OGC is calling for sponsors for an innovative interoperability initiative, Testbed 14

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) has issued a call for sponsors for an innovative interoperability initiative, Testbed 14.

The OGC Innovation Programprovides a venue to advance solutions to geospatial data and service challenges through using open standards. In addition to enhancing or extending standards, the testbeds provide a unique platform where sponsors work closely with many geospatial technology providers to rapidly generate prototypes and test environments to address mission critical geospatial integration and interoperability requirements. Testbeds result in more than just new and updated standards: outcomes include guides, overviews, and best practices for solving critical geospatial interoperability problems.

Testbed 14 marks OGC’s 100th Innovation Program initiative. With previous initiatives, OGC has helped develop new standards and architectures that have transformed how we share and use geospatial information.

Building on the work from previous Testbeds, and looking at how to improve the sharing of geospatial information based on current technology trends, these are some preliminary areas that Testbed 14 may examine:

• GeoPackage utility to further support mobile applications
• Running workflows on cloud environments
• GeoSemantics (LinkedData)
• Vector tiles
• Security of geospatial services
• Transportation data exchange common models and interfaces
• GeoHealth
• Smart Cities connect communities
• Mapping and Managing data from unmanned systems
• Border control
• National Information Exchange Model
• Universal Messaging Format (UMF 3)
• Big Data
• Augmented and Virtual Reality
• Indoor Location
• Enhanced Interoperability

For more information about how to join the upcoming sponsors meetings or how to contribute ideas, please visit the Testbed 14 webpage. If you have a spatial interoperability problem and are interested to find out how an OGC testbed can rapidly develop a solution, contact Luis Bermudez, Executive Director of OGC’s Innovation Program: lbermudez@opengeospatial.org.

About the OGC

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 525 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that ‘geo-enable’ the Web, wireless and location based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at www.opengeospatial.org.