Through the Agriculture Domain Working Group, Horizon 2020 European Commission funded projects such as CYBELE and DEMETER, and other OGC Innovation Program initiatives, OGC supports the development, implementation, and use of open standards and best-practices that maximize interoperability in Smart Agriculture with the aim of keeping humanity fed at a time of unprecedented environmental and cultural change.
As part of OGC's Open Routing API Pilot, participants developed an API that allowed requests for routes from different users in an interoperable and standardized way via Web protocols. In this first of a series of blog posts, Ignacio "Nacho" Correas, Chief Technology Innovation Officer at Skymantics, summarizes Skymantics’ experiences and findings in building an interoperable routing engine using OGC standards.
Like almost every event in 2020, due to the COVID-19 crisis, OGC’s 115th Member Meeting was completely virtual. Yet despite the change, more than 400 people from across the world logged on between 15–22 June 2020 (with three Working Groups meeting on June 10 & 11) to attend the meeting. Using a combination of GoToMeeting and Gitter, participants joined in on community discussions, presentations, panels, casual ‘lunch break’ chats, and special sessions on health, simulation & gaming, smart roads, insurance, OGC APIs, and more.
Further testing and refinement to the OGC API - Tiles candidate standard - the spiritual successor to one of OGC’s most popular standards, the Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) - has occurred during another successful OGC Sprint. The candidate standard is just one of several efforts forming OGC’s move towards modular, resource-oriented, OpenAPI-based standards.
The sheer volume of complex 3D data now available has created challenges concerning access, processing, visualization, and dissemination. Challenges that Cesium believes can only be addressed by engaging with and supporting a community of collaboration and a diverse, interoperable software ecosystem powered by consensus-based open standards.
Another step towards the creation of the OGC Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR) API Standard has been completed: the successful testing of some of the API’s capabilities during the OGC Environmental Data Retrieval API Sprint. The virtual event was held from March 18-20, 2020. A final report detailing the EDR API Sprint is now available on GitHub.
But what is the upcoming EDR API? And how does it improve and simplify access to 'big data'?
To say that these are unusual times is an understatement. One way or another, everyone everywhere is witnessing the global crisis of COVID-19. In many ways, we are united in this fight for our health! I hope each one of you is hanging in there to the best of your ability – personally and professionally.
This global health crisis has highlighted three key observations for me: we are mobilizing our expert community, realizing that location is critical, and working to connect the world with location.
Diversity, as a topic, has frequently appeared on the agendas of industry events for years now. OGC is conscious that there is still much work to be done to increase diversity and inclusion, but, with last Sunday being International Women’s Day, we’re taking the opportunity to reflect upon and highlight some of the activities that OGC staff have been involved in with regard to the issues that women still face in the spatial and related industries - while also remaining aware that diversity is much more than just gender equality.
Being open, diverse, inclusive, and accessible are parts of OGC’s core values. As such, OGC has long been a champion for diversity in the industry. Over the years, OGC Staff have participated in a variety of meetings, sessions, and panel discussions organised at industry events by organizations such as the Women in Geospatial+ and GeoChicas networks, among others.
To this end, two “Ideathons” were organized to link the national ambitions with the local interest in successfully adapting their urban settings to changing demographics. The first Ideathon was held 3–4 October, 2019, in Chino City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan with more than 20 participants discussing requirements for, and uses of, the Urban Planning ADE.
But things got really exciting from 12–14 February, 2020, when the second Ideathon was held. More than 310 people in total attended this Ideathon to share their experiences in use of the Urban Planning ADE, OGC KML, and citizen engagement. Participants discussed how to use Urban Planning ADE based on various cases and confirmed its effectiveness from the perspectives of land use, disaster prevention, and co-creation of urban plans with citizens.
Friday the 14th February 2020 was my last day with OGC as an employee, completing a transition plan that I initiated in March 2018 when I notified the OGC Board of Directors of my intent to retire. Going forward, I plan to provide my support to the Consortium on occasion as a consultant to address specific OGC mission topics. I will also remain connected with the geospatial community through my involvement in activities such as the US National Geospatial Advisory Committee. I am also looking forward to spending much more time with family and the pursuit of a few new opportunities - including helping build computers for the less forunate, as well as good amount of fishing and time spent enjoying the Atlantic coast.
