A letter about Point Cloud & LiDAR

For the past few months there have been discussions across a range of geospatial organizations about Point Cloud data, and in particular, LiDAR.

Last week the OSGeo Board put forward an Open Letter to OGC, ASPRS and ESRI. The letter can be found here http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter.

Below is the response from the OGC sent to the OSGeo Board.

Dear Members of the OSGeo Board, Dr Anand:

Thank you for your letter on behalf of the open source community highlighting need for interoperability in LiDAR standards.  In recent months there has been a growing interest from the OGC membership and the global geospatial community in the interoperability of point cloud data, including LiDAR. As result, the OGC scheduled a Point Cloud ad hoc meeting on this topic as part of our upcoming Technical Committee meetings in Boulder, Colorado, USA.  The meeting will occur on 1 June from 1300-1445 Mountain / 1900-2045 UTC, and is open to the public. We hope that this meeting will result in a chartered working group in short order. An initial agenda for this meeting is posted at:  https://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=63241, and additional detail on the Boulder TC meeting is available at:  http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/1506tc.   Remote access to the meeting will be provided. 

To ensure broad community representation and effective exchange of ideas, we strongly encourage interested members of the OSGeo to participate in the upcoming OGC Point Cloud ad hoc meeting for technical discussion on LIDAR and other related point cloud standards interoperability interests. This process is guided by OGC’s consensus process, which help to ensure an environment of mutual respect and trust in which technical ideas for interoperability can be exchanged freely and fairly.  We understand that representatives from the ASPRS will also participating in the meeting as part of our ongoing partnership with this organization.

Some time ago, a Memorandum of Understanding was formalized between OSGeo and the OGC with a goal of improving  communication and coordination between our organizations.  In the spirit of this agreement, we look forward to further developing our working relationship to address geospatial interoperability opportunities and challenges.

The OGC staff contact for the Point Cloud ad hoc meeting is Scott Simmons, Executive Director for the OGC Standards Program ssimmons [at] opengeospatial.org. Please contact him directly for further information on the meeting.

Sincerely, Mark

The Point Cloud ad hoc meeting referenced in Mark's letter is open to public participation. We welcome all who wish to contribute to this important meeting to contact Scott Simmons (ssimmons [at] opengeospatial.org) and join the discussions in June. Scott will be publishing a blog later this week on Point Clouds to summarise the issues that will be discussed at the June meeting.