OGC Web Services for GEOSS Demonstrated at Workshop in Korea.

WAYLAND, Mass. -- OGC Web Services (OWS) as applied to the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS) architecture were successfully demonstrated at a Workshop on 24 July 2005 in Seoul, Korea on the opening day of the International Geosciences and Remote Sensing Symposium, IGARSS 2005.

The workshop, titled "The User and the GEOSS Architecture - Applications for Asia and Pacific Rim," was originated by the IEEE Committee on Earth Observation (CEO) and co-sponsored by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS), the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS).

Al Gasiewski, President, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, said, "It is encouraging to see such rapid progress in the development of multi-source open web-based software tools designed with the needs of GEOSS users in mind."

Dr. Jay Pearlman, Chair of the IEEE CEO and Prof. Leung Tsang, executive vice president of IEEE GRSS, both Co-Chairs of the workshop, noted that "This was an opportunity to have users see and understand the GEOSS architecture and how they will interface with it as GEOSS is implemented. This is the first of a series of workshops that will be held in regions around the globe during the next year."

The OGC Demonstration applied components with a wide range of OWS interfaces in a scenario of damage assessment from the recent Andaman Sea Tsunami. The demonstration was developed by OGC Members Boeing S&IS Mission Systems (US), DM Solutions Group (Canada) (in partnership with several East Asian Universities), the European Space Agency (ESA) (including Spacebel as contractor), George Mason University (GMU) (US), Intergraph (US), the US National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), PCI Geomatics (Canada), Raytheon (US), Spot Image (Canada), and the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The OGC is an international industry consortium of more than 280 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS(R) Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.