October 27, 1998, Wayland, MA. The Open GIS Consortium, Inc. (OGC) issued a request for technology (RFT) for an OGC Interoperability Initiative called the Web Mapping Technology Testbed. Sponsored by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), the US Army Topographic Engineering Center (TEC) and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), the testbed is intended to advance Web mapping technology, support development of a multi-vendor portable demonstration, and feed requirements into OGC's OpenGIS Specification process. Participating vendors will gain ideas for product and integration strategies as well as contact with potential partners and customers. Funding will be available to support the project after RFT submissions have been evaluated and specific testbed objectives have been defined. The rapidly evolving World Wide Web provides unprecedented on-line access to information and services. Web-based Mapping Technology describes technology and architectures to provide users with on-line, distributed access to geospatial information, geographic analysis, and terrain visualization applications using a web-based client and internet/intranet access and protocols. Testbed sponsors seek interoperable, web-based access to distributed geographic information, the ability to rapidly construct sophisticated end-user applications on demand, and tools to transmit geographic information directly to the user desktop. The RFT can be downloaded from http://www.opengeospatial.org/wwwmap/index.htm Submissions are due December 2, 1998. — end —
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