OGC Approves Major Specifications for GeoSpatial Web Services”

September 27, 2002

Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)

Wayland, MA -- The Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) announced today that three new OpenGIS® Specifications were approved at the recent meeting in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.The Web Feature Service Interface Specification (WFS), the Filter Encoding Implementation Specification and the Style Layer Descriptor (SLD) Implementation Specification are significant contributions to the Spatial Web - moving the global community closer to the OGC vision of ubiquitous geospatial integration on the Web, regardless of hardware platform, device or software.The specifications are freely available at http://www.opengis.org/techno/implementation.htm

Each specification solves significant interoperability issues for mapping data and service integration on the Web.Vendor products that implement the Web Feature Service Specification can support distributed, Web-based geospatial feature data operations critical to government, commercial, academic and other applications.In particular, software that implements WFS can access, query, create, update or delete data from servers that adhere to the specification, no matter the vendor, data storage format or location.For example, for a given situation there are no roadblocks to updating, sharing and using mapping information at the most detailed level.The Filter Encoding Specification enables any client to specify a query for information from WFS enabled server.The Style Layer Descriptor Implementation Specification provides the ability to describe rules for symbolizing maps.

The Web Feature Service Implementation Specification describes feature database operations (e.g., points, lines, and polygons) making it possible for client and server applications to interoperate across the web. The request is typically generated on the client and posted to a WFS server.The WFS server reads and executes the request, returning the result in Geography Markup Language (GML) encoding.The GML document, used in conjunction with an XML Schema, can then be parsed by any client application for further use.

The Filter Encoding Implementation Specification adds the capability to constrain feature requests to a WFS enabled server by using a filter expression within a request.A filter expression described in XML can, for example, limit selection to just those features that lie within a geographic area, or include a spatial operation (trees must be within 20 feet of an electric line) with a property constraint (must be a maple tree).The neutral XML filter encoding allows easy parsing and validation by a WFS server before being transformed into the targeted language of a required data store.

The Style Layer Descriptor Implementation Specification defines the encoding for symbology, styling and rules for map display.SLD, expressed in an XML document, can be used or referenced by a Web mapping client application when formulating a map request to any SLD enabled map server.Using this approach, Web maps can be generated dynamically using a number of independent map services accessing a number of remote data sources.Performance and efficiency is achieved since only the resulting maps need to be transported to the client as opposed to the data itself.

Edric Keighan, President and CEO of CubeWerx Inc., a submitter and editor of the three specifications, commented, "It is important to recognize that these achievements would not have been possible without the global collaboration of OGC Interoperability Program Sponsors, Interoperability Program Team members, and many, many Participants. The OGC WFS, SLD and Filter Encoding represent an important addition to the emerging suite of OGC Web Services and will support interoperable implementations around the world.CubeWerx is pleased with the outcome of the OGC consensus process and would like to thank all OGC members for their contributions."

ABOUT CUBEWERX INC.
Founded in 1996, CubeWerx has been developing standard-based off the shelf software products (SCOTS) in response to Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) requirements for interoperable information infrastructures. CubeWerx is an innovative software company whose expertise includes development, marketing and selling of Web Services and Spatial Warehousing software products. These products and other location-based software product components support the most demanding requirements for the integration, access, and management of very large volumes of Spatial Data over the web. CubeWerx products such as CubeXPLOR, CubeSERV and CubeSTOR were developed using open and interoperable specifications from the Open GIS Consortium. These products allow organizations responsible for Geospatial data to respond to their most demanding client requirements and offer them on-line Web services in a multi-vendor products environment. More information on CubeWerx is available on the Internet at www.cubewerx.com.

For more information please contact:
Edric Keighan (CubeWerx)
Tel.: (819) 771-8303 x207
E-mail

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