospatial Intelligence Standards: Enabling a Common Vision
[http://www.nga.mil/NGASiteContent/StaticFiles/OCR/ncgis-eb.pdf]
". He pointed out that it endorses the Open Geospatial Consortium
(OGC) Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) 1.0 baseline. The post
generated 8 comments.

*****

WEBSITE OF THE MONTH

The   OOSTethys [http://www.oostethys.org]  website describes
developments in ocean-observing systems, with a focus on progress
toward a system-of-ocean-observing-systems. OOSTethys provides a
community-developed set of software tools that implement OGC
specifications. It also offers guidance documents
("cookbooks") to help data providers get started using
standards-based data-exchange capabilities.

The founding partners of OOSTethys combine two interoperability
demos: OpenIOOS Interoperability Test Bed (developed by SURA) and MMI
(Marine Metadata Interoperability) Demo. OpenIOOS used OGC
specifications for Web Mapping Services (WMS) and feature data
exchange (WFS). OOSTethys is leveraging the OGC Sensor Web Enablement
initiative (including, for example, SensorML) to enable richer use of
marine metadata. The Downloads tab of the website includes four
cookbooks that support the OGC Sensor Observation Service (SOS). The
cookbooks guide the quick installation of an SOS on a web server. The
home page includes thumbnails of data aggregation examples. The
process of creating such maps
[http://www.oostethys.org/howtos/how-are-these-maps-built/index_html]
is described as follows:

-  Sensor network feeds observations to  DATA PROVIDER  (an OOS system
  such as GoMOOS)
-  Data Provider installs SOS software and registers URL with
  OOSTethys  REGISTRY  (or catalog) (for this project, the catalog is
  at UAH)
-  Data Provider sensor observations become discoverable to the
  OOSTethys  DATA AGGREGATOR  (OpenIOOS)
-  OOSTethys  CLIENT  runs GetProviders and GetCapabilities processes
  every hour to generate current map of active data providers and the
  observations that are available.
-  Map is generated and displayed on  DATA ANALYZER and VIEWER
  (OpenIOOS.org)
-  End user clicks point on map at http://www.openioos.org,
  GetObservation process is kicked off and current observation is
  returned to user.

Also noteworthy are details of OCEANS IE
[http://www.oostethys.org/ogc-oceans-interoperability-experiment] and
information on how to participate
[http://www.oostethys.org/ogc-oceans-interoperability-experiment/how-to-participate]
. OOSTethys participants initiated an OGC Interoperability Experiment
in December 2006 to engage data managers and scientists in the
Ocean-Observing community to advance their understanding and
application of various OGC specifications, solidify demonstrations for
Ocean Science application areas, harden software implementations, and
produce candidate OGC Best Practices documents that can be used to
inform the broader ocean-observing community.

*****

NEWS ITEM

In April, Microsoft launched a new version of Live Maps with GeoRSS
publishing. Points, lines and polygons are supported. The
functionality is illustrated at "My Bike Trails,"
[http://local.live.com/?v=2&cid=546E7E30AC2C5011!1749]
which features rides around Seattle.

*****

ANNOUNCEMENT

The National Weather Service provides experimental web feature service
(WFS) access to the National Digital Forecast Database.  Comments and
feedback are requested and will be accepted through 31 October 2007 .
For more information, see the announcement
[http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/notification/tin07-19ndfd_web_feature_serv.txt]
made by NOAA's Office of Climate, Water and Weather
Services.  See also the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD)
Experimental Web Feature Service
[http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/xml/OGC_services/] (WFS) web page.

Feedback can be submitted via the online survey. Feedback or questions
can be e-mailed to nws.xml at noaa.gov. The
NWS contacts for this service are John Schattel
[John.Schattel at noaa.gov] and Bob Bunge
[Robert.Bunge at noaa.gov]. The Service Description Document
(SDD) for this new service is approved and signed, but not yet posted
to the NWS Catalog of Experimental Products. When it is posted, the
URL for the SDD will be
http://products.weather.gov/PDD/PDD_GMLgen.pdf.

*****

NEW MEMBERS

OGC welcomes new members who joined us recently.

Forward Slope, Inc. [http://www.forwardslope.com/]
(Small Company) (United States)

Mapufacture Inc. [http://mapufacture.com/]
(Small Company) (United States)

The Aerospace Corporation [http://www.aero.org/]
(Research Institute / Not For Profit Institute) (United States)

FortiusOne, Inc. [http://www.fortiusone.com/]
(Small Company) (United States)

OSS Nokalva, Inc. [http://www.oss.com/]
(Associate) (United States)

European Environment Agency (EEA) [http://www.eea.europa.eu/]
(Technical) (Denmark)

Yahoo! [http://www.yahoo.com/]  (Technical) (United States)

Safa Rayaneh MSC SDN BHD [http://www.safarayaneh.com.my/]
(Small Company) (Malaysia)

AIS (Agenium Informatique et Systemes) [http://www.agenium.eu/]
(Small Company) (France)

Lisasoft Pty Ltd [http://lisasoft.com/]
(Small Company) (Australia)

Emergeo Solutions, Inc. [http://www.emergeo.com/]
(Small Company) (Canada)

IT Innovation [http://www.it-innovation.soton.ac.uk/]
(University) (United Kingdom)

Wellfleet Software Corporation [http://www.wellfleetsoftware.com/]
(Research Institute / Not For Profit Institute) (United States)

Texas State University [http://www.txstate.edu/]
(University) (United States)

DigitalGlobe, Inc. [http://www.digitalglobe.com/]
(Associate) (United States)

Vega Group PLC [http://www.vega-group.com/]
(Technical) (United Kingdom)

Sunertek inc. [http://www.sunertek.com/]
(Small Company) (Canada)

Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan (RESTEC)
[http://www.restec.or.jp/]  (Associate) (Japan)

*****

OGC IN THE NEWS

- OGC in the Press

In the July issue of  GIM International , Dale Lutz's essay
"Uniting an Industry"
[http://www.gim-international.com/issues/articles/id942-Uniting_an_Industry.html]
identifies several ways in which his company, Safe Software,
benefits from the interoperability enabled by OGC standards. His
closing paragraph conveys his belief that the benefits extend far
beyond his company: "The geospatial community owes much to the
OGC for championing the vision of data interoperability and providing
a framework for the realisation of this vision."

The July issue of  Geospatial Today  includes an article by Carey
Mann, "Integrated GIS is the future,"
[http://www.geospatialtoday.com/outlook07_3.htm] in which he
notes a trend toward "...greater leverage of interoperability
technologies (such as OGC standards like WMS and WFS)."

The same issue also includes a brief article, "GML - the key
enabler," [http://www.geospatialtoday.com/article3_july07.htm]
in which Sam Bacharach provides a look at the history and status of
the OpenGIS® Geography Markup Language TM  (GML TM ).

In July,  GIM International  contributing editor Christiaan Lemmen
introduced the fourth product survey
[http://www.gim-international.com/productsurvey/id21-Geodatabases_May_,_Volume_,_Issue.html]
on "Spatial Data Management in Geo-databases" by reflecting
on progress since the first survey in 2002. At that time, he observed
that spatial-data management was traditionally supported within GIS
environments; integrating spatial data with other datasets had to be
explicitly organized with the aid of complementary architectures. In
comparison, "Five years on, a set of mature geo-databases is
available on the market, .... Thanks to OGC, developments have been
rapid."

A June article in  Geospatial Solutions , GeoSite Simplifies Site
Management,
[http://www.geospatial-solutions.com/geospatialsolutions/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=431139]
noted that "GeoSite relies on Open GIS Consortium (OGC)
specifications, such as the Web Map Service (WMS), to dynamically
query GIS data and return the result in a format that may be displayed
in Google Earth."

GeoTEC Event 2007 in May featured a full-day workshop on OGC Web
Services, and a number of presentations about work involving OGC
standards. For example, the following abstracts can be viewed online:

-   Using 3-D Open Web Services for a Better Collaborative Response to
  Disaster Management
  [http://www.geoplace.com/pdf/SESSIONS/GTE07_16_1530_3D.pdf](page 3)
-   National Forest Information System: We're More than Just Maps
  [http://www.geoplace.com/pdf/SESSIONS/GTE07_16_1530_EI.pdf](page 3)
-   The Alberta Web Mapping Services Prototype Project
  [http://www.geoplace.com/pdf/SESSIONS/GTE07_16_1330_EI.pdf](page 1)
-   Extending the Web Map Service to Handheld Devices
  [http://www.geoplace.com/pdf/SESSIONS/GTE07_15_1530_GISDev.pdf]
  (page 1)
-   Management and Web Distribution of Very Large Volume (100TB) of
  Digital Image Data
  [http://www.geoplace.com/pdf/SESSIONS/GTE07_17_1330_GD.pdf](page 3)

The March 2007 issue of "BuildingSMART News"
[http://nbims.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=815]
noted (page 2) the organization's collaboration with OGC, including
input to OWS-4. The group is particularly interested in CityGML and the
interfaces to it.

- OGC Press Releases

The OGC Announces Styled Layer Descriptor & Symbol Encoding
Specifications
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/761]
August 15, 2007

The OGC Announces Transducer Markup Language (TML) Specification
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/757]
August 9, 2007

Clemens Portele Receives OGC's Gardels Award
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/750]
August 8, 2007

Charles Roswell Receives OGC Lifetime Achievement Award
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/749]
August 7, 2007

OGC's David Schell Receives GeoTec Media Visionary Achievement
Award [http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/739]
July 19, 2007

The OGC Announces New Automated Compliance Tests
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/733]
June 26, 2007

Building Information Models (BIM) Demonstrated in OGC Testbed
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/732]
June 26, 2007

The OGC Seeks Comment on Proposed Access Control and Image Positioning
Specifications
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/726]
May 15, 2007

The OGC® Announces Call for Participation in OWS-5 Testbed
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/722]
May 11, 2007

*****

EVENTS

September 17-20, 2007, Boulder, Colorado,
September 2007 OGC Technical Committee Meetings
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/0709tc]

September 21, 2007, Boulder, Colorado,
September 2007 OGC Planning Committee Meeting
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/0709tc]

September 21-22, 2007, Boulder, Colorado,
GEOSS Workshop: The User and the GEOSS Architecture XVI “Local
Decisions for Global Climate Change”
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/070921workshop]

September 24-27, 2007, Victoria, Canada,
2007 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference
[http://www.foss4g2007.org/]

October 15-17, 2007, Huntsville, Alabama,
Rocket City Geospatial Conference 2007
[http://www.opengeospatial.org/node/736]

October 29-30, 2007, Ottawa, Ontario
Great Lakes Regional Data Exchange 2007  [http://rdx.glc.org/07/]

For further info on events please contact   Greg Buehler
[mailto:gbuehler at opengeospatial.org] .

*****

CONTACT

Please send comments and suggestions to:

Tina Cary [mailto:tcary at opengeospatial.org]
Editor, OGC News

Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
35 Main Street Suite 5
Wayland MA 01778-5037
USA Phone: +1 508 655 5858
Fax: +1 508 655 2237

*****

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