OGC Newsletter - October 2008
CONTENTS
President's Message: If We are Serious About Avoiding Silos ...CTO's Report on September 2008 TC and PC MeetingsNews and Opinion From The BlogosphereWebsite of the MonthNews ItemsDEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe
Back issues of OGC News are available.
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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: IF WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT AVOIDING SILOS ...
Every Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Standards Development Organization (SDO) -- and its members -- ought to do everything in its power to make sure that its standards fit with and are complementary to other standards in the ICT world.
This requires that we, as an SDO, look outside our box, that we find ways for our business models to allow us to work on issues that cross SDO boundaries. It means that our members have an obligation as well, an obligation to help steer requirements across SDOs. A number of OGC member organizations have memberships in multiple SDOs. Cross-membership provides additional opportunities to influence SDOs' agendas and additional ways to leverage the value of each membership. Members can get more out of their memberships if they identify and promote ways for their SDOs to work together. With every organization taking a high level strategic standards view, looking at how its needs can best be met in the overall ICT standards context, the end result of our efforts will be stronger than we could achieve working in isolation. We also need to encourage the public to comment on inter-SDO issues.
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The OGC has worked to partner with other SDOs to comprehensively address location. We can point to the inclusion of GML in the IETF's Presence Information Data Format (PIDF), Next Generation 9-1-1 and in various OASIS standards, to mention just a few examples. Our collaborations have involved discussions among staff of the different SDOs, and they have involved SDOs working together in consensus activities, including testbeds as well as working groups, to ensure that work products of these joint efforts flow back to the "owning" SDO organizations for further action. The OGC's 3D, AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) and sensor work offer some good examples of this kind of collaboration. Our GeoXACML (Access Control for Geospatial Data) and GeoRM (Geospatial Rights Management) activities have also benefited from this kind of inter-SDO communication and collaboration.
Nothing succeeds like success, as the saying goes. We have created reliable standards processes that are increasingly receptive to collaboration across SDO boundaries on interoperability issues that none of us can solve alone. We are fortunate to work with a range of SDOs on important issues that involve a geospatial or location component. We are also working to share our process experience with other SDOs, particularly in the area of testbeds and pilots, so that these initiatives can have sufficient "policy and process interoperability" to allow us to work together effectively and efficiently to solve increasingly complex problems. We are fortunate to be working with buildingSmart allianceTM and these sponsors:
- Associated General Contractors of America
- American Institute of Architects
- Burt Hill
- Ellerbe Becket
- Gilbane Development Corporation
- HOK
- Large Firm Round Table
- Statsbygg (Norway)
- US National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST)
- US General Services Administration
- Webcor Builders
in a collaborative AECOO-1 (Architecture/Engineering/Construction/Owner/Operator) testbed -- not to address geospatial issues, but to share our knowledge about how to corral diverse stakeholders and run a process that brings value to them all. As our collective understanding improves, we will no doubt turn our focus on addressing the range of interoperability issues surrounding the convergence of AEC and geospatial information to support a range of visualization, analysis and modeling.
Businesses and leading government and academic players in our geospatial technology industry want to make sure that location is addressed consistently across the standards stack. The best way to do this is by joining OGC, of course. But these companies, agencies and research groups can further help themselves and the industry if they also participate in other standards activities, with an eye toward "connecting the dots" between standards that are important to them.
-- Mark Reichardt
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CTO'S REPORT ON SEPTEMBER 2008 TC AND PC MEETINGS
The 66th OGC Technical Committee meetings were held the week of September 15th in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, hosted and sponsored by ERDAS. Over 140 individuals attended and participated in the various Working Group sessions.
The OGCNetwork provides a synopsis of all of the votes and motions from OGC meetings at http://www.ogcnetwork.net/node/367. The motions at the Atlanta meeting are at http://www.ogcnetwork.net/node/427. However, please note that processing all of the document actions can take from one to 6 weeks after the meetings. The time to publication depends on the number and types of edits required prior to publication.
Also, there was a meeting of the OGC Architecture Board focused on geospatial search. With a number of invited participants representing other standards organizations, a major focus of the activity was to develop the collaborative relationships between multiple standards development organizations necessary to insure consistency of how geospatial search patterns are expressed.
-- Carl Reed
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NEWS AND OPINION FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE
Longhao Wang posted (14 September) a comment about Google mapping spec now an industry standard in which he shared two sites, http://www.bikely.com and http://wikiwalki.com, on which people can share their outdoors activities (like cycling and jogging) by exporting data from GPS devices in KML format.
On 10 September, Ron Exler posted 3D Cities to Virtual Worlds. Triggered by OGC's adoption of CityGML, the essay talks about "the inevitable merger of real-world models with virtual world technologies, sometimes called the Metaverse," and concludes that "The Metaverse requires standards for interoperability, and CityGML is an important standard for now and the future of geographic information online."
On 4 September, Nathalie Michaud posted "Présence de la communauté géospatiale francophone à FOSS4G 2008," highlighting contributions in the program of the upcoming conference by organizations in the French-speaking world. She also made particular note of the participation of OGC and presentation by Raj Singh, Director of Interoperability Programs at OGC.
Adena Schutzberg blogged on 27 August, in "OGC and OSGeo to Play," about the memorandum of understanding between OGC and OSGeo (the Open Source Geospatial Foundation). The comment by John Evans, hoping that the two organizations will find ways to reduce the confusion between the concepts of open source and open standards, may resonate with many readers of OGC News.
Luc Vaillancourt blogged on 1 August in "LinkedIn et les groupes à saveur ‘GÉO'" that the number of groups on LinkedIn grows richer day by day. He listed 14 geo-groups, including OGC. [At this writing, the OGC group has 596 members.]
On 30 July, Deborah MacPherson blogged about Open Standards / Commercial Technology. She noted that "OGC Open Geospatial Consortium has already made a huge impact, open standards continue to be developed with an impressive focus on interoperability amongst the standards themselves."
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WEBSITE OF THE MONTH
Heidelberg-3D Uses OGC Standards to Model City
A three-dimensional spatial data infrastructure (SDI) for the city of Heidelberg is freely available as part of Project GDI3D at http://www.gdi-3d.de/. The goal of the project--funded by the Klaus-Tschira-Foundation in Heidelberg--is to develop new technologies and standards for the interoperable processing, visualization and analysis of 3D city and landscape models. The website offers both German and English versions.
The system implements OpenGIS Web 3D Service (OGC W3DS), an OGC Discussion Paper, and is based on several OGC standards:
- Geocoder, part of the OGC OpenLS Utility Service
- Web Processing Service (WPS)
- Sensor Observation Service (SOS)
- OpenLS Directory Service
- Web Map Service (WMS)
- Web Feature Service (WFS)
- Catalogue Service (CS-W)
- CityGML
- Symbology Encoding Specification
Figure 1: OGC components of the 3-dimensional Spatial Data Infrastructure for Heidelberg.
The system comes with a free 3D-Client called XNavigator. This client is a Java WebStart-Application. From the home page, in the left menu choose "Start Heidelberg 3D." After confirming the System Requirements, which may involve updating your video card drive, choose a starting profile of Low, Medium or High, depending on the system resources available (how much RAM, the graphics capability, and what CPU). If Java 6 is already installed on the computer and the system requirements are met, XNavigator will be installed automatically and the application will be launched.
XNavigator allows users to explore and analyze the 3D city and landscape models which are streamed by the W3DS server.
Figure 2: OpenLS Route Service enables 3D-Routing with height profile and animation - including routes over bridges.
The 3D model has been generated in very close cooperation with the surveying office of the city of Heidelberg. Additional content stems from other partners or has been digitized within the project itself. Most of the data has been generated from 2D data automatically. The system includes the complete set of approximately 40,000 buildings of the city of Heidelberg that can be accessed from the web. Available data includes a 5- meter DEM (digital elevation model), land use, aerial photographs, street names and a range of other data such as historic flood areas, parking lots, street and traffic signs, trees and even a detailed model of the Virgin Mary that has been generated from terrestrial laser scan. Important buildings and bridges have been modeled in higher detail and have textures. All data is preprocessed for efficient streaming, and is managed within a geodatabase.
Three system requirements are specified:
- OpenGL support Version 1.2 or later. (A link to the GLview tool is provided to enable users to check what version is on the system.)
- Internet connection with 2000 kbit/s or faster
- Dual Core Processor
In addition, users are strongly encouraged to update the video card driver to the latest version.
The website also includes additional resources, including sections on technology, scenarios, screenshots, videos and publications.
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NEWS ITEMS
Bonus for Recruiting New OGC Members
With the economy in its current uncertain state, this is a particularly appropriate time to remind OGC members of the Membership Incentive program that has been in effect since 1 January 2006.As explained in a letter from Mark Reichardt to the membership in September 2005:
OGC members that successfully recruit a first-time member will receive a reduction of their next annual membership renewal fee equal to 10% of the value of the recruited member's annual membership fee. Multiple deductions can be earned within the recruiting member's current membership year, up to 100% of the recruiting member's annual membership fee for the next annual membership period.
Since the benefits of OGC are subject to "the network effect", with benefits increasing as the number of members increases, your efforts to recruit members will, in addition to reducing your organization's membership fee, increase OGC's value and benefits to all its members.
In order to ensure that your organization receives this benefit, you can do two things:
1) get in touch with Barbara Sherman to let her know to expect a membership application from your prospect:
Barbara L. Sherman
Systems Manager/Membership Relations
Open Geospatial Consortium Inc.
35 Main Street, Suite 5
Wayland, MA 01778
Voice: +1 508 647 9385 ext. 13
Fax: +1 508 653 3512
2) encourage the new member to answer the question (on page 2 of the application) "If you are a new member, how did you hear about the OGC?" by identifying you and your organization.
To help you recruit new members, you can also ask Barbara to mail you material you can share with your colleague, or ask her to mail the material directly to the prospective member.
Data Quality Working Group Has Summarized Survey Results
Between October 2007 and March 2008, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Data Quality Working Group administered a survey on geospatial data quality. Results have been summarized and provided to participants. Approximately 770 people responded (some respondents skipped some questions). Two tidbits about respondent demographics:
- OGC members comprised 83% and non-members 17% of respondents
- Of the 106 countries represented, five countries accounted for half the responses: US, Canada, UK, Australia and Spain.
Users are most interested in data quality points such as accuracy, consistency, and 'fit for purpose'.
The Working Group hopes to leverage the survey results to develop OGC specifications that will help with the challenges of geospatial data quality. If you would like more information on becoming involved with the Data Quality Working Group, please get in touch with either Patrick Cunningham or Seb Lessware.
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NEW MEMBERS
OGC welcomes new members who joined us recently.
4C Technologies NV (Technical) (Belgium)
AM Consult (Small Company) (Germany)
CPA Systems GmbH (Small Company) (Germany)
CSC (Technical) (United States)
Fisher, Terry (Individual) (Canada)
International Geospatial Services Institute (iGSI) GmbH (Small Company) (Germany)
Marine Institute, School of Ocean Technology (University) (Canada)
Yonsei University - The u-City Research Institute (University) (South Korea)
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OGC IN THE NEWS
OGC in the News
In the "Perspectives" column of the 23 September issue of V1 Newsletter, editor Matt Ball included as one of his top five links of the week the OOSTethys website, with this description: "Members of the ocean-science community are using Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards to implement an earth-observing ‘system of systems.'" Long-time readers may remember it was Website of the Month in the OGC News of August 2007.
The article "Interoperability and data handling" in the September-October issue of GeoConnexion explores what is meant by interoperability and why GIS software vendors have expended effort on it. The article elaborates on key OGC standards and describes them as "the building blocks of GIS."
The online agenda of the Incident Management Summit, held 11-12 September in Amsterdam includes links to presentations. On the second day, all speakers included mention of OGC, interoperability or standards. OGC Strategic Member Erdas was represented by Vincent Dessard, who spoke about OGC/ISO Open Standards providing true interoperability (10 meg pdf).
"Sensors and the Environment," by OGC's Executive Director, Outreach and Community Adoption, Sam Bacharach, appeared in the 8 September issue of V1 Magazine. Seven OGC standards and best practices that relate specifically to sensors are identified. The article includes a call to action to make data available on the web to support the scientific method and the Open Science movement, and concludes with the observation that "[t]he standards infrastructure necessary to make the Web work for the geosciences is in place. Enhanced now with the SWE set of OGC standards for sensor webs, this infrastructure enables the publishing, discovery, assessment, access, control and use of environmental sensors of any kind..."
GisCafé published "Update on the DHS Data Model" on 1 September. Several people were interviewed, including Sam Bacharach, OGC's Executive Director, Outreach and Community Adoption (on page 2): "Bacharach said that the DHS Data Model v.2 is already being used by government agencies who are using the OGC interface and GML encodings to move data from one system to another."
A report on "GI-Days 2008," an annual conference, was published 1 September in GIM International. Many of the research papers were based on OGC specifications, especially WPS (Web Processing Service). "Research on WPS specifications concerns WPS application profiles, deployment profiles and transactions, quality in WPS, and grid computing for services demanding large computing resource."
"Data Transport and Enhancement" appeared in GIM International on 1 September. The article describes a flexible process for automated conversion of 2D and 2.5D geospatial structure data, such as buildings, into 3D solid CAD models. "Current R&D focuses on how to migrate this process from proprietary GIS and CAD transport formats to the OGC CityGML 1.0 standard."
An article in the Summer 2008 issue of Imaging Notes, "Data Integration: Software Companies Expand and Consolidate," discusses open standards and interoperability, explicitly naming such OGC standards as Web Feature Service, Web Map Service and Geography Markup Language. OGC's Executive Director of Outreach, Sam Bacharach, is mentioned, as well as several OGC member companies. The article notes that "... it's clear that one of the OGC's five strategic goals-"adoption of open, spatially enabled reference architecture in enterprise environments worldwide"-is being seen to fruition."
Directions Magazine carried "GeoWeb Conference: A High-Level Overview" on 8 August summarizing the "standout topics" at the conference, with Standards listed first: "The GeoWeb, to be truly geo-enabled, requires standards. Most of the presentations touched, in some form or another, on the importance of standards such as Geography Markup Language (GML), Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), cityGML and others. KML, recently approved as an OGC standard, was probably the most talked about format." This report is also available as "Conférence GeoWeb: une revue générale" at Directions Magazine Français.
"Retour sur GeoWeb 2008: le contexte est le royaume!" by BALIZ-media.com on 5 August summarized GeoWeb 2008, identifying 3 themes :
- Google and Microsoft as players in the GeoWeb
- Local and national governments are key participants
- CAD / BIM / GIS convergence.
The conclusion: all three themes depend on interoperability and especially the standards of the OGC.
In July, Cadalyst reported on GeoWeb 2008 in two installments, with part 1 discussing the move of Web-based GIS from descriptive to predictive modeling, and part 2 discussing "the search for wisdom in digital cityscapes." OGC's Web Feature Service and CityGML were mentioned, along with representatives from several OGC member organizations.
"NOAA Improves Capabilities for Ocean Data," which appeared on Geoplace.com 15 July, describes NOAA's work in linking together many kinds of ocean data from different sources. "NOAA will begin the effort by linking online databases maintained by the NOAA National Data Buoy Center, NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, and the NOAA CoastWatch Program, using Web services and standards developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)."
On 15 July, BALIZ-media.com reviewed second quarter geospatial news in "Industrie du géospatial : Bilan du second trimestre 2008." Standards, one of three trends identified in the first quarter, were the subject of follow-up comments highlighting the expanding membership of OGC and the approval of KML.
OGC Press Releases
Terry Fisher Receives OGC Lifetime Achievement Award
September 30, 2008
Mike Botts Receives OGC’s Gardels Award
September 30, 2008
OGC Spatial Data Quality Working Group Releases Survey Results
September 30, 2008
OGC(R) Calls for Sponsors and Participants in Delhi Transit Routing Interoperability Pilot
September 10, 2008
OGC Announces Participation in FOSS4G Conference
August 26, 2008
OGC(R) Adopts CityGML Encoding Standard
August 20, 2008
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EVENTS
October 7-8, 2008
ASPRS-PR's GeoTech: The Premiere Mid-Atlantic Imagery and Geospatial Conference
Silver Spring, Maryland
October 17th, 2008
Spatial Ontology Community of Practice Workshop
McLean, VA
November 24-26, 2008
Workshop on the use of GIS/OGC standards in meteorology - ECMWF
Shinfield Park, UK
December 1-5, 2008
ISO/TC 211 27th Plenary
Tsukuba, Japan
December 1-4, 2008
December '08 OGC Technical Committee Meeting
Valencia, Spain
December 3-4, 2008
The User and the GEOSS Architecture XXV - Valencia
Valencia, Spain
December 4-5, 2008
December '08 OGC Planning Committee Meeting
Valencia, Spain
February 10-14, 2009
2009 Map World Forum
Hyderabad, India
April 19-22, 2009
GITA GIS Conference
Tampa, Florida
May 28-30, 2009
ISO/TC211 28th Plenary
Molde, Norway
June 15-20, 2009
GSDI 11: Spatial Data Infrastructure Convergence: Building SDI Bridges to Address Global Challenges
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
For further info on events please contact gbuehler [at] opengeospatial.org (Greg Buehler).
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CONTACT
Please send comments and suggestions to:
Tina Cary
Editor, OGC News
Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
35 Main Street Suite 5
Wayland MA 01778-5037
USA Phone: +1 508 655 5858
Fax: +1 508 655 2237
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Copyright 2008 by the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
ow.gif alt='*' border=0>CTO's Report on September 2008 TC and PC MeetingsNews and Opinion From The BlogosphereWebsite of the MonthNews ItemsDEPARTMENTS:
New Members, OGC In The News, Events, Contact, Subscribe/Unsubscribe
Back issues of OGC News are available.
|
PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: IF WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT AVOIDING SILOS ...
Every Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Standards Development Organization (SDO) -- and its members -- ought to do everything in its power to make sure that its standards fit with and are complementary to other standards in the ICT world.
This requires that we, as an SDO, look outside our box, that we find ways for our business models to allow us to work on issues that cross SDO boundaries. It means that our members have an obligation as well, an obligation to help steer requirements across SDOs. A number of OGC member organizations have memberships in multiple SDOs. Cross-membership provides additional opportunities to influence SDOs' agendas and additional ways to leverage the value of each membership. Members can get more out of their memberships if they identify and promote ways for their SDOs to work together. With every organization taking a high level strategic standards view, looking at how its needs can best be met in the overall ICT standards context, the end result of our efforts will be stronger than we could achieve working in isolation. We also need to encourage the public to comment on inter-SDO issues.
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The OGC has worked to partner with other SDOs to comprehensively address location. We can point to the inclusion of GML in the IETF's Presence Information Data Format (PIDF), Next Generation 9-1-1 and in various OASIS standards, to mention just a few examples. Our collaborations have involved discussions among staff of the different SDOs, and they have involved SDOs working together in consensus activities, including testbeds as well as working groups, to ensure that work products of these joint efforts flow back to the "owning" SDO organizations for further action. The OGC's 3D, AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) and sensor work offer some good examples of this kind of collaboration. Our GeoXACML (Access Control for Geospatial Data) and GeoRM (Geospatial Rights Management) activities have also benefited from this kind of inter-SDO communication and collaboration.
Nothing succeeds like success, as the saying goes. We have created reliable standards processes that are increasingly receptive to collaboration across SDO boundaries on interoperability issues that none of us can solve alone. We are fortunate to work with a range of SDOs on important issues that involve a geospatial or location component. We are also working to share our process experience with other SDOs, particularly in the area of testbeds and pilots, so that these initiatives can have sufficient "policy and process interoperability" to allow us to work together effectively and efficiently to solve increasingly complex problems. We are fortunate to be working with buildingSmart allianceTM and these sponsors:
- Associated General Contractors of America
- American Institute of Architects
- Burt Hill
- Ellerbe Becket
- Gilbane Development Corporation
- HOK
- Large Firm Round Table
- Statsbygg (Norway)
- US National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST)
- US General Services Administration
- Webcor Builders
in a collaborative AECOO-1 (Architecture/Engineering/Construction/Owner/Operator) testbed -- not to address geospatial issues, but to share our knowledge about how to corral diverse stakeholders and run a process that brings value to them all. As our collective understanding improves, we will no doubt turn our focus on addressing the range of interoperability issues surrounding the convergence of AEC and geospatial information to support a range of visualization, analysis and modeling.
Businesses and leading government and academic players in our geospatial technology industry want to make sure that location is addressed consistently across the standards stack. The best way to do this is by joining OGC, of course. But these companies, agencies and research groups can further help themselves and the industry if they also participate in other standards activities, with an eye toward "connecting the dots" between standards that are important to them.
-- Mark Reichardt
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CTO'S REPORT ON SEPTEMBER 2008 TC AND PC MEETINGS
The 66th OGC Technical Committee meetings were held the week of September 15th in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, hosted and sponsored by ERDAS. Over 140 individuals attended and participated in the various Working Group sessions.
The OGCNetwork provides a synopsis of all of the votes and motions from OGC meetings at http://www.ogcnetwork.net/node/367. The motions at the Atlanta meeting are at http://www.ogcnetwork.net/node/427. However, please note that processing all of the document actions can take from one to 6 weeks after the meetings. The time to publication depends on the number and types of edits required prior to publication.
Also, there was a meeting of the OGC Architecture Board focused on geospatial search. With a number of invited participants representing other standards organizations, a major focus of the activity was to develop the collaborative relationships between multiple standards development organizations necessary to insure consistency of how geospatial search patterns are expressed.
-- Carl Reed
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NEWS AND OPINION FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE
Longhao Wang posted (14 September) a comment about Google mapping spec now an industry standard in which he shared two sites, http://www.bikely.com and http://wikiwalki.com, on which people can share their outdoors activities (like cycling and jogging) by exporting data from GPS devices in KML format.
On 10 September, Ron Exler posted 3D Cities to Virtual Worlds. Triggered by OGC's adoption of CityGML, the essay talks about "the inevitable merger of real-world models with virtual world technologies, sometimes called the Metaverse," and concludes that "The Metaverse requires standards for interoperability, and CityGML is an important standard for now and the future of geographic information online."
On 4 September, Nathalie Michaud posted "Présence de la communauté géospatiale francophone à FOSS4G 2008," highlighting contributions in the program of the upcoming conference by organizations in the French-speaking world. She also made particular note of the participation of OGC and presentation by Raj Singh, Director of Interoperability Programs at OGC.
Adena Schutzberg blogged on 27 August, in "OGC and OSGeo to Play," about the memorandum of understanding between OGC and OSGeo (the Open Source Geospatial Foundation). The comment by John Evans, hoping that the two organizations will find ways to reduce the confusion between the concepts of open source and open standards, may resonate with many readers of OGC News.
Luc Vaillancourt blogged on 1 August in "LinkedIn et les groupes à saveur ‘GÉO'" that the number of groups on LinkedIn grows richer day by day. He listed 14 geo-groups, including OGC. [At this writing, the OGC group has 596 members.]
On 30 July, Deborah MacPherson blogged about Open Standards / Commercial Technology. She noted that "OGC Open Geospatial Consortium has already made a huge impact, open standards continue to be developed with an impressive focus on interoperability amongst the standards themselves."
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WEBSITE OF THE MONTH
Heidelberg-3D Uses OGC Standards to Model City
A three-dimensional spatial data infrastructure (SDI) for the city of Heidelberg is freely available as part of Project GDI3D at http://www.gdi-3d.de/. The goal of the project--funded by the Klaus-Tschira-Foundation in Heidelberg--is to develop new technologies and standards for the interoperable processing, visualization and analysis of 3D city and landscape models. The website offers both German and English versions.
The system implements OpenGIS Web 3D Service (OGC W3DS), an OGC Discussion Paper, and is based on several OGC standards:
- Geocoder, part of the OGC OpenLS Utility Service
- Web Processing Service (WPS)
- Sensor Observation Service (SOS)
- OpenLS Directory Service
- Web Map Service (WMS)
- Web Feature Service (WFS)
- Catalogue Service (CS-W)
- CityGML
- Symbology Encoding Specification
Figure 1: OGC components of the 3-dimensional Spatial Data Infrastructure for Heidelberg.
The system comes with a free 3D-Client called XNavigator. This client is a Java WebStart-Application. From the home page, in the left menu choose "Start Heidelberg 3D." After confirming the System Requirements, which may involve updating your video card drive, choose a starting profile of Low, Medium or High, depending on the system resources available (how much RAM, the graphics capability, and what CPU). If Java 6 is already installed on the computer and the system requirements are met, XNavigator will be installed automatically and the application will be launched.
XNavigator allows users to explore and analyze the 3D city and landscape models which are streamed by the W3DS server.
Figure 2: OpenLS Route Service enables 3D-Routing with height profile and animation - including routes over bridges.
The 3D model has been generated in very close cooperation with the surveying office of the city of Heidelberg. Additional content stems from other partners or has been digitized within the project itself. Most of the data has been generated from 2D data automatically. The system includes the complete set of approximately 40,000 buildings of the city of Heidelberg that can be accessed from the web. Available data includes a 5- meter DEM (digital elevation model), land use, aerial photographs, street names and a range of other data such as historic flood areas, parking lots, street and traffic signs, trees and even a detailed model of the Virgin Mary that has been generated from terrestrial laser scan. Important buildings and bridges have been modeled in higher detail and have textures. All data is preprocessed for efficient streaming, and is managed within a geodatabase.
Three system requirements are specified:
- OpenGL support Version 1.2 or later. (A link to the GLview tool is provided to enable users to check what version is on the system.)
- Internet connection with 2000 kbit/s or faster
- Dual Core Processor
In addition, users are strongly encouraged to update the video card driver to the latest version.
The website also includes additional resources, including sections on technology, scenarios, screenshots, videos and publications.
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NEWS ITEMS
Bonus for Recruiting New OGC Members
With the economy in its current uncertain state, this is a particularly appropriate time to remind OGC members of the Membership Incentive program that has been in effect since 1 January 2006.As explained in a letter from Mark Reichardt to the membership in September 2005:
OGC members that successfully recruit a first-time member will receive a reduction of their next annual membership renewal fee equal to 10% of the value of the recruited member's annual membership fee. Multiple deductions can be earned within the recruiting member's current membership year, up to 100% of the recruiting member's annual membership fee for the next annual membership period.
Since the benefits of OGC are subject to "the network effect", with benefits increasing as the number of members increases, your efforts to recruit members will, in addition to reducing your organization's membership fee, increase OGC's value and benefits to all its members.
In order to ensure that your organization receives this benefit, you can do two things:
1) get in touch with Barbara Sherman to let her know to expect a membership application from your prospect:
Barbara L. Sherman
Systems Manager/Membership Relations
Open Geospatial Consortium Inc.
35 Main Street, Suite 5
Wayland, MA 01778
Voice: +1 508 647 9385 ext. 13
Fax: +1 508 653 3512
2) encourage the new member to answer the question (on page 2 of the application) "If you are a new member, how did you hear about the OGC?" by identifying you and your organization.
To help you recruit new members, you can also ask Barbara to mail you material you can share with your colleague, or ask her to mail the material directly to the prospective member.
Data Quality Working Group Has Summarized Survey Results
Between October 2007 and March 2008, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Data Quality Working Group administered a survey on geospatial data quality. Results have been summarized and provided to participants. Approximately 770 people responded (some respondents skipped some questions). Two tidbits about respondent demographics:
- OGC members comprised 83% and non-members 17% of respondents
- Of the 106 countries represented, five countries accounted for half the responses: US, Canada, UK, Australia and Spain.
Users are most interested in data quality points such as accuracy, consistency, and 'fit for purpose'.
The Working Group hopes to leverage the survey results to develop OGC specifications that will help with the challenges of geospatial data quality. If you would like more information on becoming involved with the Data Quality Working Group, please get in touch with either Patrick Cunningham or Seb Lessware.
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NEW MEMBERS
OGC welcomes new members who joined us recently.
4C Technologies NV (Technical) (Belgium)
AM Consult (Small Company) (Germany)
CPA Systems GmbH (Small Company) (Germany)
CSC (Technical) (United States)
Fisher, Terry (Individual) (Canada)
International Geospatial Services Institute (iGSI) GmbH (Small Company) (Germany)
Marine Institute, School of Ocean Technology (University) (Canada)
Yonsei University - The u-City Research Institute (University) (South Korea)
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OGC IN THE NEWS
OGC in the News
In the "Perspectives" column of the 23 September issue of V1 Newsletter, editor Matt Ball included as one of his top five links of the week the OOSTethys website, with this description: "Members of the ocean-science community are using Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards to implement an earth-observing ‘system of systems.'" Long-time readers may remember it was Website of the Month in the OGC News of August 2007.
The article "Interoperability and data handling" in the September-October issue of GeoConnexion explores what is meant by interoperability and why GIS software vendors have expended effort on it. The article elaborates on key OGC standards and describes them as "the building blocks of GIS."
The online agenda of the Incident Management Summit, held 11-12 September in Amsterdam includes links to presentations. On the second day, all speakers included mention of OGC, interoperability or standards. OGC Strategic Member Erdas was represented by Vincent Dessard, who spoke about OGC/ISO Open Standards providing true interoperability (10 meg pdf).
"Sensors and the Environment," by OGC's Executive Director, Outreach and Community Adoption, Sam Bacharach, appeared in the 8 September issue of V1 Magazine. Seven OGC standards and best practices that relate specifically to sensors are identified. The article includes a call to action to make data available on the web to support the scientific method and the Open Science movement, and concludes with the observation that "[t]he standards infrastructure necessary to make the Web work for the geosciences is in place. Enhanced now with the SWE set of OGC standards for sensor webs, this infrastructure enables the publishing, discovery, assessment, access, control and use of environmental sensors of any kind..."
GisCafé published "Update on the DHS Data Model" on 1 September. Several people were interviewed, including Sam Bacharach, OGC's Executive Director, Outreach and Community Adoption (on page 2): "Bacharach said that the DHS Data Model v.2 is already being used by government agencies who are using the OGC interface and GML encodings to move data from one system to another."
A report on "GI-Days 2008," an annual conference, was published 1 September in GIM International. Many of the research papers were based on OGC specifications, especially WPS (Web Processing Service). "Research on WPS specifications concerns WPS application profiles, deployment profiles and transactions, quality in WPS, and grid computing for services demanding large computing resource."
"Data Transport and Enhancement" appeared in GIM International on 1 September. The article describes a flexible process for automated conversion of 2D and 2.5D geospatial structure data, such as buildings, into 3D solid CAD models. "Current R&D focuses on how to migrate this process from proprietary GIS and CAD transport formats to the OGC CityGML 1.0 standard."
An article in the Summer 2008 issue of Imaging Notes, "Data Integration: Software Companies Expand and Consolidate," discusses open standards and interoperability, explicitly naming such OGC standards as Web Feature Service, Web Map Service and Geography Markup Language. OGC's Executive Director of Outreach, Sam Bacharach, is mentioned, as well as several OGC member companies. The article notes that "... it's clear that one of the OGC's five strategic goals-"adoption of open, spatially enabled reference architecture in enterprise environments worldwide"-is being seen to fruition."
Directions Magazine carried "GeoWeb Conference: A High-Level Overview" on 8 August summarizing the "standout topics" at the conference, with Standards listed first: "The GeoWeb, to be truly geo-enabled, requires standards. Most of the presentations touched, in some form or another, on the importance of standards such as Geography Markup Language (GML), Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), cityGML and others. KML, recently approved as an OGC standard, was probably the most talked about format." This report is also available as "Conférence GeoWeb: une revue générale" at Directions Magazine Français.
"Retour sur GeoWeb 2008: le contexte est le royaume!" by BALIZ-media.com on 5 August summarized GeoWeb 2008, identifying 3 themes :
- Google and Microsoft as players in the GeoWeb
- Local and national governments are key participants
- CAD / BIM / GIS convergence.
The conclusion: all three themes depend on interoperability and especially the standards of the OGC.
In July, Cadalyst reported on GeoWeb 2008 in two installments, with part 1 discussing the move of Web-based GIS from descriptive to predictive modeling, and part 2 discussing "the search for wisdom in digital cityscapes." OGC's Web Feature Service and CityGML were mentioned, along with representatives from several OGC member organizations.
"NOAA Improves Capabilities for Ocean Data," which appeared on Geoplace.com 15 July, describes NOAA's work in linking together many kinds of ocean data from different sources. "NOAA will begin the effort by linking online databases maintained by the NOAA National Data Buoy Center, NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, and the NOAA CoastWatch Program, using Web services and standards developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)."
On 15 July, BALIZ-media.com reviewed second quarter geospatial news in "Industrie du géospatial : Bilan du second trimestre 2008." Standards, one of three trends identified in the first quarter, were the subject of follow-up comments highlighting the expanding membership of OGC and the approval of KML.
OGC Press Releases
Terry Fisher Receives OGC Lifetime Achievement Award
September 30, 2008
Mike Botts Receives OGC’s Gardels Award
September 30, 2008
OGC Spatial Data Quality Working Group Releases Survey Results
September 30, 2008
OGC(R) Calls for Sponsors and Participants in Delhi Transit Routing Interoperability Pilot
September 10, 2008
OGC Announces Participation in FOSS4G Conference
August 26, 2008
OGC(R) Adopts CityGML Encoding Standard
August 20, 2008
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EVENTS
October 7-8, 2008
ASPRS-PR's GeoTech: The Premiere Mid-Atlantic Imagery and Geospatial Conference
Silver Spring, Maryland
October 17th, 2008
Spatial Ontology Community of Practice Workshop
McLean, VA
November 24-26, 2008
Workshop on the use of GIS/OGC standards in meteorology - ECMWF
Shinfield Park, UK
December 1-5, 2008
ISO/TC 211 27th Plenary
Tsukuba, Japan
December 1-4, 2008
December '08 OGC Technical Committee Meeting
Valencia, Spain
December 3-4, 2008
The User and the GEOSS Architecture XXV - Valencia
Valencia, Spain
December 4-5, 2008
December '08 OGC Planning Committee Meeting
Valencia, Spain
February 10-14, 2009
2009 Map World Forum
Hyderabad, India
April 19-22, 2009
GITA GIS Conference
Tampa, Florida
May 28-30, 2009
ISO/TC211 28th Plenary
Molde, Norway
June 15-20, 2009
GSDI 11: Spatial Data Infrastructure Convergence: Building SDI Bridges to Address Global Challenges
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
For further info on events please contact gbuehler [at] opengeospatial.org (Greg Buehler).
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CONTACT
Please send comments and suggestions to:
Tina Cary
Editor, OGC News
Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
35 Main Street Suite 5
Wayland MA 01778-5037
USA Phone: +1 508 655 5858
Fax: +1 508 655 2237
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Copyright 2008 by the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
