Domain Working Groups

List of Domain Working Groups

Domain Working Groups (DWGs) cover 10 broad domains: Aviation, Built Environment & 3D, Business Intelligence, Defense & Intelligence, Emergency Response and Disaster Management, Energy & Utilities, Geosciences & Environment, Government and Spatial Data Infrastructure, Mobile Internet & Location Services, Sensor Webs, University & Research. By default, a DWG will allow public collaboration. Only public DWGs are listed here and Chairs are omitted.

If you cannot find the DWG you are looking for or would like more information, please get in touch with us.

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3D Information Management Domain Working Group is facilitating the definition and development of interface and encoding standards that enable software to develop solutions that allow infrastructure owners, builders, emergency responders, community planners, and the traveling public to better manage and navigate complex built environments. Subscribe to Email List.

Agriculture Domain Working Group: provides a forum for discussion surrounding location information and its uses in landscape and farming. These activities involve sensing, analyzing, and communicating geospatial data streams. Subscribe to Email List.

The Artificial Intelligence in Geoinformatics Domain Working Group explores how AI can improve maps and location-based services involving robots, the Internet of Things, and digital replicas of real-world objects. This group focuses on several key areas like healthcare, energy, autonomous vehicles, and city planning. It provides a public space for discussions about AI in geography, identifies standardization opportunities, and tackles interoperability challenges. Subscribe to Email List.

The Autonomy, Sensors, Things, Robots and Observations (ASTRO) Domain Working Group focuses on observations and measurements, sensor model language, sensor observation services, sensor planning service, and SensorThings API to enable real time integration of heterogeneous sensor webs and the Internet of Things into the information infrastructure. Subscribe to Email List.

Big Data Domain Working Group: Is an open forum for work on Big Data interoperability, access, and especially analytics. The DWG encourages collaborative development among participants representing many organizations and communities, and ensures appropriate liaisons to other Big Data relevant working groups, both inside and outside OGC. Subscribe to Email List.

Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies Domain Working Group: Concerns itself with technology issues related to blockchain and other Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) so that geospatial data and services can be more effectively represented in DLT, and the means by which those issues are appropriately factored into the OGC standards development process. Subscribe to Email List.

Citizen Science Domain Working Group: supports the citizen science community, both within and external to OGC, by promoting and facilitating interoperability. A secondary goal is to collaborate with other OGC working groups, to help increase impact of citizen science data. Subscribe to Email List.

Climate Resilience Domain Working Group: concerns itself with technology and technology policy issues, focusing on geospatial information and technology interests as related to climate mitigation and adaptation as well as the means by which those issues can be appropriately factored into the OGC standards development process. Subscribe to Email List.

Coverages Domain Working Group: promotes and oversees development of OGC Implementation Specifications for exploitation of, and accessing, coverage data, including images and other grid coverages. It secondary purposes include promoting use of these specifications, and refining the OGC Abstract Specification as may be needed to better support these specifications. Subscribe to Email List.

Data Quality Domain Working Group: is a forum for describing an interoperable framework or model for OGC quality measures and services to enable access and sharing of high quality geospatial information, improve data analysis, and ultimately influence policy decisions. Subscribe to Email List.

Defense and Intelligence Domain Working Group: provides a forum for the defense and intelligence community to exchange information on geospatial requirements, standards, and compliance to facilitate the development and implementation of commercial software solutions. Subscribe to Email List

Discrete Global Grid Systems Domain Working Group: is a forum for the discussion of requirements and use cases for standards and the registration of implementations related to Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS). The working group is a forum for broad discussion of DGGS topics and research activities that are of relevance to various geospatial communities and that may potentially impact on existing, or new, geospatial standards. Subscribe to Email List.

Earth Observation Exploitation Platform Domain Working Group: is concerned with technology and technology policy issues, focusing on geospatial data, information and technology interests as related to that Earth Observation (EO) Exploitation Platform domain and the means by which those issues are appropriately factored into the OGC standards development process.

Emergency and Disaster Management Domain Working Group: aims to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in all phases of emergency and disaster management. The DWG mission is to foster interoperable geospatial products and other information that can be shared across diverse communities involved in emergency and disaster activities. Subscribe to Email List.

Geo for Metaverse Domain Working Group: concentrates on pivotal activities that will shape the integration of geospatial standards within the burgeoning Metaverse. Its agenda includes compiling and evaluating a comprehensive list of existing standards from OGC and beyond that are pertinent to the Metaverse’s infrastructure. Subscribe to Email List.

Geoscience Domain Working Group: is a joint working group of The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information (CGI) and the OGC. It provides an open forum for work on GeoScience data interoperability and access surrounding GeoScience, particularly representation and more generally acknowledgment of the Earth: Geology, Geophysics, Hydrogeology, Mineralogy, Seismology, Tomography, or Volcanology. Subscribe to Email List.

Geosemantics Domain Working Group: has a broad scope that encompasses the facets of conceptual modeling and the formal representation of geospatial knowledge, key to advancing the interoperability mission of the OGC. Subscribe to Email List.

Health Domain Working Group:  is poised to address critical interoperability requirements to bolster health surveillance and response capabilities. By harnessing open mapping standards, the DWG aims to facilitate access to a distributed network of geospatial data, relevant to diseases, their vectors, and populations at risk. The DWG also concentrates on supporting cross-border surveillance for health risks, modeling and response initiatives, and advancing best practices for the visualization of chronic and infectious diseases, alongside pertinent environmental and socioeconomic data. Subscribe to Email List.

Hydrology Domain Working Group: provides a venue and mechanism for seeking technical and institutional solutions to the challenge of describing and exchanging data describing the state and location of water resources, both above and below the ground surface. The activities of the DWG are designed to address the complexities of hydrologic data management and exchange. Subscribe to Email List.

Interoperable Simulation and Gaming Domain Working Group: provides a forum for the discussion of requirements and use cases for standards and the registration of implementations related to use and re-use of geospatial data within the Interoperable Simulation and Gaming (ISG) community. Subscribe to Email List.

Land Administration Domain Working Group: works on issues related to land administration and is committed to a series of foundational activities aimed at enhancing global land administration systems, with a particular focus on nations facing substantial challenges in this sector. It work centers on the critical evaluation of current land administration systems, the formulation of best practices to expedite and economize standards-based land administration for nations, and the exploration of new information resources and technologies to fast-track the enhancement of land administration capabilities. Subscribe to Email List.

Marine Domain Working Group: is dedicated to addressing the multifaceted technological issues that impact the effective utilization of marine geospatial data beyond the realm of safe navigation. The necessity for standardized use of the burgeoning volumes of marine data, from an array of sources, is pivotal for supporting the Blue Economy. Subscribe to Email List.

Metadata and Catalog Domain Working Group: In a world where we create more and more data, the importance of metadata and its discovery process has never been so important. OGC standards are more or less tightly linked to metadata profiles but there is a continuous evolution in requirements for description and discovery processes. The goal of the DWG is to permit discussion and presentations of those requirements and solutions coming from any part of the world for any domains. Subscribe to Email List.

Meteorology and Oceanography Domain Working Group: brings together OGC members in an open forum of the wider meteorological and oceanographic communities to work on oceanographic, meteorological and climatological data, metadata, and web services interoperability, greatly improving the way in which this information is described, shared and used. Subscribe to Email List.

Mobile Location Services Domain Working Group: functions as a comprehensive “umbrella” group, facilitating discussions on a wide array of specifications and technologies within the realm of mobile location services. The group focuses on identifying the technology requirements and solutions pertinent to Location Services, ensuring that the needs of the industry and users are adequately addressed. Subscribe to Email List.

Planetary Domain Working Group: is engaged in a series of key activities aimed at enhancing the handling, processing, and publishing of spatial planetary data within the context of geospatial technology. The DWG updates and aligns OGC standards with evolving scientific requirements for celestial bodies as determined by the planetary science community. This includes ensuring that these standards are relevant and applicable to the study and exploration of planets, satellites, asteroids, Sun, comets, and other celestial bodies within our solar system that can be spatially resolved to have a disk or surface. Subscribe to Email List.

Point Cloud Domain Working Group: is motivated by the fast growing popularity and use of point cloud technology. This includes a number of formats and types such as: laser scans from aerial and terrestrial platforms (e.g., LiDAR), triangulated elevation points, and dense observations from the meteorological community. It advances the management, interoperability, and standardization of point cloud data within the OGC framework. Subscribe to Email List.

Portrayal Domain Working Group: Portrayal, as defined by the OGC, encompasses the presentation of information to humans, such as through a map, particularly focusing on how data is visually represented on the web. The DWG focused on a comprehensive set of activities aimed at enhancing the coherence and effectiveness of portrayal standards within the geospatial community. Subscribe to Email List.

Security Domain Working Group: is focused on developing a comprehensive security framework to facilitate the interoperable discovery, exchange, and processing of protected geospatial information, utilizing OGC Standards and related technologies . In order to enable protected geospatial information processing and licensing, it is relevant to describe how to handle security related aspects in an interoperable way. Subscribe to Email List.

Statistical Domain Working Group: identifies requirements and use cases of how geospatial and statistical standards can support the integration of geospatial information into the statistical system and for the purposes of broad discovery, analysis, and use. This includes the identification of primary statistical use cases that could be enhanced by OGC standards, pinpointing specific requirements within the statistical domain for potential inclusion in both existing and new OGC standards, and recognizing practice areas within OGC that support or could be shaped by statistical considerations. Subscribe to Email List.

Temporal Domain Working Group: aims to cultivate a consistent and sustainable approach to handling temporal Coordinate Reference Systems (CRSs) across OGC standards. By ensuring the seamless integration of temporal aspects with external standards, the DWG strives to enhance interoperability and accuracy in geospatial information handling. Subscribe to Email List.

Uninhabited Systems Domain Working Group: explores technological and policy issues in the realm of geospatial information and technology specific to unmanned systems. Its mission includes documenting the use of unmanned systems technology in geospatial data collection and identifying geospatial aspects of unmanned systems operations to support the adoption or development of best practices and standards. Subscribe to Email List.

University Domain Working Group: serves as a neutral academic advisory body, coordinating the interests of OGC’s academic and research members and offering technology, policy, standards, and various recommendations across the OGC. The DWG is tasked with aligning the collective interests of academic and research institutions within the consortium.

Urban Digital Twins Domain Working Group: is dedicated to forging a collective understanding of digital twinning in urban contexts, with the objective of improving the planning, utilization, and policy alignment of urban spaces. This includes addressing critical challenges such as decarbonization and access to green spaces. The DWG tackles data integration within the built environment by seeking the adoption of OGC Standards within the Urban Digital Twins community and leading discussions and the formulation of Best Practices. Subscribe to Email List.

Workflow Domain Working Group: is a forum for describing, discussing and solving any issues related to geospatial workflows. The DWG aims to help individuals and organizations to identify smarter, easier, and more economical ways to build, migrate, manage, and maintain workflows. It advocates for the adoption of workflows that are grounded in established OGC standards and best practices, which can lead to economic benefits through shortened development times and enhanced workflow performance. Subscribe to Email List.