2 Geomatics standards
Most readers will be familiar with geographie information systems, or GIS for short,
and will think in terms of the GIS with which he or she has gained experience.
Some might think in terms of digital maps that are available on the Internet, and others in terms of their areas of responsibility: property cadastre, environmental applications, or fleet management systems. Another important application is disaster management where a GIS can help save lives if rescuers receive an almost immediate
and detailed pieture of the environment of the disaster location.
This book deals with the standardisation of geomatics. A world-wide standardisation of geomatics is not simple because an enormous number of entirely different
applications are served by GIS techniques. For instance, applications can range from
city maps delivered on a CD, to global climate monitoring. Geomatics applications
run on a single workstation or access thousands of computers connected in a network. Overall, a geographie information system consists of a number of rather independent modules serving data capture, data storage, or data exchange, to mention a
few.
The reader might think that some kind of a typical GIS should become an
International Standard. This would make the work easier because all "standard GIS"
would have a similar shape in core components. Most users demand standardised
data exchange formats, because problems with data transfer are well known.
The ISO standards are developed with a long-term perspective. Most of them are
written on an abstract level in order to guarantee a long-term stability. In contrast,
developments in the geomatics domain continue to make fast progress. Some of the
ISO standards for geomatics are implementation-oriented even though this is not the
first priority of the ISO/TC211 work.
2.1 History of geomatics standards
Standardisation of computer graphics began in the 1970s but standardisation of
geographie information did not begin until approximately 1990. Both efforts originated in Europe.
First generation
The first ISO standard in computer graphics was the ISO 7942 (GKS, Graphical
Kernel System). The development began with a workshop on Chateau Seillac in
W. Kresse et al., ISO Standards for Geographic Information
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004
Most readers will be familiar with geographie information systems, or GIS for short,
and will think in terms of the GIS with which he or she has gained experience.
Some might think in terms of digital maps that are available on the Internet, and others in terms of their areas of responsibility: property cadastre, environmental applications, or fleet management systems. Another important application is disaster management where a GIS can help save lives if rescuers receive an almost immediate
and detailed pieture of the environment of the disaster location.
This book deals with the standardisation of geomatics. A world-wide standardisation of geomatics is not simple because an enormous number of entirely different
applications are served by GIS techniques. For instance, applications can range from
city maps delivered on a CD, to global climate monitoring. Geomatics applications
run on a single workstation or access thousands of computers connected in a network. Overall, a geographie information system consists of a number of rather independent modules serving data capture, data storage, or data exchange, to mention a
few.
The reader might think that some kind of a typical GIS should become an
International Standard. This would make the work easier because all "standard GIS"
would have a similar shape in core components. Most users demand standardised
data exchange formats, because problems with data transfer are well known.
The ISO standards are developed with a long-term perspective. Most of them are
written on an abstract level in order to guarantee a long-term stability. In contrast,
developments in the geomatics domain continue to make fast progress. Some of the
ISO standards for geomatics are implementation-oriented even though this is not the
first priority of the ISO/TC211 work.
2.1 History of geomatics standards
Standardisation of computer graphics began in the 1970s but standardisation of
geographie information did not begin until approximately 1990. Both efforts originated in Europe.
First generation
The first ISO standard in computer graphics was the ISO 7942 (GKS, Graphical
Kernel System). The development began with a workshop on Chateau Seillac in
W. Kresse et al., ISO Standards for Geographic Information
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004