The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate Earth Observation profile for the OGC Web Coverage Services (WCS) 2.0 standard. This profile will facilitate on-line data access to Earth observation data products.

The OGC WCS 2.0 standard defines a general interface and operations that enable interoperable access to geospatial coverages., such as sensor data, satellite imagery, digital elevation models, and climate/ocean data. The candidate OGC Web Coverage Services Application Profile for Earth Observation Sensors (EO-WCS) defines an interface for interoperable access to Earth Observation data.

The candidate Earth Observation profile for the OGC Web Coverage Services (WCS) 2.0 standard documents are available for review and comment at   http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/81.

Comments are due by 20 August 2011.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 415 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 http://www.opengeospatial.org.