OGC Requests

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is contemplating adoption of a technology called OpenGIS Sensor Alert Service (SAS). OGC invites public comment on a candidate specification that will soon be presented for approval by OGC members as an OpenGIS(R) Implementation Specification.

The OpenGIS Sensor Alert Service (SAS) Draft Implementation Specification specifies interfaces for requesting information describing the capabilities of a Sensor Alert Service, for determining the nature of offered alerts, the protocols used, and the options to subscribe to specific alert types.

The purpose of this Request for Public Comment (RFPC) is to obtain comments on the proposal for technologies and needed interfaces required for the SAS. Documentation of this draft specification can be downloaded below:

Candidate Submission: Thur, 2007-06-15
TC and PC vote to issue request: Fri, 2007-07-13
Begin request period: Wed, 2007-11-15
Close request period: Fri, 2007-12-15

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is contemplating adoption of a technology called OpenGIS Image Geopositioning Service (IGS). OGC invites public comment on a candidate specification that will soon be presented for approval by OGC members as an OpenGIS(R) Implementation Specification.

The OpenGIS Image Geopositioning Service (IGS) Draft Implementation Specification defines an Image Geopositioning Service (IGS) interface to services that perform triangulation. (NOTE: The name of this service has not yet been formally agreed upon.) Accompanying this draft specification is a separate OpenGIS Image Geopositioning Metadata Geography Markup Language (GML) Draft Application Schema, which is structured to provide consistency between the IGS and other OGC Web Services (OWS) specifications.

The purpose of this Request for Public Comment (RFPC) is to obtain comments on the proposal for technologies and needed interfaces required for the IGS. Documentation of this draft specification can be downloaded below:

Candidate Submission: Thur, 2007-03-22
TC and PC vote to issue request: Fri, 2007-04-20
Begin request period: Tue, 2007-05-15
Close request period: Thu, 2007-06-14

Overview

OGC's Interoperability Program is a global, hands-on and collaborative prototyping program designed to rapidly develop, test and deliver proven candidate specifications into OGC's Specification Program, where they are formalized for public release. In OGC's Interoperability Initiatives, an international team of technology providers' work together to solve specific geo-processing interoperability problems posed by the initiative's sponsoring organizations. OGC Interoperability Initiatives include test beds, pilot projects, interoperability experiments, and interoperability support services - all designed to encourage rapid development, testing, validation and adoption of open, consensus based standards specifications.

In January of 2007, the OGC issued a call for sponsors for an OGC OWS-5 Interoperability initiative testbed activity to advance OGC's open framework for interoperability in the geospatial industry. Three meetings were conducted with potential OWS-5 sponsors to review the OGC technical baseline, to discuss OWS-4 results, and to identify OWS-5 requirements. Sponsors have expressed keen interest in advancing standards for geospatial workflow, sensor webs, geospatial digital rights management, GML information communities, and KML. After analyzing the sponsors input, the OGC Interoperability Team recommended to the sponsors that the content of the OWS-5 initiative be organized around the following 6 threads:

1. Sensor Web Enablement (SWE)
2. Geo Processing Workflow (GPW)
3. Information Communities and Semantics (ICS)
4. Agile Geography
5. Compliance Testing (CITE)
6. CAD / GIS / BIM

Introductions to these 6 threads are below.

OWS-5 Sponsors

• BAE Systems - Network Systems
• Google
• Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems & Solutions
• Northrop Grumman
• US National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA)
• US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

OWS-5 Threads

1) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE)

The Sensor Web subtask will continue to mature the existing set of SWE work items to enable the federation of sensors, platforms and management infrastructure into a single sensor enterprise. In OWS-5,interoperability engineering activities will focus on integration and demonstration of physical sensors and simulators within a realistic operating environment. In addition, progress is expected on enhancements to the SWE specifications as described in the "Future work" clauses of the respective baseline documents.

Emphasis for SWE during this phase of the OWS project will be on:

• Leveraging results of OWS-4 to extend and integrate those specifications and implementations.
• Demonstrating SWE's ability to meet the geospatial needs of large enterprise system by integrating SWE into realistic enterprise workflow scenarios supported by Use Cases.
• Continuing previous test-bed efforts to integrate IEEE 1451 sensor into SWE
• Establishing cross thread collaboration with CGB by integrating sensors into 3D models.
• Harmonizing SWE concepts and specifications with other OGC specifications and initiatives.
• Developing compliance test for SWE specification to accelerate adoption

2) Geo Processing Workflow (GPW)

No geo-process is an island, or more exactly no geo-process should be an island. By interconnecting geo-processes through service chaining and orchestration to meet workflow requirements, creation of valued-added enterprise systems is possible that demonstrate the power of interoperability and service oriented architectures. The OWS-2 Image Handling for Decision Support (IH4DS) thread extended the baseline of OWS service types with image processing services. OWS-3 Common Architecture activities built on that work by applying the services developed in OWS-2 to the SWE and GeoDSS environments. OWS-4 furthered workflow service development by investigating the patterns for building general purpose geo-processing services and prototyping a feature editing scenario.

OWS-5 will further mature geoprocessing workflows by bringing together more services in real-world image processing scenarios, developing a SOAP/WSDL framework for all OGC services, and incorporating rights-based access to resources. The GPW thread in this testbed is organized into the following inter-related work areas:

• Enterprise integration and refinement of OGC Web Service architecture
• Enterprise integration of OGC Web Services using service chaining and workflow to implement the full service life cycle for the Publish-Find-Bind pattern
• Integrate GeoRM services and components in the workflow with focus on Identity, Authorization, Authentication and Trust model

3) Information Communities and Semantics (ICS)

The ICS thread seeks to advance the understanding and use of complex geographic information types within an interoperability architecture. A variety of geospatial data types will be modeled in UML and converted into GML using the UGAS ShapeChange tool. Information about these data and the services provisioning them will be registered in a number of catalogs and utilized in workflows developed in the GPW thread.

This activity will test the ability of OGC standards to facilitate one of the core scenarios in any spatial data infrastructure-information publication.

4) Agile Geography

This testbed focuses on process integration and ‘right-sizing' of services to demonstrate the power of interoperability and service-oriented architectures using OGC Web Services. The Agile Geography thread explores this goal through two distinct activities.

The first explores the future of KML, OWS Context, and lightweight payloads of geospatial information on the Web in general, applying the concepts of links, bookmarks and Web pages to digital cartography and geospatial information management. Participants will explore the harmonization of KML and OWS Context XML encodings and prototype client and server software that exploits these document types.

The second activity-GeoSynchronization and Sharing-extends the WFS-Transactional architecture to target a federated environment comprised of loosely affiliated parties who desire to collaborate, in full or in part, on the maintenance of a shared geospatial data set.

5) Compliance Testing (CITE)

The OGC Interoperability Program and the OGC Specification Program have achieved a great deal of momentum as a result of the multiple OGC Web service specifications that have recently been published. Key consumers in the geospatial industry are modernizing their enterprises and realizing spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) based on the applicability and interoperability of OGC web services.

The major geospatial industry consumers require verifiable proof of compliance with OGC specifications in order to reach the desirable outcome of interoperability. In OWS-5 the CITE thread advances testing for Web Coverage Service and Catalog Service for the Web to versions 1.1 and 2.0.2 respectively. OWS-5 also initiates Sensor Web compliance testing, with the first Sensor Observation Service and Sensor Planning Service tests.

Also included in the requirements are reference implementations of these specifications. A reference implementation is an open source, fully functional implementation of a specification in reference to which other implementations can be evaluated. The OGC provides open source reference implementations to ensure maximum transparency of its specifications for both vendors and customers.

6) CAD / GIS / BIM (CGB)

NOTE: Work items within the CAD/GIS/BIM thread are provided for comment -- with the anticipation that CGB will be conducted in Phase 2. Comments on CGB are solicited now to support a future RFQ/CFP for Phase 5.2 as defined in Master Schedule.

The CGB activities in the OWS program are directed toward bridging the information models and workflows of the various communities involved with the representation of the built environment in three dimensions. Standards for interoperable exchange of information about buildings and standards for representing and exchanging information about cities at broad-scale are beginning to enable owners, administrators and toolmakers to make investments in developing assets based on these standards. Applications of integrated city models are emerging in the mass-market sphere, witness Google Earth and Microsoft Local Live. One can imagine the extension of these tools into the domains of location-based services to emergency preparedness and response. These applications will require the integration of semantically rich authoritative information that is likely to be created in a highly distributed fashion. This thread of OWS-5 focuses on developing a services-based architecture that will bring the necessary information together, and to make it accessible in a secure way.

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is releasing a Request For Quotation and Call for Participation (hereafter referred to as RFQ/CFP) to solicit your proposal in response to a refined set of requirements for the CGDI Interoperability Pilot. This request is issued as an RFQ/CFP for two reasons. The first reason is that GeoConnections as sponsor is providing cost-sharing funds to offset expenses uniquely associated with the initiative. The second reason is that GeoConnections and OGC intend to involve as many participants in the initiative as possible and thus are soliciting contributory proposals that will enhance and/or make use of the initiative outcomes.

Candidate Submission: Tue, 2007-04-10 12:00
Close request period: Wed, 2007-05-02 23:59

CGDI Interoperability Pilot Overview

Background

One of the tenets of the CGDI is the widespread dissemination of data which is at the same time managed at or near its source. Late in 2005, GeoConnections commissioned AMEC of Oakville, Ontario to investigate the use of technology based on the Open Geospatial Consortium's Web Feature Service (WFS) standard to better meet this objective. Recommendations made in the ensuing AMEC 2006 report, "Web Feature Services, Considerations for CGDI Government Partners" included taking primary steps to properly adopt and effectively use WFS within the CGDI.

In spring of 2006 some CCOG members approached GeoConnections about enhancing their current services in order to provide framework data to GeoBase within a distributed computing environment. As a follow-up to the AMEC report and CCOG requests, GeoConnections then invited CCOG and IACG members to participate in a pilot project to assess the opportunities afforded by WFS technology to improve the management and dissemination of CGDI data.

Objectives and Benefits

The renewed GeoConnections program is primarily focused on both enhancing and applying the CGDI. This opportunity for working in collaboration with the provincial partners will test better mechanisms for the distribution and updating of framework data, providing users with access to the most current and authoritative data, avoiding version disparities, and minimizing duplication.

Provincial partners have communicated interest in establishing WFS as a standard for providing wide access to data from distributed locations closest to their source. As source data providers for GeoBase framework data, provincial stakeholders will receive assistance with the implementation of onsite WFS components both in a technical and business sense. Assistance will be made available in the form of financial contributions for labour, software, and data publishing. This will allow providers to maintain control over the data they own while contributing at the same time to a national view of that data. Project results will aid CCOG members in planning the future production implementation of a distributed architecture for GeoBase data management and distribution.

Data users require authoritative geospatial information, accessible directly from as close as possible to its source, in order to make timely and effective decisions. Evolving the GeoBase portal to operate in a more distributed fashion and making maintenance transactions more efficient will help to meet those user requirements. Such GeoBase improvements will be realized through the development of partnerships, data standards and encouragement of sharing. Working with data providers to improve the maintenance of GeoBase framework data is a particular priority for GeoConnections.

Private sector technology providers will be brought into the project through a competitive process. They will assist the project partners in the deployment of the WFS technology.

Scope

This project proposed by GeoConnections in conjunction with CCOG members will focus on three vector-based data themes:

• Geographic Name;
• National Road Network;
• Administrative Boundaries;

The functional scope of this project includes investigations in the following areas:

• Access by users to closest-to-source data
• Transactional updates exchanged between data suppliers and GeoBase
• Use of a distributed services architecture to support performant end-user online applications

The project will include participants from provincial and federal agencies and from the private sector. Agencies will participate at different levels, some will work with private sector partners while others will use their existing infrastructures to provide access to manage and disseminate data. The information gained during the execution of this project will benefit all project participants as well as the broader CGDI community.

Schedule

Discussions with potential project partners for this project were initiated in the second half of 2006. A contract with Open Geospatial Consortium, Herndon, Va., to provide technical management and architecture support was initiated in January 2007. Refinement of the requirements and the Project Concept document is completed in March 2007 and the competition to select industrial partners will be completed by May 2006. The technology deployments will be complete by October 2007 and this will be followed by a 6 month pre-operational phase.