Wayland, Massachusetts, USA January 28, 1997 – The Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) announced today that it has received excellent responses to its recent Requests for Information (RFIs) which are part of the OpenGIS Interoperability Specification effort. The RFIs cover geographic information catalog services and imagery. Seven organizations submitted information in response to the “OpenGIS Catalog Services RFI.” These submissions suggest requirements to include in an RFP for standard mechanisms for discovery of geographic information in a networked environment of heterogeneous spatial databases. Among the submitters were the ISO (International Standards Organization) Cataloguing Project Team, the US Federal Geographic Data Committee, the US Department of Defense’s National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (Frascati, Italy). Space Imaging (Thornton, CO, SPOT Image (Reston, VA), TRIFID (St. Louis, MO), and the US DoD National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) have responded to OGC’s “OpenGIS Imagery RFI” to ensure completeness of the imagery parts of an RFP for specifications that will define coverages. Coverages include images (such as satellite images) and certain maps (such as digital elevation maps) in which each point has a distinct value. David Schell, president of OGC, said, “Geospatial catalog services will work underneath applications that are as easy to use as a Web browser, and the OpenGIS Project’s work with coverages will enable all types of geospatial data to be queried with the same user-friendly tools. Our members are dealing with very sophisticated technologies, but they have their eyes on the non-expert user.” Late in 1996, geographic information system (GIS) vendors cooperated to submit proposed OpenGIS Specifications in response to OGC’s first Request for Proposals (RFP) which addresses “simple geometry,” (that is, points, lines, and areas) and attributes (such as soil type). Compliant products expected later this year will be able to respond to each others’ spatial queries. Jack Dangermond, president of ESRI, said, “The cooperation we have seen indicates that GIS software vendors are willing to agree on standards that will increase the interoperability of geospatial information. It will take work to implement these standards, but it’s safe to say that progress is being made.” About OGC OGC, an open consortium of more than 85 corporations, government agencies, non-government organizations, and universities, coordinates collaborative development and marketing of open geoprocessing technologies. See http://www.opengeospatial.org . — end —
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