OGC® calls for Proposals for a Future City Pilot Phase 1 project

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), the initiative sponsors: Ordnance Survey Great Britain, Institut National de l'Information Géographique et Forestière (IGN) France, city of Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona), Spain and virtualcitySYSTEMS GmbH Berlin and in collaboration with buildingSMART International (bSI) announce a Request for Quotation (RFQ) and Call for Participation (CFP) in the OGC Interoperability Program’s Future City Pilot Phase 1 (FCP1) initiative. The purpose of this RFQ/CFP is to solicit proposals in response to a set of requirements for the FCP1 initiative.

The FCP1, based in Europe, will demonstrate and enhance the ability of spatial data infrastructures to support quality of life, civic initiatives and urban resilience.

The OGC, on behalf of the project sponsors, will provide cost-sharing funds to partially offset expenses uniquely associated with the initiative, thus this solicitation is for quotations from bidders wishing to receive cost-sharing. However, not all proposals are expected to seek cost-share funding. OGC intends to involve as many participants in the initiative as possible, to the extent that each participant can enhance and/or contribute to the initiative outcomes.

Human, natural, and physical systems interact in space and time, and the digital systems in cities will become increasingly diverse and numerous, with many owners. Cities therefore need an open, vendor-neutral standards platform for communicating spatial and temporal data. Many of the longstanding technical boundaries separating indoor, outdoor, underground and atmospheric information have been overcome. By demonstrating capabilities employed in a holistic urban planning scenario, the Future Cities Pilot will show how cities can begin to reap the benefits.

The objective of the OGC pilot project is to demonstrate how use of, CityGML data and IFC data together can provide stakeholders with information, knowledge and insight which enhances financial, environmental, and social outcomes for citizens living in cities. CityGML is an open data model and XML-based format for the storage and exchange of virtual 3D city models. Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) are the open and neutral data format for an open BIM environment.

In the scenario, the use of BIM models encoded in IFCs is mandatory for important building projects. The urban planning authorities check the conformance with urban planning rules using an automated process. For verification, an analyst easily views the building project within the existing 3D model of the city. The BIM data is added to the existing 3D city model’s database, according to local city rules, with mappings to the various levels of detail. The BIM data is stored with links to geospatial data and BIM data.

City data navigation, search & reporting applications enable simultaneous queries across diverse linked data sources. These data sources are maintained, as is the case in most cities, by different information systems in separate departments responsible for such things as housing surveys, socio-demographic data, collection and street cleaning, lighting, drainage, public roads, parks and gardens, transport and telecommunications networks, telephone, electricity, water and gas and various other city datasets. Linked data access to multiple legacy collections of spatial data is demonstrated in use cases involving environmental simulation, disaster management, and training simulation.

The OGC asks interested organizations to indicate their support and commitment to be involved in this Pilot. A summary of the activity plan, requirements for participation, schedule, and kick-off meeting details are available at: www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/147). Contact details are included in the activity plan.  Responses, questions and requests for clarification should be sent electronically to the OGC Technology Desk (fcp-responses [at] opengeospatial.org).

It is not too late for other sponsors to join the pilot. Contact Bart de Lathouwer, the OGC Initiative Director for the pilot at the email address above.

OGC® is a geospatial standards consortium of more than 515 companies, government agencies, research organisations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available standards. The OGC's open standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. http://www.opengeospatial.org/. bSI has 17 national Chapters across the globe representing all sectors of the construction industry. www.buildingsmart.org/.