OGC seeks public comment on Part 1 of the Features and Geometries

27 June 2018: The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) seeks public comment on Part 1 of the Features and Geometry candidate standard.

The Features and Geometries candidate standard provides the requirements for defining and representing geographic features in geographic information systems, applications, databases, and data formats. This standard is being developed in multiple parts in conjunction with ISO / TC 211 and will impact or replace ISO 19107, ISO 19109, and ISO 19125. The major advantage to the approach taken with the multi-part Feature and Geometries standard is that the parts are each relatively small and focused in content and ease the burden of implementation of the standard.

The Implementation Standard Geographic information — Features and geometry – Part 1: Feature models describes how geographic information held in datasets and databases using a ‘feature model’ are structured, created, stored, queried, and manipulated.

Part 1: Feature models updates the General Feature Model with various representations, as well as how it determines the basic form of geographic information. This is derived from and extends ISO 19109, which, in its current form, only addresses schema-based data storage defined in UML, but leaves possibilities open for other non-schematic design systems.

The data structures described in the candidate standard have been made more flexible than in earlier versions of this and supporting standards. The Features and Geometry standard describes semantically-structured data sets aimed to represent reality, not the specific needs of a single application. This shifts the support of interoperability from creating transfer formats, to creating inclusive, flexible - and thereby interoperable - data stores that are usable by a wide range of applications.

Further parts will describe the distinction between planar and geodetic/ellipsoidal geometry, simple geometries, other geometry, and topology structures, while a set of parallel standards will define WKT (well-known text) and JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) for both features and geometry.

The candidate Features and Geometries standard is available for review and comment on the OGC Portal. Comments are due by 27 July 2018 and should be submitted via the method outlined on the Features and Geometry candidate standard’s request page.