News

Welcome to OGC News. You can use the filter below to show only Calls For Participation in or Sponsorship of OGC Initiatives, Requests for Public Comment, General Press Releases, or Blog Posts. Or use the search box to find news on a specific topic.

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All news (1448 match criteria)

April 12, 2006

Breakthrough In Web-Based Geographic Information

Much geospatial data is currently available on the web, but users must possess considerable expertise and special geographic information system (GIS) software to overlay or otherwise combine different map layers of the same geographic region.The Web Mapping Testbed will greatly accelerate our ability to access and understand geospatial information from multiple sources.The Web Mapping Testbed is the first of OGCs planned Interoperability Initiatives, which involve sponsors and participants.For the Web Mapping Testbed, Lockheed Martin Management and Data Systems provided integration support, logistical support, and a testbed laboratory.OGC is an international, not-for-profit organization working toward integration of geospatial capabilities into the worlds information systems.

April 12, 2006

New Open Technology For Maps On The Web

Wayland, MA, USA, August 24, 1999: Maps and map queries will become a much more important part of the Web thanks to two key interoperability standards passed by members of the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) on August 13 in Southampton, England.The standards will make it much easier for businesses, citizens, and governments to find, view, pan, zoom, overlay, and query geographical images and maps on the Worldwide Web.The new OpenGIS Grid Coverages Specification and OpenGIS Distributed Catalog Services Specification, combined with the already available OpenGIS Simple Features Specification and technology from OGCs Web Mapping Testbed, provide means for unprecedented interoperability between systems that use geospatial data.Catalog Services refers to a common architecture for online automated directories of geodata and geoprocessing services, rather like spatial search engines.We are adding where to the kinds of questions the web can answer.

April 12, 2006

Open Technology For A Spatially Enabled Web Announced

The new OpenGIS Grid Coverages Specification and OpenGIS Distributed Catalog Services Specification, combined with the already available OpenGIS Simple Features Specification and technology from OGCs Web Mapping Testbed, provide the means for unprecedented interoperability between systems that use geospatial data.In OGC, Grid Coverages refers to satellite images, digital aerial photos, digital elevation data, and other kinds of data represented in a grid cell or raster coordinate system.(Interoperability for a wider range of image operations awaits the OpenGIS Image Exploitation Services Specification, which is in progress in OGCs Technical Committee.)- Create and maintain collections of universally discoverable geospatial data sets, including a metadata set and metadata entities associated with each stored data set.- Retrieve complete or partial forms of geodata resources, including entire geospatial data sets or geographical subsections of data sets, returned to the requestor as a file or set of files.

April 12, 2006

OGC Issues RFP For Coordinate Transformation Services

Wayland, MA, USA, June 28, 1999: The OpenGIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) today issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for open interfaces that enable software to first discover the coordinate reference systems of geospatial data held in network-accessible systems and then to transform coordinates from one coordinate reference system to another.Coordinate reference systems are complex and diverse, which is one of the reasons that geographic information systems (GIS) and earth imaging systems have required too much expertise to become part of mainstream computing.The Simple Features specification contained only rudimentary coordinate reference system capabilities, to be extended by the pending OpenGIS Coordinate Reference System Specification.Subsequent OpenGIS Specifications will address catalog services (to enable spatial search engines, for example), image exploitation services (to enable interoperability between earth imaging systems), and other technology standards related to geoprocessing.OGC is a not for profit, open membership organization founded in 1994 to help providers of geoprocessing software achieve interoperability between their products.

April 12, 2006

ORACLE Passes First OpenGIS Conformance Test

Wayland, MA, USA, May 10, 1999: The OpenGIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) announced today that Oracle is one of the first companies to pass conformance tests for OGCs OpenGIS Simple Features Specification for SQL.(See http://www.opengeospatial.org/testing for details of the conformance tests.)Oracle tested its Oracle Spatial product (versions 8.0.5 and 8.1.5), which allows seamless integration with enterprise client applications.Users can help by reminding vendors that OpenGIS interoperability interfaces are a high priority.Jack Pellicci, Vice President, Oracle Service Industries, said, We are proud to be the first Principle Member of the OpenGIS Consortium to pass conformance testing with our Oracle Spatial 8.0 and 8i products.

April 12, 2006

Geospatial Standards Move Toward Implementation and Interoperability

Information technology standards are often book-sized documents of rather arcane technical information and directives.Yet, the best information technology standards directly affect our daily lives, change the way we do business, and, indeed, change the world.The result will be tighter linkages for the family of information technology standards related to geography, mapping, land use, land ownership, surveying, and so on.A secondary goal of the Cooperative Agreement is the advancing of OGC Implementation Specifications toward International Standard Status.The work on Gridded Coverages will provide consensus implementation specifications for fundamental behaviors that Gridded Coverages need to support.

April 12, 2006

Deutsche PhoneSat Joins Geoprocessing Standards Effort

As a Principal Member, Deutsche PhoneSat will have a seat on OGCs Management Committee and will help shape the consortiums business plan and its OpenGIS(R) Specification plan and schedule.Participation in OGC will help Deutsche PhoneSat play a role in integrating geographic information and analysis into enterprise information systems and into network-resident spatial information services for a variety of consumer products.David Schell, president of OGC, said, Deutsche PhoneSat has a vision and a strategy that fit perfectly with OGCs view of how the industry is changing.Deutsche PhoneSat has an excellent track record in delivering complex high technology systems such as air traffic control and satellite-based public and private communications networks.The Open GIS Consortium is a not-for-profit industry consortium dedicated to the widespread use of interoperable geoprocessing throughout the worlds information infrastructures.

April 12, 2006

OGC Requests Technology For Web Mapping

The Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) issued a request for technology (RFT) for an OGC Interoperability Initiative called the Web Mapping Technology Testbed.Sponsored by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), the US Army Topographic Engineering Center (TEC) and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), the testbed is intended to advance Web mapping technology, support development of a multi-vendor portable demonstration, and feed requirements into OGCs OpenGIS Specification process.The rapidly evolving World Wide Web provides unprecedented on-line access to information and services.Web-based Mapping Technology describes technology and architectures to provide users with on-line, distributed access to geospatial information, geographic analysis, and terrain visualization applications using a web-based client and internet/intranet access and protocols.Testbed sponsors seek interoperable, web-based access to distributed geographic information, the ability to rapidly construct sophisticated end-user applications on demand, and tools to transmit geographic information directly to the user desktop.

April 12, 2006

Telecom Input Needed For Open GIS Specifications

OGC, a 147 member international consortium, is developing the OpenGIS Specification for standard software interfaces.Diverse GIS, AM/FM, earth imaging, and navigation systems with OpenGIS Specification conformant interfaces will be able to communicate directly in terms of earth coordinates, geometry, geographic feature attributes, etc.Merged Telcos will work together more smoothly because the merged companies geoprocessing systems will work together.Tom Strickland of Byers Engineering is the chair of the Telco SIG, in which many of the telecommunications industrys geoprocessing software vendors are represented.The OGC Telecommunications RFI is available at http://www.opengeospatial.org .