1. Introduction
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is releasing this Call for Participation (CFP) to solicit proposals for the OGC Testbed-19. The Testbed-19 initiative will explore six tasks, including Agile Reference Architecture, Analysis Ready Data, Geodatacubes, Geospatial in Space, High-performance Computing, and Machine Learning: Transfer Learning for Geospatial Applications.
1.1. Background
OGC Testbeds are an annual research and development initiative that explore geospatial technology from various angles. They take the OGC Baseline into account, and at the same time explore selected aspects with broad teams from industry, government, and academia to advance Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) principles and OGC’s open standards capabilities. Testbeds integrate requirements and ideas from a group of sponsors, which allows leveraging symbiotic effects and makes the overall initiative more attractive to both participants and sponsoring organizations.
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is a collective problem-solving community of more than 550 experts representing industry, government, research and academia, collaborating to make geospatial (location) information and services FAIR - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. The global OGC Community engages in a mix of activities related to location-based technologies: developing consensus-based open standards and best-practices; collaborating on problem solving in agile innovation initiatives; participating in member meetings, events, and workshops; and more. OGC’s unique standards development process moves at the pace of innovation, with constant input from technology forecasting, practical prototyping, real-world testing, and community engagement.
OGC’s member-driven consensus process creates royalty free, publicly available, open geospatial standards. Existing at the cutting edge, OGC actively analyzes and anticipates emerging tech trends, and runs an agile, collaborative Research and Development (R&D) lab – the OGC Innovation and Collaborative Solution Program – that builds and tests innovative prototype solutions to members’ use cases.
1.2. OGC COSI Program Initiative
This initiative is being conducted under the OGC Collaborative Solutions and Innovation (COSI) Program. The OGC COSI Program aims to solve the biggest challenges in location. Together with OGC-members, the COSI Team is exploring the future of climate, disasters, defense and intelligence, and more.
The OGC COSI Program is a forum for OGC members to solve the latest and hardest geospatial challenges via a collaborative and agile process. OGC members (sponsors and technology implementers) come together to solve problems, produce prototypes, develop demonstrations, provide best practices, and advance the future of standards. Since 1999, more than 100 funded initiatives have been executed - from small interoperability experiments run by an OGC working group to multi-million dollar testbeds with more than three hundred OGC-member participants.
OGC COSI initiatives promote rapid prototyping, testing, and validation of technologies, such as location standards or architectures. Within an initiative, OGC Members test and validate draft specifications to address geospatial interoperability requirements in real-world scenarios, business cases, and applied research topics. This approach not only encourages rapid technology development, but also determines the technology maturity of potential solutions and increases the technology adoption in the marketplace.
1.3. Benefits of Participation
This initiative provides an outstanding opportunity to engage with the latest research on geospatial system design, concept development, and rapid prototyping with government organizations (Sponsors) across the globe. The initiative provides a business opportunity for stakeholders to mutually define, refine, and evolve service interfaces and protocols in the context of hands-on experience and feedback. The outcomes are expected to shape the future of geospatial software development and data publication. The Sponsors are supporting this vision with cost-sharing funds to partially offset the costs associated with development, engineering, and demonstration of these outcomes. This offers selected Participants a unique opportunity to recoup a portion of their initiative expenses. OGC COSI Program Participants benefit from:
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Access to funded research & development
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Reduced development costs, risks, and lead-time of new products or solutions
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Close relationships with potential customers
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First-to-market competitive advantage on the latest geospatial innovations
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Influence on the development of global standards
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Partnership opportunities within our community of experts
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Broader market reach via the recognition that OGC standards bring
1.4. Master Schedule
The following table details the major Initiative milestones and events. Dates are subject to change.
| Milestone | Date | Â Event |
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24 February 2023 |
Release of CFP. |
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6 March 2023 |
Questions from CFP Bidders for the Q&A Webinar due. (Submit here using Additional Message textbox.) |
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8 March 2023 |
Bidders Q&A Webinar to be held 10:00-11:00EST (Recording Link) |
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10 April 2023 |
CFP Proposal Submission Deadline (11:59pm EST) Note: Extended to 11 April 2023 (11:59pm EST) |
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24 April 2023 |
All testbed Participation Agreements Signed. |
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10-11 May 2023 |
Kickoff Workshop (In Person in Philadelphia, PA at Cesium HQ) |
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5-9 June 2023 |
OGC Member Meeting Huntsville, AL. (optional) |
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22 June 2023 |
Initial Engineering Reports (IERs). |
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29 September 2023 |
Technology Integration Experiments (TIE) component implementations completed & tested; preliminary Draft Engineering Reports (DERs) completed & ready for internal reviews. |
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31 October 2023 |
Ad hoc TIE demonstrations & Demo Assets posted to Portal; Near-Final DERs are ready for review; WG review requested. |
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16 November 2023 |
Final DERs (incorporating internal and WG feedback) posted to pending to meet the 3-week-rule before the technical committee (TC) electronic vote for publication. |
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6 December 2023 |
Last deadline for the final DER presentation in the relevant WG for publication electronic vote. |
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7 December 2023 |
Last deadline for the TC electronic vote on publishing the final DER. |
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29 December 2023 |
Participants' final summary reports are due. |
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Jan 2023 |
Outreach presentations at an online demonstration event. |
2. Technical Architecture
This section provides the technical architecture and identifies all requirements and corresponding work items. It references the OGC standards baseline, i.e. the complete set of member approved Abstract Specifications, Standards including Profiles and Extensions, and Community Practices where necessary.
Please note that some documents referenced below may not have been released to the public yet. These reports require a login to the OGC portal. If you don’t have a login, please contact OGC using the Additional Message textbox in the OGC COSI Program Contact Form.
The Testbed deliverables are organized in a number of tasks:
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Task 1: Geospatial in Space
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Task 3: Geodatacubes
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Task 4: Analysis Ready Data
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Task 5: Agile Reference Architecture
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Task 6: High Performance Computing
The above tasks will be grouped into common use cases or stories as use cases and data are finalized.
2.1. Geospatial in Space
Currently, most OGC Standards focus on data that is observed on the surface or directly above planet Earth. There has been less focus on extra-terrestrial space and the exact location of the remote sensors.
Testbed 18 evaluated current standards with respect to the exact positioning of sensors at any location within the solar system and their corresponding data streams. The next step is to evaluate Implementation Specifications. Use cases have been identified and this task seeks additional sponsor participation as well as sample data that should be realistic but does not have to be authentic.
2.1.1. Problem Statements and Research Questions
The Geospatial in Space task brings together the results of two Testbed 18 work items, 3D+ and Moving Features, and Sensor Integration. The OGC Moving Features architectures developed through Testbed 18 have achieved a fairly high degree of maturity. The Connected Systems Standards Working Group (SWG) has been formed to take this work to the next level, formal standardization. Before taking that step, it is important to make sure that all potential uses of this technology are addressed.
Testbed 18 also explored the extension of existing OGC standards and technologies to support extra-terrestrial applications (3D+). This includes spatial-temporal services and data for both non-Terrestrial planetary and open space applications. Features in this environment are almost always Moving Features. It would be premature to advance new Moving Features standards without also addressing the 3D+ requirements. The Moving Features in 3D+ Dimensions work item addresses that issue.
To achieve this objective, the following research topics should be explored:
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Extend the architecture and draft standards for Moving Feature content developed through Testbed-18 to support 3D (six degrees of freedom) and 4D (spacetime) geometries.
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Develop ISO 19111 conformant definitions for non-Earth planetary Coordinate Reference Systems. Register those definitions in a Coordinate Reference System registry. This should include at a minimum an CRS for the Moon and Mars.
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Develop a Spatial Reference System definition for Minkowski spacetime based on ISO 19111 and ISO 19108. Identify any required modifications to those standards. Register that definition in a CRS registry.
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Explore the ability for existing Moving Features standards and software to work with the non-Terrestrial CRS (#2) and spacetime CRS (#3). Identify shortfalls and propose solutions.
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Explore the ability for existing Moving Features standards and software to work with Moving Features traversing open space.
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Develop and prototype standards for implementing a graph of coordinate transformations as described in Testbed-18: Reference Frame Transformation Engineering Report.
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Research and prototype an effective approach to accommodate Lorentz space and time contractions within coordinate system transformations.
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Develop one or more versions of GeoTIFF for extraterrestrial use. This should include the case where the corner coordinates are at infinity.
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Develop and submit change requests for existing standards as needed.
2.1.2. Aim
To free OGC standards and technologies from Terrestrial constraints. Allow geospatial analytic tools and techniques to be used on other astronomical bodies as well as in deep space. Fully integrate the terrestrial and extraterrestrial analytic toolset and processes.
2.1.3. Previous Work
Definitions for non-Earth Planetary Coordinate Reference Systems and Coordinate Transformations
Testbed-18 analyzed in the 3D+ Standards Framework Engineering Report (22-036) current standards from ISO, such as ISO 19111: Geographic Information – Spatial referencing by coordinates, and the OGC GeoPose Standard. Both are not adequate for dealing with non-Earth geospatial data. Alternative approaches by geodetic and astronautic organizations, such as the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) Navigation Data — Definitions and Conventions, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) IERS conventions, or the NASA NAIF SPICE Toolkit are also being discussed in the Testbed-18 report. The resulting practices are often similar to each other but cannot be understood as defining a Standard framework or approach.
The OGC Testbed-18 3D+ Data Space Object Engineering Report (23-011) begins with the application of ISO 19111: Geographic Information – Spatial referencing by coordinates to the reference frame of objects in space such as celestial bodies or spacecraft in orbit. The Engineering Report is located between the 3D+ Standards Framework Engineering Report (OGC 22-036), which presents the theoretical foundations, and the OGC Testbed-18 Reference Frame Transformation Engineering Report (22-038), which applies ISO 19111 to coordinate operations between the above frameworks for objects in orbit of any celestial body or in free flight in our solar system. Leaving dynamic reference frames aside, ISO 19111:2019 distinguishes two types of coordinate operations: Conversions and transformations. A conversion can include translation, rotation, change of units, etc. but with a result that is still associated to the same reference frame, for example the same spacecraft. By contrast a transformation involves a change of reference frame, for example from one spacecraft to another one.
OGC 22-038 discusses OGC GeoPose in addition to ISO 19111. GeoPose can be used for describing a relationship between, for example, a spacecraft and a ground station. Most concepts defined in GeoPose can also be expressed using existing ISO 19111 constructs and shared as an OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) encoding.
Additional information is available in the Compatibility Study between ISO 18026 CD, Spatial Reference Model (SRM) and ISO 19111, Geographic information – Spatial referencing by coordinates. The study provides an assessment of the compatibility of the concepts and data elements described in ISO 18026 and 19111.
The International Federation of Surveyors, as part of their Volunteer Surveyor program, hosts a two-week hackathon-style event that focuses on allowing individuals to work on the development of a (hypothetical) Land Tenure Reform System for Mars. Though planned as a fun exercise, interesting CRS related concepts may come out of this effort.
GeoTIFF
Testbed-17 researched Cloud Optimized GeoTiff (COG) aiming to develop a specification that can be directly considered by the GeoTIFF SWG to be put forward as an OGC Standard. It also compared COG with other solutions for multi-dimensional data in the cloud context with focus on Zarr. This Testbed-17 Tasks produced the OGC Testbed-17: Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF Specification Engineering Report (21-025). COG enables efficient access to GeoTIFF data on the cloud.
2.1.4. Work Items & Deliverables
The following diagram outlines all activities, work items, and deliverables in this task.
The following list identifies all deliverables that are part of this task. Detailed requirements are stated above. All participants are required to participate in all technical discussions and support the development of the Engineering Report(s) with their contributions.
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D100-101 Moving Features Components – Components that implement the Topics #1, #4, and #5 as defined in Section Problem Statements and Research Questions above.
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D102-103 CRS & Transformation Components – Components that implement the Topics #2, #3, #6, and #7 as defined in Section Problem Statements and Research Questions above.
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D104 GeoTiff Component – Component that implements the Topics #8, and #9 as defined in Section Problem Statements and Research Questions above.
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D001 Non-Terrestrial Geospatial Engineering Report – An Engineering Report which documents the approach, methodology and conclusions for Topics #1 through #7 above. The editor shall submit Change Requests to existing standards as needed.
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D002 Extraterrestrial GeoTIFF – An Engineering Report which documents the approach, methodology and conclusions for Topics #8 and #9 above. The editor shall submit Change Requests to existing standards as needed.
2.2. Machine Learning: Transfer Learning For Geospatial Applications
New and revolutionary Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms developed over the past 10 years have great potential to advance processing and analysis of Earth Observation (EO) data. While comprehensive standards for this technology have yet to emerge, OGC has investigated opportunities in ML standards for EO in its COSI Program (the Machine Learning threads in Testbeds 14, 15, and 16, see Engineering Reports available here), it has developed a proposal for an ML Training Data standard through its TrainingDML-AI Standards Working Group, and has provided analyses and recommendations of the proposed standard and its next steps in the Machine Learning thread of TestBed-18 (see Testbed-18 Engineering Report). This work continues these beginnings.