22 January 2015 – The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC(R)) membership has issued aRequest for Comments on the OGC LandInfra Conceptual Model.
This document, the first public draft of the OGC's proposed UML conceptualmodel for land parcels and the built environment, communicates the proposedintent and content of a new candidate OGC standard to be called the OGCInfraGML Encoding Standard. The UML conceptual model establishes a single setof consistent concepts that could be implemented in GML (as InfraGML) or inother encoding mechanisms.
After reviewing the existing LandXML format, the OGC Land and InfrastructureDomain Working Group (LandInfraDWG) decided that a fresh start standard waswarranted. The new standard would have a use case driven subset of LandXMLfunctionality, but it would be consistent with the OGC standards baseline,implemented with the OGC Geography Markup Language (GML), and supported by aUnified Model Language (UML) conceptual model. Called InfraGML, this newstandard would: be supported by a recognized Standards Developing Organization,OGC align with existing OGC (and TC211 and SQL/MM) standards, including the OGCModular Specification benefit from functionality already supported by GML,including features, geometry, coordinate reference systems, linear referencing,and surface modeling (TIN) initially focus on alignments/roads, survey, andland parcels, the subject areas for which there are identified needs andcommitted resources for development using modular extensions, be able to expandinto other areas (e.g., “wet” infrastructure pipe networks) as resources becomeavailable be use-case driven be based on a UML conceptual model developed priorto any encoding, such as GML have more up-to-date functionality be synchronizedwith the concurrent efforts by buildingSMART International in their developmentof Infrastructure-based Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs), and be more easilyintegrated with TransXML and OGC CityGML.
The work on buildingSMART International's IFC Alignment Extension has beencarried out by their P6 project team in strong collaboration with OGCLand&Infra Group. The use cases and the conceptual model are results of thejoint work.
“This cooperation between buildingSMART International and the OGC will make itpossible for software to directly map IFC alignment models to InfraGML and viceversa,” explained Richard Petrie, chief executive of buildingSMARTInternational. “This represents an important milestone in reaching our sharedgoal of vendor-neutral standards that enable integration of geospatialinformation and information about the built environment.”
Scott Simmons, Executive Director of the OGC Standards Program, said, “Thejoint coordination of OGC and buildingSMART International in developing thisconceptual model is an example of the benefits of proactive engagement betweenStandards Development Organizations. Our working together will result in astandard better suited to both communities and we'll accomplish this much morequickly than if we worked separately now and harmonized later.”
The OGC LandInfra Conceptual Model and Request for Comment are available athttp://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/129.
The OGC is an international consortium of more than 500 companies,government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating ina consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGCstandards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wirelessand location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empowertechnology developers to make geospatial information and services accessibleand useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visitthe OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.
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