OGC Requests

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comments on the current draft of the candidate OGC GeoPackage (GPKG) Standard. The GPKG Standards Working Group (SWG) will consider all submitted comments when they prepare a final draft of the GeoPackage Standard.

The candidate OGC GeoPackage Standard provides an open, non-proprietary, platform-independent SQLite container for distribution and direct use of all kinds of geospatial data, including vector features and tile matrix sets.  GeoPackage can be used by mobile device users who require geospatial application services and associated data in disconnected or limited network connectivity environments where open, sharable geospatial data to support their applications is frequently unavailable. GeoPackage supports applications that involve creation of geospatial data products in enterprise computing environments, data product distribution to other computing environments, mobile workforce data capture and updates, and volunteered geographic information.

The GeoPackage container and related GPKG SQLite Extension configuration and API will increase the cross-platform interoperability of geospatial applications and web services in the mobile world.  Standard configuration and APIs for access and management of GeoPackage data will provide consistent query and update results across such applications and services. 

All OGC standards are free and publicly available. Download the candidate GeoPackage Standard below, or check it out on GitHub. Comments are due by 5 September 2013.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) has issued a Request for Quotations/Call for Participation (RFQ/CFP) to solicit proposals in response to requirements for the OGC Testbed 10.

The RFQ/CFP is available at http://www.opengeospatial.org/pub/www/ows10/rfq/index.html.

Organizations who haven't previously been engaged in OGC Testbeds are encouraged to check out the quickstart guide for help on navigating the RFQ.

Responses are due by 5 pm EST on 26 August 2013.

An IP Program and Testbed 10 Q&A Webinar will be held on 6 August 2013 at 10 am EDT (Check your local time http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20130806T14). Register here https://portal.ogc.org/public_ogc/register/130806ows10.php. For the most efficient use of this webinar, please send your questions in advance to techdesk [at] opengeospatial.org.

You are also invited to follow us on twitter, Linkedin or Facebook to stay updated on the Q&A Webinar, clarifications to requirements, kickoff details, etc.

The OGC Testbed 10 Kickoff event for the CCI and Open Mobility threads (see below) will be held 7-9 October 2013 in Washington, DC. The Aviation thread kickoff will be held 27 September in Frascati, Italy during the week of the OGC Technical Committee Meeting in Frascati.

The Point of Contact is Nadine Alameh: techdesk [at] opengeospatial.org.

The OGC Testbed 10 sponsors are:

• AGC (Army Geospatial Center, US Army Corps of Engineers)
• ESA (European Space Agency)
• EUROCONTROL
• FAA (US Federal Aviation Administration)
• GeoConnections - Natural Resources Canada
• Harris Corporation
• Lockheed Martin Corporation
• NGA (US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency)
• NOAA National Weather Service
• USGS (US Geological Survey)
• UK DSTL (UK MoD Defence Science and Technology Laboratory)

OGC Testbed 10 builds on the outcomes of prior OGC initiatives (http://www.opengeospatial.org/resource/demos) and is organized around the following threads:

-   Cross-Community Interoperability (CCI): Increase Geospatial community interoperability by building on CCI OWS-9 work in semantic mediation, volunteer geographic information (VGI), provenance and data quality, and Global Gazetteer. Explore the potential of interoperability in the hydrology domain and utilizing ontologies to more easily share and visualize geospatial data.

-   Open Mobility: Explore the geospatial standards requirements needed to support the growing emerging mobile environment where client applications are mobile, information services are mobile, and increasingly distributed across cloud infrastructures. The Open Mobility thread will address these requirements while leveraging on the work achieved in the OWS-9 Testbed in the areas of Geopackages and Geopackaging services and new OWS Context encodings.

-   Aviation: Develop and demonstrate the use of the Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM) and the Flight Information Exchange Model (FIXM), building on the work accomplished in prior testbeds to advance the applications of OGC Web Services standards in next generation air traffic management systems to support European and US aviation modernization programs.

The RFQ/CFP includes details of these threads as well as details on participation eligibility, selection process and kickoff workshop information.

OGC testbeds, pilot projects and interoperability experiments are part of the OGC Interoperability Program, a global, hands-on collaborative agile prototyping program designed to rapidly develop, test and deliver proven candidate standards into the OGC Standards Program, where they are formalized for public release.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) and the OpenMI Association (OA) have announced a call for public comment on the Open Modelling Interface Version 2 (OpenMI) and its accompanying reference manual. This standard defines a means by which independently developed computer models of environmental processes, or indeed any processes, can exchange data as they run and hence facilitates the modelling of interacting processes.

The original driver for the standard was the European Water Framework Directive and its requirement for an integrated approach to water management. It was foreseen that implementing the Directive would be very challenging and that there would be a need to provide help, in the form of decision support systems (DSS), to environmental managers. As Earth systems are complex and interrelated, these DSS would need to bring together many models in order to better understand and predict the environmental impacts of events and policies. To make it feasible to link together models of different processes from different suppliers and hence simulate process interaction, the European Commission therefore co-funded the research and development of a generic model interface, the outcome of which is the OpenMI.

Roger Moore, chairman of the OpenMI Association, said, “The OpenMI Association sees huge opportunities ahead for many stakeholder groups if the linking of models of different processes as they run can be made simple and reliable. Our immediate goal is to facilitate the integrated modelling needed to understand Earth system processes and hence help scientists, policy makers and managers find sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. By publishing the OpenMI as an adopted OGC standard, we seek to make the OpenMI standard available and accessible to the worldwide modelling community.”

Environmental modelling is not the only application of integrated modelling. For example, a possible shorter term application will simply be in enabling developers to convert their existing large, and often unmanageable, applications into sets of linkable components. This could change the modelling market from one for complete systems into one for components and services. It could make it much easier for products to be brought to market, widen participation and dramatically drive up the rate of innovation.

The documents being released for comment have been specially prepared so that the description of the OpenMI matches the OGC style. They can be viewed and downloaded

RFQ Issued Date: 14 February 2013
RFQ Written Comments due: 5pm EST on 21 February 2013
Proposals Due Date: 5pm EST on 4 March 2013

Go Directly to the Request for Quotation Document
Go Directly to the Request for Quotation Clarifications

Overview

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) has issued a Request for Quotations/Call for Participation (RFQ/CFP) to solicit proposals in response to requirements for the OGC Geo4NIEM Project. The Geo4NIEM Initiative will result in recommendations to enhance the geospatial capabilities within the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM). Sponsors have identified specific Information Exchange Packages (IEPs) from Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Justice/Law Enforcement domain, and the Maritime domain as representative examples for investigation in this initiative.

The RFQ/CFP is available below. Deadline for submitting questions on the RFQ/CFP is 5pm EST on 21 February 2013. Responses are due by 5 pm EST on 4 March 2013.

The Point of Contact is Lew Leinenweber: techdesk [at] opengeospatial.org.

Geo4NIEM Initiative sponsors are:

• Program Manager – Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE)
• National Information Exchange Model – Program Management Office (NIEM PMO)

The focus of Geo4NIEM project will be to address requirements in the context of the following information exchange domain areas:

Justice/Law Enforcement. The Justice/Law Enforcement domain in NIEM is defined by the Global Justice XML Data Model (Global JXDM). The Global Justice XML Data Model (Global JXDM) is an XML-based framework that enables the US justice and public safety communities to effectively share information at all levels.

Maritime Domain Awareness. The Maritime domain supports the effective understanding of anything associated with global maritime that could impact the United States' security, safety, economy, or environment. NIEM facilitates this understanding through effective, timely sharing of vital, secure information among many key partners by representing vessels, people, cargo, and maritime locations and activities.

The Geo4NIEM Project has been organized to address specific functional requirements to meet the following objectives:

• Develop recommendations for the inclusion and standard use of embedded GML with NIEM IEP documents (IEPDs).
• Develop recommendations for the standardized use of Naming and Design Rules and the use of adaptors (e.g. NIEM wrapper for GML).
• Test and demonstrate use of a standardized embedded GML and adaptors within NIEM IEPDs.
• Develop Architecture documentation and a fact sheet for the use of embedded GML and adaptors for use with NIEM IEPDs.
• Develop Recommendations for the inclusion of a Geospatial Domain within NIEM.

Click a link below to download individual files or a complete package for the RFQ/CFP.

DOWNLOAD RFP/CFP PACKAGE (as .zip archive)

Complete Geo4NIEM RFQ/CFP (pdf zip format)
Complete Geo4NIEM RFQ/CFP (doc zip format)

INDIVIDUAL FILES

Geo4NIEM RFQ Main Body (pdf)
Geo4NIEM RFQ Main Body (doc)
Geo4NIEM RFQ Annex A (pdf)
Geo4NIEM RFQ Annex A (doc)
Geo4NIEM RFQ Annex B (pdf)
Geo4NIEM RFQ Annex B (doc)

RFQ/CFP RESPONSE TEMPLATES (not included in above package)

Geo4NIEM RFQCFP Template Proposal (doc)
Geo4NIEM Template Spreadsheet (xls)

QUESTIONS:

Prospective bidders are invited to submit written questions by email regarding the RFQ to the OGC Technical Desk email address here: techdesk [at] opengeospatial [dot] org.

CLARIFICATIONS

Response to questions and any other clarifications are posted here:

• Clarifications