The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) and Special Interest Group (SIG) 3D recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate in standards development and promotion of standards for the exchange and visualization of 3D geospatial content using Web-based technologies.

SIG 3D members defined the first version of CityGML.

(http://www.citygml.org) and in 2005 submitted CityGML as a candidate standard into the OGC standards process. CityGML is a comprehensive open data model framework and XML-based encoding standard for the storage and exchange of virtual 3D urban models and is now an OGC standard. It is an application schema of the OGC Geography Markup Language 3 (GML3) Encoding Standard (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml), an international standard for spatial data exchange and encoding approved by the OGC and ISO. CityGML has been adopted as part of the European Union's common spatial data infrastructure, INSPIRE.

"The ability to exchange and use three-dimensional models of cities and regions plays an increasingly important role in applications such as architecture, urban and regional planning, augmented reality, and emergency and disaster response," said Mark Reichardt, President and CEO of the OGC. "Such applications need standards to bridge the interoperability gap between geospatial technologies and design technologies. We appreciate the SIG 3D's leadership in this area and we are fortunate to have their continuing support and participation."

"The widespread use of CityGML within Europe is important to allow consistent provision of data sets that can be handled by all systems, thereby bringing benefits to users," stated Dr. Egbert Casper, Speaker of SIG 3D. "The SIG 3D will continue working on the CityGML standard and its implementation in various application domains."

SIG 3D (http://www.sig3d.org/) is a special interest group of the German National Spatial Data Infrastructure (GDI-DE). The members of SIG 3D come from all over Germany and the bordering European countries. New members from anywhere in Europe are welcome.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 410 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.