GPS World

Tag: Open Geospatial Consortium

  • New Cesium Consortium offers open-source virtual globe

    Bentley Systems has been named a co-founder of the new Cesium Consortium, along with Analytical Graphics Inc. (AGI).

    Cesium is an open source, browser-based virtual globe, first developed by AGI in 2011 for the aerospace and defense communities.

    HUB-Robeson Center at Penn State. (Image: Cesium Consortium)
    HUB-Robeson Center at Penn State. (Image: Cesium Consortium)

    Cesium’s performance in streaming very large datasets through a browser to desktops, tablets, and smart phones has enabled it to become the virtual globe of choice for geospatial viewing. The consortium will now enable AGI and Bentley to collaborate on the Cesium roadmap to better accelerate and support the requirements for building infrastructure modeling (BIM) and for owners of infrastructure assets.

    In addition, the consortium will support feature development, priority bug fixes, expansion of outreach efforts, and the hosting of social coding events such as code sprints and bug bashes.

    Beaver Stadium at Penn State. (Image: Cesium Consortium)
    Beaver Stadium at Penn State. (Image: Cesium Consortium)

    Bentley Systems is adopting Cesium to visualize and interact with highly detailed infrastructure engineering models set in the reality context of their surrounding environment. The digital engineering models are created with Bentley’s MicroStation and BIM applications, and the context is provided through reality meshes, created from digital photography and scanning devices using Bentley’s ContextCapture.

    “We are thrilled to join the Cesium Consortium as a founding member,” said Keith Bentley, founder and CTO of Bentley Systems. “I commend AGI for their leadership and vision, not only for creating an open source solution for highly performant 3D web-based applications but, more importantly, for fostering an ecosystem to leverage it. I expect Bentley and our users will build Cesium-based Web clients for immersively viewing BIM models, reality context, asset databases, IoT streams, and myriad other geo 3D services. We look forward to working hand in hand with AGI and future members of the consortium to expand Cesium as an open standard.”

    Bentley’s work to date illustrates the advantages that the infrastructure community can expect from Cesium. Data created with both MicroStation and ContextCapture can be exported to 3D Tiles, an open format developed by the Cesium team to stream massive geo-coordinated 3D datasets. Cesium will enable Bentley users to stream their digital engineering models over the Web to desktop and mobile devices with unprecedented performance and precision.

    “We are very excited to collaborate with Bentley. Bentley shares our vision and technical approach and has already done some fantastic work with Cesium and 3D Tiles,” said Patrick Cozzi, Cesium founder. “Bentley’s support will be key within our submission team proposing 3D Tiles as an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Community Standard.”

    For more information on how to join and accelerate the Cesium Consortium, contact [email protected].

  • New Cesium Consortium offers open-source virtual globe

    Bentley Systems has been named a co-founder of the new Cesium Consortium, along with Analytical Graphics Inc. (AGI).

    Cesium is an open source, browser-based virtual globe, first developed by AGI in 2011 for the aerospace and defense communities.

    HUB-Robeson Center at Penn State. (Image: Cesium Consortium)
    HUB-Robeson Center at Penn State. (Image: Cesium Consortium)

    Cesium’s performance in streaming very large datasets through a browser to desktops, tablets, and smart phones has enabled it to become the virtual globe of choice for geospatial viewing. The consortium will now enable AGI and Bentley to collaborate on the Cesium roadmap to better accelerate and support the requirements for building infrastructure modeling (BIM) and for owners of infrastructure assets.

    In addition, the consortium will support feature development, priority bug fixes, expansion of outreach efforts, and the hosting of social coding events such as code sprints and bug bashes.

    Beaver Stadium at Penn State. (Image: Cesium Consortium)
    Beaver Stadium at Penn State. (Image: Cesium Consortium)

    Bentley Systems is adopting Cesium to visualize and interact with highly detailed infrastructure engineering models set in the reality context of their surrounding environment. The digital engineering models are created with Bentley’s MicroStation and BIM applications, and the context is provided through reality meshes, created from digital photography and scanning devices using Bentley’s ContextCapture.

    “We are thrilled to join the Cesium Consortium as a founding member,” said Keith Bentley, founder and CTO of Bentley Systems. “I commend AGI for their leadership and vision, not only for creating an open source solution for highly performant 3D web-based applications but, more importantly, for fostering an ecosystem to leverage it. I expect Bentley and our users will build Cesium-based Web clients for immersively viewing BIM models, reality context, asset databases, IoT streams, and myriad other geo 3D services. We look forward to working hand in hand with AGI and future members of the consortium to expand Cesium as an open standard.”

    Bentley’s work to date illustrates the advantages that the infrastructure community can expect from Cesium. Data created with both MicroStation and ContextCapture can be exported to 3D Tiles, an open format developed by the Cesium team to stream massive geo-coordinated 3D datasets. Cesium will enable Bentley users to stream their digital engineering models over the Web to desktop and mobile devices with unprecedented performance and precision.

    “We are very excited to collaborate with Bentley. Bentley shares our vision and technical approach and has already done some fantastic work with Cesium and 3D Tiles,” said Patrick Cozzi, Cesium founder. “Bentley’s support will be key within our submission team proposing 3D Tiles as an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Community Standard.”

    For more information on how to join and accelerate the Cesium Consortium, contact [email protected].

  • OGC seeks public comment on conceptual hydrography model

    The membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) seeks public comment on its WaterML 2 – Part 3, Surface Hydrology Features Conceptual Model.

    The OGC WaterML 2 – Part 3, Surface Hydrology Features Conceptual Model (HY_Features) is part of an intended ‘OGC WaterML 2’ suite of standards that groups water-related OGC standards. The candidate standard follows Part 1: Timeseries, and Part 2: Ratings, Gaugings and Sections.

    The candidate standard is available for review at portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=72353&version=3. Comments are due by Feb. 16 and should be submitted to [email protected].

    The candidate HY_Features standard defines a common feature model for the identification and description of surface hydrologic features. The feature model is based on established models and patterns in use in the Hydrology domain and endorsed by WMO and UNESCO, such as those documented in the “International Glossary of Hydrology.”

    The candidate HY_Features standard also defines a common conceptual information model for surface hydrologic features independent of their geometric representation and scale. The model describes fundamental relationship types that exist among major components of the hydrosphere. This includes relationships such as hierarchies of catchments, segmentation of watercourses, and topological connectivity of hydrologic features based on the flow and conservation of water.

    The standard is intended to be used to document and share information about real-world objects that are studied in a wide range of hydrologic study types. The original design goal for HY_Features was to link hydrologic information across the scientific and technical programs of organizations with local to global scope, and to assist in discovery, access, and use of hydrologic data from different sources.

    The HY_Features model is designed to support many types of hydrologic information and sub-disciplines. The model supports referencing information about a hydrologic feature across disparate information systems or products, thereby improving data integration within and among organizations.

    Similarly, the model can be applied to cataloging of observations, model results, or other study information involving hydrologic features. The ability to represent the same catchment, river, or other hydrologic feature in several ways is critical for aggregation of cross-referenced or related features into integrated datasets and data products on global, regional, or basin scales.

    Agreement on common concepts and methods is necessary to enable semantic interoperability of hydrologic data and services. The HY_Features model was developed in order to formalize concepts and relationships of hydrologic and hydrographic features using the WMO/UNESCO “International Glossary of Hydrology” as a starting point.

  • OGC seeks public comment on Indexed 3D Scene Layers

    The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is considering start of a new work item for a Community Standard: Indexed 3D Scene Layers (I3S), and is seeking public comment on the work item proposal.

    The I3S delivery format is used to stream 3D geospatial content to mobile, web and desktop clients.

    I3S, initially designed by Esri, was publicly released in April 2015 as an open specification for streaming large, heterogeneous 3D geospatial data sets, including discrete 3D objects, large continuous meshes, 3D vector points, point clouds, and other content. I3S is designed from the ground up to be cloud, web and mobile friendly.

    The I3S conceptual model is implemented using JSON. There is also an I3S Scene Service REST API specification for accessing I3S resources as endpoints. I3S is designed to stream very large 3D datasets and is designed for performance and scalability.

    A document has been prepared that provides a justification to the OGC Technical Committee (TC) for consideration of I3S as a Community standard. This justification, along with the submitted candidate Community standard, will form the basis for TC review and vote to approve the start of the Community standard process.

    Comments should be submitted to [email protected] by December 16.

  • OGC requests comment on revision of its GWML2 specification

    The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is requesting comments on the WaterML 2: Part 4 – GroundWaterML 2 (GWML2) candidate standard.

    GWML2 provides an encoding for data involved in the study and use of groundwater. The candidate standard includes conceptual and logical models as well as an XML-based encoding schema.

    GWML2 is part of the larger WaterML2.0 suite of standards coordinated in an initiative within the joint World Meteorological Organization (WMO) / OGC Hydrology Domain Working Group to address standards development and interoperability of hydrological information systems at an international level.

    The GWML2 standard is motivated by five usage scenarios that focus on commercial uses (drilling water wells), policy uses (managing aquifers), environmental uses (protecting ecosystems), scientific uses (groundwater modeling) and technical uses (data interoperability).

    GWML2 consists of six modules including:

    1. core entities (aquifers and groundwater bodies)
    2. groundwater constituents (biologic, chemical, and material)
    3. groundwater flow
    4. water wells and groundwater monitoring
    5. water well  construction, and
    6. aquifer testing.

    Two OGC Interoperability Experiments were performed to test and enhance GroundWaterML capabilities, which resulted in the first version of GWML2. Further content was developed in conjunction with contributors from North America,Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

    The document is available for public comment at this link. Comments are open until June 17.

  • OGC announces Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure Project

    The Arctic SDI Pilot is sponsored by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Natural Resources Canada. The goal is to demonstrate to Arctic stakeholders the diversity, richness and value of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) based on web services and standardized exchange formats in helping address critical issues impacting the Arctic.

    Stakeholders include national and pan-Arctic science and monitoring organizations and decision makers engaged in Arctic research, social and economic policy, and environmental management. The organizations participating in the ArcticSDI Pilot will document and publicize best practices that can support a rich network of web-accessible data and service resources for the Arctic.

    The pilot has two phases.

    Phase 1, an OGC Interoperability Program Concept Development study, began in December 2015. In Phase 1, project planners are building an inventory of currently available Arctic geospatial data layers and web services and defining the Arctic SDI architecture. This work will be supported by partners engaged in industry, research, and numerous jurisdictions. A Request for Information will be published in January 2016 to elicit further ideas, experiences, and projects in industry, research institutions and public administration to make maximal use of the ArcticSDI and to develop it further.

    The Arctic SDI Pilot Phase 1 will also provide direct input into OGC’s major Testbed 12 Interoperability Program initiative. USGS has indicated that sponsor funding will be made available for Testbed 12 to test and further develop components identified in the Arctic SDI pilot. Through this collaboration, arctic stakeholders and the Arctic SDI will leverage and benefit from the leading-edge interoperability research, development and outreach that is ongoing in the OGC’s series of major testbeds.

    All findings from Phase 1 will serve as input for Phase 2, which will be an OGC Interoperability Program Pilot Project. OGC pilot projects apply and test OGC Standards in operational applications using Standards Based Commercial Off-the-Shelf (SCOTS) products that implement OGC Standards. Pilot projects provide an operational implementation so that users and technology developers can collaborate and learn how to better address their requirements using standards-based architectures.

    To articulate the value of interoperability via standards, technology provider participants will implement the recommended Arctic SDI architecture in support of Arctic policy scenarios. A video will be produced to engage policymakers on the benefits of integrating diverse data utilizing Arctic SDI standards and information management best practices.

    The OGC is an international consortium of more than 515 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled.

  • OGC standard to make environmental data easier for GIS

    The membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has approved the OGC CF-netCDF 3.0 encoding using GML Coverage Application Schema, an extension to the OGC CF-netCDF 3.0 encoding standard.

    The OGC CF-netCDF 3.0 encoding standard has emerged as a widely used and well supported data model and encoding for domains such as atmospheric science, oceanography, climatology, meteorology and hydrology. It supports multi-dimensional data representing space and time-varying phenomena.

    The new extension to the OGC CF-netCDF standards suite specifies how CF-netCDF datasets are encoded to conform to “OGC Implementation Schema for Coverages.” Coverages are data such as the output of weather and climate forecast models, weather station and ocean buoy observations, balloon soundings, ground-base radar, satellite imagery, digital elevation models and lidar point clouds. This extension specifies how these complex multi-dimensional CF-netCDF data are encoded as OGC coverages for use in GIS or other geospatial systems.

    The documents for the OGC netCDF-GMLCOV Standard are available online.

    The OGC is an international consortium of more than 515 companies, government agencies, research organizations and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled.

  • Open Geospatial Consortium Seeks Participants for Elevation-Data Experiment

    The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) announces a Call for Participation in the OGC GeoPackage Elevation Extension Interoperability Experiment (GPKG-EE IE).

    The OGC GeoPackage Standards Working Group (SWG) has identified a need to store tiled gridded elevation data in a GeoPackage. GeoPackage is an open, standards-based, platform-independent, portable, self-describing, compact format for transferring geospatial information. The SWG has developed a candidate extension to the GeoPackage Encoding Standard to support elevation data.

    This capability will be used to support use cases such as the following:

    • Visualization
      • 2D (hillshade, color relief, slope)
      • 3D (supporting changing view angles and level of detail)
    • Analysis
      • Viewshed and line-of-sight
      • Cross-country mobility (off-road routing)
      • Site suitability and planning (slope analysis such as helicopter landing zones)
      • 3D geometry representations of features (ground-based, airspace)
      • Terrain association (associating images to mapped locations)
      • Augmented reality based training

    The SWG proposes validating the extension by running an Open Geospatial Consortium Interoperability Experiment. An OGC Interoperability Experiment is a rapid, low overhead, formally structured OGC-facilitated activity in which members achieve specific technical objectives that further the OGC Standards Baseline. The GPKG-EE IE will test and refine the elevation extension. To do this, the SWG needs the international support and acceptance of a globally representative community that provides both domain and technical expertise to this project. While the OGC is a member-driven organization and the SWG needs a core of OGC members to support and initiate this work, non-members can participate as “observers.”

    The GPKG-EE IE will perform the following experiments:

    • Experiment #1: produce GeoPackages containing tiled gridded elevation data in accordance with the proposed extension.
    • Experiment #2: use the GeoPackages to perform visualization and/or analysis operations as described above.

    The results of the Interoperability Experiment will be documented in an OGC Engineering Report. In addition to the Engineering Report, a demonstration is tentatively scheduled for the OGC Technical Committee meeting in Washington, D.C., in March 2016.

    The OGC asks interested organizations to indicate their support and commitment to be involved in this Interoperability Experiment. A summary of the activity plan, requirements for participation, schedule, and kick-off meeting details are available. Contact details are included in the activity plan.

    Participants in the GPKG-EE IE, which will run until March 31, 2016, will test implementations and provide constructive comments on the exchange data model and resulting trial documentation. Experience has shown that those working in these initiatives gain valuable insights that can be used to improve existing information systems or fast-track the development of new systems. Participants gain sufficient expertise to start deploying working services for their existing data and local situations.

    The following OGC members proposed the GeoPackage Elevation Extension Interoperability Experiment:

    • Luciad, Belgium
    • Image Matters LLC
    • Compusult, Canada
    • U.S. Army Geospatial Center

    The OGC is an international geospatial standards consortium of more than 515 companies, government agencies, research organizations and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services and mainstream IT.

  • Esri ArcGIS 10.3 Now Certified OGC Compliant

    As part of Esri’s ongoing support of GIS interoperability, the latest ArcGIS 10.3 release is now certified as Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC), compliant.

    Through its support for OGC specifications, ArcGIS users can access data and services from many different sources, regardless of the technology used by those sources, Esri said. In addition, users can share their content with others, including non-Esri users, contributing to the larger goals of the open data movement.

    “Our goal is to help our users be successful, and Esri sees technical interoperability as a key driver to successful implementations,” said Dr. Satish Sankaran, Esri product manager for interoperability and member of the OGC Architecture Board.

    The OGC leads the development of geospatial interoperability standards. Esri is a long-standing, active OGC participant, helping GIS users to seamlessly work together, Esri said.

    Esri’s first OGC compliancy certificates were granted in 1999, and many more Esri ArcGIS platform products have met OGC compliancy since then.

    See the full list of OGC-compliant products from Esri.

  • W3C, OGC to Integrate Spatial Data on the Web

    The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) are collaborating to improve interoperability and integration of spatial data on the Web. Spatial data — describing geographic locations on the Earth and natural and constructed features — enriches location-based consumer services, online maps, journalism, scientific research, government administration, the Internet of Things, and many other applications. In the United States alone, geospatial data and services are estimated to generate $1.6 trillion annually.

    “Location, as well as providing context to much of today’s online information, is vital to the emerging field of connected devices,” said Ed Parsons, Geospatial Technologist at Google. “Through this collaboration we hope to make the understanding of geospatial knowledge a fundamental component of the Web.”

    Spatial data is integral to many of our human endeavors and so there is a high value in making it easier to integrate that data into Web based datasets and services. For example, one can use a GIS system to find the nearest restaurant, but today it is difficult to associate that restaurant with reviewer comments available on the Web in a scalable way. Likewise, concepts used widely on the Web such as “the United Kingdom” do not match the geographic concepts defined in a GIS system, meaning Web developers are missing out on valuable information available in GIS systems. Bridging GIS systems and the Web will create a network effect that enriches both worlds.

    “Location plays a vital role for BBC Online, not least in our remit to provide timely information for Weather, Travel and Local News,” said Chris Henden, service owner for location services at BBC Future Media. “It matters across the service, from maps showing places of note in World War One, to detailed context for breaking news. We source data from various third parties, then transform, curate, and make it available to our front-end services. There is a perceptible gap between the specialised world of geographic data, and that of the Web. Bridging that gap can take significant, repeated effort, and is not always successful or possible. Therefore this collaboration between the OGC and W3C is more than welcome.”

    More than 100 participants discussed these challenges at the March 2014 Workshop on Linking Geospatial Data, co-organized by OGC and W3C in partnership with the UK Government Linked Data Working Group, Google, and Ordnance Survey (the UK mapping agency). Stories ranging from management of data in response to the Fukushima nuclear plant accident to the use of spatial data to create new services from spatial and historical data in the Netherlands illustrated a diverse set of integration benefits and challenges.

    Informed by the conclusions from that workshop, the collaboration announced today will enable publishers of spatial data, providers of services that consume the data, and application developers to establish common practices and reduce the cost of integrating spatial data on the Web. Through the collaboration, the geospatial and Web communities will document use cases and requirements, develop best practices for publishing spatial data on the Web, and advance some existing technologies to W3C Recommendations and OGC standards.

    “Through this collaboration we will ensure that governments and research labs will have a way to open up their spatial data to be used transparently by scientists, industry, and citizens alike,” said Kerry Taylor, principal research scientist at Australia’s CSIRO.

    “With growing demand for weather data services delivered via the Web, this joint effort will ensure the progress of practical and usable standards for the integration and communication of location related data,” added Richard Carne, chief digital officer at the MetOffice.

    Participants will evaluate the use of Linked Data for managing the complex evolution and integration of spatial data. The Linked Data approach enables people to produce data independently, and to then easily integrate heterogeneous data from diverse sources.

    “We have used Linked Data — including early work on W3C’s Semantic Sensor Network ontology and OGC’s GeoSPARQL — to monitor and manage ground water levels affecting vulnerable underground archaeological sites,” said Linda van den Brink of Geonovum, the Dutch government geospatial standards body. “We demonstrated that when you have a way to easily express location in Linked Data, you can combine geo-information with other data and discover new information without much effort.”

    For this collaboration, W3C and OGC have each launched a Spatial Data on the Web Working Group (W3C home, OGC home). The groups, both chaired by Ed Parsons and Kerry Taylor, will coordinate closely and publish deliverables jointly.

    For W3C, this work is supported in part by the SmartOpenData project.