Overview of National Standards

1. Overview of National Standards CGSB Standards Seminar C D O'Brien, Chair CGSB - COG 24 January 2008

2. Why Standards? • Geographic information is a valuable commodity, and as such there is a market for this information. But the market can only survive if the recipient can use the geographic data. • Incompatibility can result from market forces that lock users to particular manufacturers’ systems, legacy systems and other causes.

3. Spatial Data Infrastructure Standards • A Spatial Data Infrastructure endeavours to bridge across application areas. • A high level of interoperability is required for both: • data; and • services • An SDI requires mature broadly scoped standards.

4. Explosion of growth • The field of Geographic Information Systems is poised for an explosion of growth. • Almost everything is in some way geospatial. • Conventional databases are including spatial referencing, and everything from accounting systems to word processors are including "Map" type data.

5. Too many incompatible domain specific Standards • There are only two standard voltages globally (100-120) and (220 to 240) so there is only a need for two electrical plugs. • However many countries have different plug designs. This was originally intended to protect markets, but it ended up limiting trade. • Geospatial standards need to be flexibleto accommodate diversity and generalenough to promote interoperability.

6. Underlying incompatibility • The difficulty is that very little mapping data is actually compatible at its core. • This stems from the different approaches taken to model the earth. • Data fusion from multiple sources only works in constrained situations. • This is a fundamental problem for a Spatial Data Infrastructure. • When an SDI goes beyond discovery,data compatibility is a major issue.

7. Data and Services • There are two broad areas of standardization: • Standards for Services • Standards for Data • Both are equally important, but the data standards are more long term in nature than the service standards. • Services evolve more quickly than data.

8. Data Standards • Data standards describe the method by which we represent the earth. • The decisions we make in collecting data, establishing feature catalogues, geometry and metadata define the content. • The same data can be exchanged using different encapsulations into bits and bytes.

9. Representing the earth • There are three basic methods by which we describe the earth. • Imagery • Boundary (vector data); and • Sets of measurements (e.g. a grid coverage) • All three approaches share many aspects such as spatial referencing, metadata and a feature model.

10. The Last Generation of Standards • The CGSB-COG has been developing geospatial standards for over 15 years. • The initial standards were: • a unique Canadian metadata standard • a map library standard • endorsement of the DIGEST military mapping standard and • endorsement of the BC SAIF geospatial modelling standard • These are all now obsolete and have evolved or been replaced

11. International Standards through ISO • Canada has been a participant in the ISO TC/211 geographic information committee since its beginning. • ISO is developing a standards framework that can be used throughout the world. • But it is very general and needs to be adapted through profiles. • ISO standards are being endorsed and national (bi-national) profiles developed.

12. Geospatial Standards Development in Canada • The public standardization process in Canada is managed by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC). • The Standards Council of Canada is a federal Crown corporation operating under act of parliament, reporting through the Minister of Industry. • Actual standards are prepared by standards writing organizations such as the Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB) or the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) who are independent bodies accredited by the SCC for the development of standards in particular disciplines. • The area of Geographic Information is assigned to the CGSB.

13. National Standards • Accredited standards-development organizations may submit standards to the SCC for approval as National Standards of Canada. • A National Standard must be developed by consensus of a balanced committee representing producers, consumers and other relevant interests. • It must undergo a public review process and be available in both official languages. • It must also be consistent with or incorporate appropriate international standards and other relevant national standards. • The national standards committee for Geographic Information is the CGSB-COG (CGSB 171/1)

14. Geographic Information Standards Activities in Canada/GeoConnections’ CGDI Is P-member of ISO Is a Technical Committee of ISO Technical Committee (TC) 211 OGC/TC 211 – Joint Advisory Group (JAG) Accredits CAC ISO/TC211 as Canada TWG to CGDI Development Network Standards Council of Canada Is accredited by Canadian Advisory Committee to ISO/TC 211 (CAC ISO/TC 211) CGDI Architecture Advisory Committee Consortia and Academia Is Harmonized with Recommends Standards For Canadian General Standards Board Committee on Geomatics (CGSB CoG) Participate in CGDI development OMG W3C OASIS etc. Open Geospatial Consortium GeoConnections Is a voting member of Federal/Territorial Provinces Municipalities Private Academia NGOs Is strategic member of Federal Standards Other Standards Development Organizations ANSI Accredited Standards Development Organization

15. Areas of Interest for International Geospatial standards • There are six areas of internationalinterest with respect to the standardization of geographic information of concern to the CGDI. These are: • ISO TC211 - Geographic Information/Geomatics, represented by the Canadian Advisory Committee (CAC) on TC211 through the Canadian General Standards Board - Committee 171/3 • ISO TC204 - Transportation Information and Control Systems --- represented by the Canadian Advisory Committee (CAC) on TC204 through the Canadian Standards Association. • ISO JTC1/SC24 - Computer Graphics and Image Processing --- represented by the Canadian Advisory Committee (CAC) on TCJTC1/SC24 through the Canadian Standards Association.

16. Areas of Interest for International Geospatial standards • Continued: • ISO JTC1/SC32 - Data Management and Interchange --- represented by the Canadian Advisory Committee (CAC) on TCJTC1/SC32 through the Canadian Standards Association. • DGIWG - The NATO affiliated Digital Geographic Information Working Group (DGIWG) operating through the international Military Agency for Standardization (MAS) represented by the Department of National Defence, • IHO - The International Hydrographic Organization represented through the Canadian Hydrographic Service of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans

17. International Standards Status • ISOTC/211 suite of standards consists of a series of base standards. 24 standards, 3 technical specifications and 3 reports have been completed. • ISOTC204 has developed the Geographic Data Files (GDF) for Transportation Information Control Systems in 2004, and 51 other standards. • ISO JTC1/SC24 has developed the Basic Image Interchange Format (BIIF) (ISO/IEC IS 12087-5). BIFF is based on the US work on the Imagery Transmission Format Standard (NITFS). SC24 is also involved in Simulation and Modeling that uses geographic information. • ISO JTC1/SC32 has developed the SQL/MM Spatial standard for handling of geospatial information in SQL databases. • DGIWG - DIGEST has been available sinceJune1991. DGIWG has revised its suite of standards to align with ISO TC/211. • IHO S-57 has been available since 1992. It is referenced by the IMO for safe navigation at sea. S-100 will align with TC/211.

18. Canadian General Standards Board - Committee on Geomatics (CGSB-COG) • Canadian Standards in the field ofgeomatics are developed through the Canadian General Standards Board - Committee on Geomatics . • Three associated committees: • CGSB 171/1 which deals with National standards, • CGSB 171/1.2 which deals with Map Library Cataloguing (sub-committee to 171/1), • CGSB 171/3 which is a Canadian Advisory Committee on ISO TC211, and which advises the Standards Council of Canada on Canadian positions with respect to ISO TC211 standards developments. • The next joint meeting is planned for the fall of 2008.

19. Types of TC211 standards • There are too many ISO standards to go through in detail. They have been organized by type: • Guidance - Intended for the standards writer on how to produce a standard in line with the ISO TC211 concepts • Rules - Intended for the developer to build or customise information components (schema, registers) • Information Components - Description of information components and schema for use in systems or data products. • Services - Intended for service developers to build compatible services. • Reports

20. ISO TC211 Standards • Guidance • 19101Reference model • 19101-2 Reference model- Imagery • 19103Conceptual schema language • 19104 Terminology • 19105Conformance and testing • 19106Profiles • 19132 Location based services - Reference model • Information Components • 6709Standard representation of latitude, longitude • 19107Spatial schema • 19108Temporal schema • 19111Spatial referencing by coordinates • 19112 Spatial referencing by geographic identifiers • 19115Metadata • 19115-2 Metadata- Imagery • 19123Schema for coverage geometry & functions • 19127Geodetic Codes and Parameters • 19129 Imagery, Gridded and Coverage framework • 19130 Sensor Models • 19133 Location based services Tracking & navigation • 19134Multimodal location based services • 19136Generally used profiles of the spatial schema • 19137 Geography Markup Language • 19138Data quality measures • 19139Metadata - Implementation specification • 19141 Schema for moving features • 19144 Classification Systems & LCCS • 19145 Registry geographic point location • Rules • 19109Rules for application schema • 19110Methodologyfor feature cataloguing • 19113Quality principles • 19114 Quality evaluation procedures • 19126 Profile - Data Dictionary • 19131 Product Specifications • 19135Procedures for registration • Services • 19116Positioning services • 19117Portrayal • 19118Encoding • 19119Services • 19125 Simple Feature Access - SQL • 19128Web Map server interface • 19142Web Feature Service • 19143Filter encoding • Reports • 19120Functional standards • 19121Imagery and gridded data • 19122Qualifications/certification of personnel • 19124Imagery & gridded data • components

21. Guidance • 19101Reference model • 19101-2 Reference model- Imagery • 19103Conceptual schema language • 19104 Terminology • 19105Conformance and testing • 19106Profiles • 19132 Location based services - Reference model • The Reference Model gives the overall concept of the ISO suite of standards, including a new part on imagery, and a separate reference model for location based services. • The Conceptual Schema Language indicated that most of the TC211 standards are written in UML. It also defines some basic data types. • Terminology, Conformance and Testing (conformance clauses) and Profiles describe the form of standards.

22. 19109Rules for application schema • 19110Methodologyfor feature cataloguing • 19113Quality principles • 19114 Quality evaluation procedures • 19126 Profile - Data Dictionary • 19131 Product Specifications • 19135Procedures for registration Rules • The rules standards describe how the TC211 suite of standards are to be used: • The most important is 19109 Rules for Application Schema which defines the general feature model upon which all the TC211 standards are based. • The19110Methodology for Feature Cataloguing and the 19126 Data Dictionary standard define how to handle features. • 19135 describes how to build Registers. • 19131 describes how to build Product Specifications. • These are important to data producers within the CGDI. National registers will be needed.

23. Information Components • 6709Standard representation of latitude, longitude • 19107Spatial schema • 19108Temporal schema • 19111Spatial referencing by coordinates • 19112 Spatial referencing by geographic identifiers • 19115Metadata • 19115-2 Metadata- Imagery • 19123Schema for coverage geometry & functions • 19127Geodetic Codes and Parameters • 19129 Imagery, Gridded and Coverage framework • 19130 Sensor Models • 19133 Location based services Tracking & navigation • 19134Multimodal location based services • 19136Generally used profiles of the spatial schema • 19137 Geography Markup Language • 19138Data quality measures • 19139Metadata - Implementation specification • 19141 Schema for moving features • 19144 Classification Systems & LCCS • 19145 Registry geographic point location • Description of information components and schema for use in systems or data products. • Most elements will exist in schema or in registers • There will need to be national registers as part of the CGDI for elements such as metadata in the North American Profile (NAP) of Metadata. • There will also need to be cross registerauthoritative referencing.

24. Services • 19116Positioning services • 19117Portrayal • 19118Encoding • 19119Services • 19125 Simple Feature Access - SQL • 19128Web Map server interface • 19142Web Feature Service • 19143Filter encoding • Since the CGDI is an infrastructure it is largely service based, so at one level the ISO service standards are the most important for the CGDI. • However, the Open Geospatial Consortia (OGC) acts as the primary interface to ISO on services. • Services evolve much more quickly than do data standards. ISO defines some overall principles on Services, Portrayal and Encoding, and organizations such as OGC define specific services. • The OGC specifications, when they are mature, are processed as ISO standards.

25. Reports • Most of the reports that have been developed in ISO have been used as part of the standards development process to gather information on the initial status of an industry before a standard was written. In general they are of little interest to implementers or users of standards. • One report is of a very different kind. It addresses how qualifications and certification of geospatial professionals is addressed in different jurisdictions.

26. Industrial Consortia • The Open GIS Consortia (OGC) is a broadly based organization dedicated to open systems geoprocessing, primarily from an application point of view. • Produces Implementation Specifications based on an RFP proposal process. • OGC is currently introducing several of its Implementation Specifications to ISO TC211 to be processed as standards. • OGC has also adopted several ISO TC211 standards as abstract specifications.

27. Industrial Consortia • There are other industrial consortia in other related application areas: • Transportation. Association of Canada which addresses the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). • Synthetic Environment Data Representation Interchange Specification (SEDRIS) which addresses Simulation and Modelling.

28. Approach to National Standards • Endorse relevant ISO TC/211 standards. • The information component, and service standards are of the highest priority. • The rules standards are of secondary priority • The general guidance and reports are not directly needed except for standards writers. (Endorsed standards can be obtained through the Standards Council of Canada or from ISO.) • Develop national profiles of important content elements • Develop national application schemaand service specifications.

29. Implementation through Profiles • A profile is a subset of one or more standards that narrows the choice of options. The narrower the choice of options the more focused the profile is to a particular application. • A simple profile is a selection of options from just one base standard.

30. Complex profile • A more complex profile is a selection of elements from several base standards. For example an IHO S-101 ENC data set specification might select elements of metadata, cataloguing, spatial referencing, and a common spatial schema from the options allowed in the base standards.

31. International Profiles and National Profiles • The hierarchy of profiles is illustrated below. Internationally Standardized Profiles are the responsibility of ISO TC211. National Profiles are the responsibility of individual national bodies, who may establish their own national registration authorities. Private or industrial sub-sub-domains are the responsibility of individual nations. • Many profiles will consist of registers of information elements tailored to a national or industrial need.

32. Canadian Geospatial Standards • The CGSB-COG has recommended that Canada endorse the entire suite of TC211 standards, and develop its own profiles and implementation specifications. • The proposed set of national base profiles are: • Metadata Profile • A national feature catalogue taxonomy • A set of predefined spatial schema • Quality measures specifications • Several predefined sets of Portrayal Symbology for specific application areas such as public safety.

33. North American Profiles • The CGSB-COG has engaged in discussions with its US equivalent organization ANSI INCITS L1 to develop common Canada/US standards. • This is allowed under an SCC/ANSI agreement under NAFTA. • Standards are parallel - identical text adopted in both countries. • The first topic for joint work is a Metadata profile of ISO 19115 (NAP).

34. Relation to the CGDI priorities • The four priorities of the CGDI are: • Public Health, • Public Safety, • Environment and Sustainable Development • Relationship to Aboriginal Peoples • Standards issues exist in all of these domains. • Service standards should be general and cover all application areas, which means that capabilities such as Cultural and Linguistic Adaptability needs to be built-in. • Registers are need of information components that can be tailored to include information specific to application areas.

35. Standardized Data Products • Compatibility is greatly increased by the establishment of application schema for a set of base data products. • The schema for the Geobase data sets can be defined as a national standard. • In addition, other provincial, municipal or other common data schema can be established.

36. Standardized Registers • Registration provides an alternate, more flexible,manner of standardisation. • ISO TC/211 provides a registration mechanism and defines the approach to register many instances of information elements. • National registers are needed for: • metadata • spatial referencing • feature definitions, and catalogues • portrayal symbols and rules • application schema (including neutral encoding such as GML schema)

37. Additional - • The Information Elements

38. The Feature Catalogue • The most fundamental element in a geospatial data standard is the feature catalogue. • Data that share common feature types can interoperate. • Often there is a dictionary of feature types used to build compatible feature catalogues. • An ontology describes relationships between features and makes it possible to bridge definitions

39. Spatial Referencing • The next most fundamental geographic standards element is Spatial Referencing. • This includes information about : • ellipsoids, • datums, • projections, and • grids. • Tables of parameters for predefined reference systems are a common approach. • Alternately positions can be given by reference such as postal code.

40. Geometry • Geometry defines the structure of a set of geospatial data including the relationship between features. • This makes up the spatial schema. • The geometry of an image is a grid or other coverage type.

41. Metadata • Metadata is information about information. • It is needed to be able to discover and interpret data. • Metadata also drives services and is a shared element between most service interfaces and the data that is served.

42. Service Standards • Service standards address how data is : • encoded and exchanged, • discovered, • accessed, • portrayed, and • utilised in applications

43. Encoding • A basic principle is the separation of "carrier" and "content". • The same data may be carried as different streams of bits and bytes over different media. • Certain encoding standards are appropriate for different applications, such as bit efficient binary, or self describing archive formats. • Some are more efficient, others are easier to process. • GML is becoming the "neutral" exchange format; not too efficient, but flexible, easy to process and widely implemented.

44. Discovery • The first service that is demanded by users is data discovery, in order to be able to find available data. • This service is driven by metadata. • In Canada we have the need for multilingual data discovery, which means we need linguistically adaptable metadata. • Cultural and Linguistic adaptability is required to support French, English and aboriginal languages.

45. Interconnectivity of Discovery Services • Metcalfe's law says that the "value" of a networked service increases by the square of the number of connections on a network and this is driven by the amount of information available on the network. • This means that discovery services will continue to grow and interconnect. • The higher the level of interconnectivity the more that common metadata standards are required. • This is a driving factor for NAP.

46. Access to data • There are a number of different web based services that provide access to data. • The simplest is web mapping. • All that is needed for web mapping is a transformation service so that images and SVG renderings of maps are co-located. • The user integrates multiple sources of data with their eyes.

47. Other Web Services • The OGC has and is developing a number of other more sophisticated web services. • These are feature based. • The more sophisticated the service the greater the need for compatible data at both the format level and semantic level.

48. Portrayal • Common portrayal of data is one of the most complex services. • The ISO standard for portrayal is Feature Centred and Rule Based • Features are portrayed from a symbol set based on a set of portrayal rules driven by the feature's attributes.