PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For information about this announcement, contact:
Mr. Mark Reichardt
Director, Marketing and Public Sector Programs
+1 301 840-1361 voice
+1 301 330-2839 fax
+1 301 412-2336 mobile
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OGC Releases a Request for Technology for a Major Web Services
Initiative
March 28, 2001: OGC, Inc. (the Open GIS Consortium) announced the
release today of a Request for Technology (RFT) for a major OGC
Web Services Initiative. The RFT is available at
http://ip.opengis.org/ows/index.html. Responses to this RFT,
along with financial commitments from sponsor organizations will
help determine the focus areas that are undertaken as part of
this initiative scheduled to commence in September 2001.
OGC Web Services are envisioned as an evolutionary, standards-
based framework that will enable seamless integration of a
variety of online geoprocessing and location services. OGC Web
Services will allow distributed geoprocessing systems to
communicate with each other using technologies such as XML and
HTTP. OGC Web Services will provide a vendor-neutral
interoperable framework for web-based discovery, access,
integration, analysis, exploitation and visualization of multiple
online geodata sources, sensor-derived information, and
geoprocessing and location capabilities.
The OGC Web Services Initiative is part of OGC's Interoperability
Program, a global, collaborative, hands-on engineering and
testing program designed to deliver prototype interoperable
technologies and proven candidate specifications into OGC's
Specification Development Program. In OGC's Interoperability
Initiatives, international teams of technology providers work
together to solve specific geoprocessing interoperability
problems posed by Initiative sponsors.
The content of the OGC Web Services Initiative has grown out of
previous OGC Testbeds and Pilot Projects. It represents an
appreciation of the need to consolidate what OGC and its members
have learned in the previous Interoperability Initiatives, with
emphasis on moving toward a more coherent model of heterogeneous
services and clients interoperating in a distributed setting.
The OGC Web Services Initiative RFT provides details on several
proposed focus areas:
-- Web Mapping Testbed Phase 3 - will consolidate the progress
made in previous testbeds with work accomplished in the OGC Web
Services Initiative and refine Basic and General Services Models.
This activity will also investigate future web services for
visualization, feature and coverage data access, and other
services.
-- 3D / 4D - will extend OGC's Geographic Markup Language (GML),
Simple Feature Access, and Web Feature Server specifications,
with the goal of bringing time, topology, and more complex
geometric representation capabilities into these OGC data access
and manipulation services.
-- Web Based Exploitation - will focus on an open e-commerce
architecture that dynamically connects earth imagery and other
geospatial information providers, maintainers, and users in
collaborating communities, providing users with interoperable
Web-based exploitation capabilities.
-- Sensor Web - will produce open specifications for information
gathering from distributed, heterogeneous, dynamic information
sensors, and Web resources through common gateways and interfaces
("Ask it, task it, see it"). Sensor Web will result in common
interfaces (and an XML-based Sensor Markup Language) for managing
sensor information and metadata independent of application. One
goal is transparent integration of data from earth imaging
platforms and ground collection systems (e.g. water quality
monitoring, space-based imaging, GPS correction stations, etc.).
-- Geoanalysis and Decision Support - will develop interoperable
service chaining (common expression and execution) and service
metadata extensions for complex spatial models (e.g., science
models). Goals include extending the OGC Basic Services Model and
exercising key concepts in ISO 19119.
-- Information Communities - will create a new technical
standards approach to overcoming the problem of semantic
differences in geospatial data and associated metadata. It will
focus on supporting "Information Communities" using OGC Web
Services, fielding data models across communities, and building
tools for application schema creation, mapping, and migration.
Interested participants must reply to this RFT by May 14, 2001.
Please contact Mr. Jeff Harrison, OGC Interoperability Program
Manager, by telephone at (703) 628-8655, or by e-mail at
[log in to unmask] if you are interested in being a sponsor of
this initiative, or for more information about participation in
the OGC Web Services Initiative.
OGC is an international industry consortium of over 200
companies, government agencies and universities participating in
a consensus process to develop publicly available geoprocessing
specifications. OpenGIS Specifications establish common
interfaces that "geo-enable" the Web and mainstream IT, enabling
technology developers to make complex spatial information and
services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications.
Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengis.org.
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