GeoTIFF v1.1 adopted as an OGC Standard

The membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has approved version 1.1 of the GeoTIFF Encoding Standard.

The GeoTIFF 1.1 standard formalizes the existing GeoTIFF specification version 1.0 by integrating it into OGC’s standardization process. Additionally, v1.1 aligns GeoTIFF with the on-going addition of data to the EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset while maintaining backward compatibility with GeoTIFF 1.0.

The GeoTIFF format is used throughout the geospatial and earth science communities to share geographic image data.

Christopher Lynnes, NASA/GSFC, System Architect of the Earth Observing System Data and Information System, commented “With the approval of GeoTIFF 1.1 by the Open Geospatial Consortium, NASA has approved GeoTIFF as a standard format for Earth Observation standard products. This will allow production of appropriate NASA data products in GeoTIFF, a format that has been requested by the many GIS users in the user community.”

Emmanuel Devys, IGN and DGIWG Imagery and Gridded Data Technical Panel lead, commented “GeoTIFF 1.1, as an international standard, allows the DGIWG GeoTIFF profile to rely on a standardized GeoTIFF standard inline with the modern EPSG register for the production of its elevation data, orthoimages, and raster maps products, or for such production by DGIWG nations. IGN and, more generally in Europe, all mapping agencies may now rely on a modernized and maintained specification for their raster or gridded products, such as the INSPIRE Orthoimagery and Elevation data specifications.”

The Geographic Tagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF) specifies the content and structure of a group of industry-standard tag sets for the management of georeferenced or geocoded raster imagery using Aldus-Adobe’s public domain Tagged Image File Format (TIFF). GeoTIFF defines a set of TIFF tags provided to describe all "Cartographic" information associated with TIFF imagery that originates from satellite imaging systems, scanned aerial photography, scanned maps, digital elevation models, or as a result of geographic analyses. The goal is to provide a consistent mechanism for referencing a raster image to a known model space or earth-based coordinate reference system, and for describing those coordinate reference systems.

Approval of this GeoTIFF 1.1 standard begins the process of integration of the GeoTIFF standard into other parts of OGC’s standardization process.

The Libgeotiff development version (future version 1.6.0) and the GDAL development version (future version 3.1.0) both support this GeoTIFF 1.1 version.

The evolution of GeoTIFF after this version 1.1 depends upon community requirements, with several potential evolutions already under consideration by OGC. Such evolutions may be by extension to GeoTIFF 1.1, or imply a minor revision, or require a major revision.