27 August2013. The sponsors of the OGC Geo4NIEM Initiative:
- ProgramManager – Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE)
- NationalInformation Exchange Model – Program Management Office (NIEM PMO)
and theOpen Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) invite interested organizations to attend theOGCGeo4NIEM Demo public webinar on 19 September 2013 from 1030-1130am EDT. Geo4NIEMis an OGC initiative named Geospatial Enhancements for the US NationalInformation Exchange Model (NIEM).
Workingfrom a scenario in which a hurricane strikes New York City, the initiative'stechnology provider participants will show how enhanced geospatial capabilitiesenable situational awareness through the ability to identify, process, andcomprehend critical information about an incident. OGC Geo4NIEM Initiativetechnology provider participants include OGC members Galdos, The CarbonProject, Luciad and ArdentMC.
In thedemo, specific Information Exchange Packages (IEPs) from the Department ofHomeland Security (DHS) are implemented using widely employed open standards tosupport rapid and flexible communication of geospatial information in cross-communityinformation exchange domains such as public safety, emergency management andmaritime operations oversight. The following two NIEM information exchangeswere used for testing and demonstration in this project.
- The NIEM Requestfor Information (RFI) exchange facilitates interagency processes involvingrequirements, tasking and information gathering activities that support datacollection and awareness within intelligence, public safety, emergencymanagement and response operations. A NIEM RFI exchange document provides themechanism through which intelligence analysts and operations managers canrequest and receive relevant information for processing and analysis.
- The NIEM VesselPosition exchange from the Maritime Domain supports the effectiveunderstanding of anything associated with global maritime that could impact theUnited States' security, safety, economy, or environment. NIEM facilitates thisunderstanding through effective, timely sharing of vital, secure informationamong many key partners byrepresenting vessels, people, cargo, and maritime locations and activities.
TheGeo4NIEM OGC Initiative addressed specific functional requirements to meet thefollowing objectives:
- Developrecommendations to enhance the standard use of the OGC Geography MarkupLanguage Encoding Standard (GML) with NIEM data exchanges.
- Developrecommendations to enhance the use of NIEM External Adaptors for geospatialcontent, including GML.
- Test anddemonstrate use of embedded GML and adaptors within NIEM data exchanges.
- DevelopArchitecture documentation and a fact sheet for the use of embedded GML andadaptors in NIEM data exchanges.
- DevelopRecommendations for the inclusion of a Geospatial Domain within NIEM.
UsingGML opens up many opportunities to integrate NIEM applications with geospatialweb services based on OGC interface standards such as the OGC Web FeatureService (WFS) Interface Standard. Web services that use OGC standards make itpossible, for example, to: keep data current with updates from diverse sources;tailor data presentation (e.g. map styles) on the fly for differentcommunities; and exploit powerful cloud based transaction services andprocessing resources. GML has become a “common language” for spatial communicationin NIEM-related domains such as aviation, weather, urban modeling, hydrologyand ocean observation.
Afterthe webinar, a detailed Geo4NIEM OGC Engineering Report will be made availableto the public on the OGC Public Engineering Reportwebsite.
OGCtestbeds, pilot projects and interoperability experiments are part of the OGCInteroperability Program, a global, hands-on collaborative prototyping programdesigned to rapidly develop, test and deliver proven candidate spatial encodingand interface standards into the OGC Standards Program, where they areformalized for release as adopted OGC Standards. OGC standards supportinteroperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless andlocation-based services, and mainstream IT.
The OGC®is an international consortium of more than 475 companies, government agencies,research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus processto develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards supportinteroperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless andlocation-based services, and mainstream IT. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/.
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