CoastGIS’99: geomatics and coastal environment
What should EGII be?
It may be too early to define in detail what should the European GI infrastructure be, but we should have at least four elements: reference data,
standards, basic services and a political framework (organization).
Reference data
The table illustrates the need for harmonized reference data, to support
most theme-based applications. Whatever the field, all those working
at the European level will need such reference data. In many European
countries, digital reference data do not cover the whole territory yet,
and specifications vary from one country to another. NATO took the
initiative of creating VMAF, produced for the whole of Europe following
common specifications. Unfortunately, these specifications are at national
level, they do not take data matching across borders into account.
Moreover, there is no common data policy which remains managed by
national authorities.
In the framework of the Info2000 call, the EC is funding a project called
PETIT to assess the potential of creating pan-European data sets based
on the VMAP product. The project is led by MEGRIN, a European association created by most of the National Mapping Agencies (NMA).
Other ideas have been forthcoming: : why not produce low cost data,
with lower quality specifications, but which can meet most of the user's
needs? Companies like TeleAtlas, Navtech, and mapping firms base their
core business on such products.
Unless we assess the GI market better, it will be very difficult to determine the influence of clata policy, price and licensing on the market.
What should the public sector’s role be in such a process? Do we need
subsidies to make reference data available at an affordable price?
Standards
There are already many GI standards. CEN TC 287, TC 27
GI needs. Unfortunately, the experience is rather negative to date, very
few have implemented stich standards.
Various efforts are needed to improve the situation. First it is important
to raise awareness about the benefits of implementing standards, and
to do this best practice experiences and pilot projects are needed. Some
experiences are quite interesting: the Centre for Earth Observation (CEO)
set up metadata recommendations, together with a metadata service
applying them. The mterest lies in the approach, trymg to create a
very simple standard, a kernel that can be applied by all with a reasonable
amount of effort. The need for this metadata kernel, compliant with
all standards, regardless ol the field, was one of the main conclusions
of the workshop on metadata standards held in 1997 in Santorini. A
simple approach, from a simple kernel to a complete ancl sophisticated
standard, meeting most users needs may be the first step to enable
stanclards to be implemented and to foster their use.
52
What should EGII be?
It may be too early to define in detail what should the European GI infrastructure be, but we should have at least four elements: reference data,
standards, basic services and a political framework (organization).
Reference data
The table illustrates the need for harmonized reference data, to support
most theme-based applications. Whatever the field, all those working
at the European level will need such reference data. In many European
countries, digital reference data do not cover the whole territory yet,
and specifications vary from one country to another. NATO took the
initiative of creating VMAF, produced for the whole of Europe following
common specifications. Unfortunately, these specifications are at national
level, they do not take data matching across borders into account.
Moreover, there is no common data policy which remains managed by
national authorities.
In the framework of the Info2000 call, the EC is funding a project called
PETIT to assess the potential of creating pan-European data sets based
on the VMAP product. The project is led by MEGRIN, a European association created by most of the National Mapping Agencies (NMA).
Other ideas have been forthcoming: : why not produce low cost data,
with lower quality specifications, but which can meet most of the user's
needs? Companies like TeleAtlas, Navtech, and mapping firms base their
core business on such products.
Unless we assess the GI market better, it will be very difficult to determine the influence of clata policy, price and licensing on the market.
What should the public sector’s role be in such a process? Do we need
subsidies to make reference data available at an affordable price?
Standards
There are already many GI standards. CEN TC 287, TC 27
GI needs. Unfortunately, the experience is rather negative to date, very
few have implemented stich standards.
Various efforts are needed to improve the situation. First it is important
to raise awareness about the benefits of implementing standards, and
to do this best practice experiences and pilot projects are needed. Some
experiences are quite interesting: the Centre for Earth Observation (CEO)
set up metadata recommendations, together with a metadata service
applying them. The mterest lies in the approach, trymg to create a
very simple standard, a kernel that can be applied by all with a reasonable
amount of effort. The need for this metadata kernel, compliant with
all standards, regardless ol the field, was one of the main conclusions
of the workshop on metadata standards held in 1997 in Santorini. A
simple approach, from a simple kernel to a complete ancl sophisticated
standard, meeting most users needs may be the first step to enable
stanclards to be implemented and to foster their use.
52