Geospatial Data Standards: foundation for infrastructure

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Geospatial Data Standards foundation for
infrastructure
Kate Lance USGS/EROS Data Center CODI-GEO, SDI
Seminar, Sept. 2001
Thank you to Rick Pearsall (FGDC) for several
slides
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What are standards? ISO TC211 (International
Geospatial Standards) Geospatial standards at
the national level
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What is a standard?
Standards are documented agreements containing
technical specifications or other precise
criteria to be used consistently as rules,
guidelines, or definitions of characteristics,
to ensure that materials, products, processes and
services are fit for their purpose.

(as defined by ISO)
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Examples of Everyday Standards

• Traffic Signals Road Signs
• VISA / Mastercard standards allow people to use
  a single card to obtain cash in the local
  currency around the world
• Commerce/Manufacturing/Industry
• World War II - Allied supplies and facilities
  were severely strained due to the incompatibility
  of tools, replacements parts, and equipment. The
  establishment of international standards helped
  to increase compatibility.

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The Importance of Standards (when standards do
not exist)

• Disasters (fire, flood, )
• Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 - fire engines from
  different regions arrived to help put out the
  fire, only they had different hose coupling sizes
  that did not fit the Baltimore hydrants - fire
  burned over 30 hours, resulted in destruction of
  1526 building covering 17 city blocks.
• Rail travel in Australia

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The Importance of Standards (when global
standards do not exist)

• Metric System vs US Customary System

The English units of measurement have many
drawbacks -- difficult to convert from one unit
to another -- the use of the same name for
different units (e.g., ounce for both weight and
liquid capacity, quart and pint for both liquid
and dry capacity) There have been proposals to do
away with the U.S. Customary System and replace
it with the metric system. However, there is
tremendous resistance to metrication
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The Need for Standards in Geographic Information

• To ensure common understanding through a common
  set of terminology
• To promote/enable interoperability
• To support the establishment of geospatial
  infrastructures at local, regional, and global
  levels
• To promote data and information sharing/exchange

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Types of geospatial standards

• Data Classification
• e.g., Vegetation Classification
• Data Content
• e.g., Digital Geospatial Metadata, Spatial
  Schema
• Data Symbology or Presentation
• e.g., Digital Geologic Map Symbolization
• Data Transfer
• Data Usability
• e.g., Geospatial Positioning Accuracy

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ISO/TC 211
International Organization for
Standardization Technical Committee 211

• Geographic Information /Geomatics

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ISO/TC 211 Participating Members (P-members 30)
Australia Austria Belgium Canada China Czech
Rep. Denmark Finland Germany Hungary Italy
Jamaica Japan Republic of Korea Malaysia Morocco N
ew Zealand Norway Portugal Russian
Federation Saudi Arabia South Africa
Spain Sweden Switzerland Thailand Turkey United
Kingdom United States of America Yugoslavia
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ISO/TC 211 Observing Members (O-members 22)
Bahrain Brunei Darussalam Colombia Cuba Estonia
France Greece Hong Kong Iceland India
Islamic Republic of Iran Mauritius Netherlands Om
an Pakistan Poland Slovakia Slovenia United
Republic of Tanzania Ukraine
Uruguay Zimbabwe
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Overview

• ISO 19116 - Positioning services
• ISO 19117 - Portrayal
• ISO 19118 - Encoding
• ISO 19119 - Services
• ISO/TR 19120 - Functional standards new rev
• ISO/TR 19121 Imagery and gridded data
• ISO/TR 19122 - Qualifications and certification
  of personnel
• ISO 19123 - Schema for coverage geometry and
  functions
• ISO 19124 - Imagery and gridded data components
• ISO 19125 - Simple feature access - SQL option
• ISO 19126 - Profile - FACC Data Dictionary
• ISO 19127 - Geodetic codes and parameters
• ISO 19128 - Web Map Server Interface

• ISO 19101 - Reference model
• ISO 19102 - Overview
• ISO 19103 - Conceptual schema language
• ISO 19104 - Terminology
• ISO 19105 - Conformance and testing
• ISO 19106 - Profiles
• ISO 19107 - Spatial schema
• ISO 19108 - Temporal schema
• ISO 19109 - Rules for application schema
• ISO 19110 - Feature cataloguing methodology
• ISO 19111 - Spatial referencing by coordinates
• ISO 19112 - Spatial referencing by geographic
  identifiers
• ISO 19113 - Quality principles
• ISO 19114 - Quality evaluation procedures
• ISO 19115 - Metadata

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Access to Data

• Distributed navigation, data access, viewing and
  download depends upon a number of internationally
  accepted standards
• Metadata (ISO/TC 211 19115), so one can find
  data to access.
• Catalogs (ISO/DIS 19110) to describe the type
  of data that are being accessed,
• Simple Feature Access (ISO/TC 211 19125-1
  19125-2),
• Need a common spatial schema so that one knows
  the types of data being accessed (e.g., TC211
  19107 (Vector) and TC211 19123 (Image and Gridded
  Data), and
• Need harmonized Simple Feature Model Interfaces
  based on (ISO TC211 19125) for queries
• Spatial Referencing by coordinates (ISO/TC 211
  19111) in order to fuse and transform information
  for different purposes.

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ISO/TC 211 on Internet
You can find updated information on ISO/TC 211 on
the following World Wide Web-server
http//www.statkart.no/isotc211/
Including who your national ISO contact is. . .
Perhaps ECA and/or other regional bodies could
serve as liaison members for Africa
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National Geospatial Standards Committee

• Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)
  Sub-committees and working groups on Standards
• South African Bureau of Standards (SABS)
  sub-committee SC71E established in 1999 to deal
  with geographic information

Does the national mapping agency or an
inter-institutional committee in your country
have a mandate for implementing geospatial
standards?
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Standards Development

• Increase awareness and understanding (by
  arranging demonstrations and seminars)
• Build mechanism between organizations to support
  the continuing development of standards
• Ensure commonality of classification systems,
  codes, geonames, base maps, symbols, etc.
• Identify the behaviors, technologies, policies,
  and legal frameworks that will support the
  development of standards
• Join the international geospatial data
  information community in the development of
  global geospatial data standards

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Examples of national standards

• Data Identifier Codes
• Coding for the administrative divisions
• Coding for river names (hydrological network)
• Coding for road classification
• This is spatial referencing by geographic
  identifiers

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Codes for the Administrative Divisions
XX XX XX ----- ----- -----
__________ county sub-code
________________ district
sub-code _____________________ provincial
sub-code
Jiang Jingtong, National Geomatics Center of
China, ISO TC211 Standards in Action Workshop,
Lisbon, 7 March 2001
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Coding System for River Names

Code for river level, one digit
Code for drainage area at the first level, one
letter
Code for river at the other levels, one digit
Code for river at the first level, two digits
Code for drainage area at the second level, one
letter
Jiang Jingtong, National Geomatics Center of
China, ISO TC211 Standards in Action Workshop,
Lisbon, 7 March 2001
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Code for Highway Classification
G
Code for
Code for province national road
Number of the road
Jiang Jingtong, National Geomatics Center of
China, ISO TC211 Standards in Action Workshop,
Lisbon, 7 March 2001
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Perceptions concerning standards (South Africa)

• A belief that standards are imposed by Someone
  Else
• A belief that SA must standardize for economic
  reasons
• A belief that we cant standardize
• Standards must be simple
• Standards must be sufficiently complex to cater
  for my special needs
• Expectation of highly detailed standards
• e.g. snapping tolerances, symbols used to portray
  features

Liz Gavin, Elmi Noppe, Antony Cooper, ISO TC211
Standards in Action Workshop, Lisbon, 7 March 2001
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Metadata Standardization in South Africa

• Pre-1997
• much talk about metadata within GI community, but
  not much done about it
• 1998
• set up FGDC-type clearinghouse as part of NSIF
  (called the SDDF - Spatial Data Discovery
  Facility)
• provided tools for capturing metadata to minimum
  FGDC content standard

Liz Gavin, Elmi Noppe, Antony Cooper, ISO TC211
Standards in Action Workshop, Lisbon, 7 March 2001
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Metadata Standardization in South Africa

• Later
• additional interfaces provided to interrogate
  metadata database
• tool developed to capture more than FDGC minimum
  on request by GI community
• 2001
• close to 3,000 metadata records available through
  the NSIF clearinghouse
• steady increase in use of clearinghouse weekly
  average of 251 visits (636 hits) per week over
  period October 2000 - January 2001

Liz Gavin, Elmi Noppe, Antony Cooper, ISO TC211
Standards in Action Workshop, Lisbon, 7 March 2001
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Motivation for using standards
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Find out more . . .
US Federal Geographic Data Committee http//www.fg
dc.gov/standards/standards.html
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Thank You