Conclusion
may not happen if the shoreline is eroding, whereas it would be more
likely if the shore was accreting. And yet these are also basic primary
data layers that we need in the coastal zone for use by a much wider
community. Since the money is clearly there to create the data sets for
navigation purposes, we need to try to make their creators look at the
broader picture, and remove the biases, so the data may acquire added
value.
Roger Longhorn
Metadata
The coastal community is often not aware that the CEN/TC 287 committee completed all of its GIS-related standards over a year ago. The
committee is actually wound up. The drafts of the standards have all
been published, and are with the national standards bodies, though
most of these bodies are nor implementing the standards because they
only are draft agreed standards, not mandatory ones, mainly because
ISO was also producing standards in roughly the same areas.
What is still missing, though, is having a much higher level, a top level,
of standards information, that enables us to find data more easily. And
the only real standard that is coming in this latter area is not being pushed
from a standards body at all. It is coming from the Dublin Core working
group (named after Dublin, Ohio). We are trying to get an initiative
going now, using Dublin Core “read data” fields to get mto GIS, and
geographic information generally, and we need to move that into the
coastal zone as well.
Interoperability
On the interoperability side, under “systems", interoperability is also
a standards issue. The Open GIS Consortium (OGC) is making tremendous strides in interoperability of GI systems, i.e. GIS tools, because
the OGC is totally industry-based and is even paid for by the industry. It
does have two or three national mapping agencies down the line, and
one or two university research groups are also involved, but it is totally
user-driven, and most of the standards it produces are developed by
professional standards people who are seconded to the committee. But
the OGC is only looking at systems, they are not looking at data; and
basically the average GIS vendor is saying that it is important that his
system be able to accommodate all difterent types of data formats that
exist. To a certain extent current systems all do that. There are still a
few specific data conversion problems, but the software is getting more
clever, and the hardware is always getting more powerful for less money.
In most cases, you need not worry too much about what standard you
are following, provided that you are following a standard, because the
vendor will normally have something that is able to handle that standard.
313
may not happen if the shoreline is eroding, whereas it would be more
likely if the shore was accreting. And yet these are also basic primary
data layers that we need in the coastal zone for use by a much wider
community. Since the money is clearly there to create the data sets for
navigation purposes, we need to try to make their creators look at the
broader picture, and remove the biases, so the data may acquire added
value.
Roger Longhorn
Metadata
The coastal community is often not aware that the CEN/TC 287 committee completed all of its GIS-related standards over a year ago. The
committee is actually wound up. The drafts of the standards have all
been published, and are with the national standards bodies, though
most of these bodies are nor implementing the standards because they
only are draft agreed standards, not mandatory ones, mainly because
ISO was also producing standards in roughly the same areas.
What is still missing, though, is having a much higher level, a top level,
of standards information, that enables us to find data more easily. And
the only real standard that is coming in this latter area is not being pushed
from a standards body at all. It is coming from the Dublin Core working
group (named after Dublin, Ohio). We are trying to get an initiative
going now, using Dublin Core “read data” fields to get mto GIS, and
geographic information generally, and we need to move that into the
coastal zone as well.
Interoperability
On the interoperability side, under “systems", interoperability is also
a standards issue. The Open GIS Consortium (OGC) is making tremendous strides in interoperability of GI systems, i.e. GIS tools, because
the OGC is totally industry-based and is even paid for by the industry. It
does have two or three national mapping agencies down the line, and
one or two university research groups are also involved, but it is totally
user-driven, and most of the standards it produces are developed by
professional standards people who are seconded to the committee. But
the OGC is only looking at systems, they are not looking at data; and
basically the average GIS vendor is saying that it is important that his
system be able to accommodate all difterent types of data formats that
exist. To a certain extent current systems all do that. There are still a
few specific data conversion problems, but the software is getting more
clever, and the hardware is always getting more powerful for less money.
In most cases, you need not worry too much about what standard you
are following, provided that you are following a standard, because the
vendor will normally have something that is able to handle that standard.
313