OGC ISG Year 2 Sprint: Call for Participation (CFP)

This initiative is being conducted under the OGC Innovation Program. This program provides a collaborative agile process for solving geospatial challenges. Organizations (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 initiatives have taken place.

The initiative will provide an outstanding opportunity to engage with the latest research on geospatial system design, concept development, and rapid prototyping, particularly at the intersection of 3D and geospatial technologies.

This scenario is to develop efficient conversion mechanisms between the various 3D data file formats currently used in CDB (or recommended by a bidder for possible future use). The focus is to convert the overlapping capabilities from one to another. Not all features/capabilities may be convertible. OGC Standards and specifications should be referenced and employed as much as possible. It is likely that different conversion workflows and processes will be needed for different environments and display requirements. Not all conversion paths will be possible, and bidders should attempt to define the proposed use case(s) within the following sub-scenarios.

Support outdoor and indoor modeling of a building. The implementation could show before-and-after representations of functional aspects (e.g., HVAC, plumbing, electrical) or artistic aspects (e.g., interior design). The model must include and display metadata at multiple levels. This scenario should readily allow for virtual-reality (VR) walkthroughs in the indoor portion of the building.

Show movement of traffic on land- or air-based transportation networks (i.e., road, rail, or aircraft). The animation could be real-time, historical, or synthetic. It should show multiple moving objects. The animation of the objects should conform to the network paths and must appear realistic for the object (e.g., buses have a larger turning radius than small cars). Individual models should be animated to simulate real-world counterparts. For example, semi-trucks need to be animated with a pivot point between the tractor and trailer; and articulate buses need to be skin-animated on turns. Existing OGC Standards/specifications should be used as much as possible and appropriate for the particular use case(s) identified by the bidder.

Identify and define missing functionality from glTF that would increase the usefulness of CDB. This may include extension(s) of the existing OGC CDB Standard to brand new capabilities that have not previously been specified. The capability may exist in supported CDB formats or not at all. The specific features and capabilities should be clearly stated to help avoid duplicate effort within OGC or with other organizations.

Many existing Standards/specifications might already apply to the supplied scenarios above. Bidders should determine which of these are applicable to the use case(s) in their proposals. This table shows which existing Standards/specifications are likely to be relevant. It is not expected that a proposal would necessarily include all the listed standards, and additional, unlisted standards could also be needed for some of the proposed work.

This table is intended to be used as a guide in determining which Standards and specifications can be used with the various scenarios. Particular use cases may or may not use the indicated Standard/specification.

Cost-share stipends will be available in the form of USD $5,000 increments, up to a maximum of three ($15,000) per participant. Each proposal should clearly indicate how many $5,000 increments are being requested.

More than three increments may be requested, but it is unlikely that more than three will be awarded to any particular bidder. Bidders may loosely coordinate their bids, but the work and proposals should be clearly separated. Combined awards will not be made, but two independent awards could be made to two bidders who intend to collaborate later during sprint execution (be sure that this is clearly indicated in both proposals).

Subsequent cost-share offers to selected bidders will also be made as increments ($5,000, $10,000, or $15,000).

Bidders should clearly link each requested increment with one or more proposed scenarios. Ideally, 1-3 independent $5,000 increments will be requested, with each request a multiple of $5,000.

For example, a proposal could include a request for $5,000 to support delivery of a prototype under the first scenario, $5,000 under the third scenario, and $5,000 for a bidder’s own custom-developed scenario. Another proposal might request $5,000 for scenario 2 and $10,000 for a bidder’s custom-developed scenario. Another proposal might request the full $15,000 for a bidder’s custom-developed scenario. For this last example, a thorough description of the full scenario would be expected (including which Standards/specifications would be involved and how the scenario might align with the work of the OGC CDB SWG).

All or a portion of the requested cost-share funding could subsequently be offered by OGC depending on the attractiveness of the proposed scenario relative to other proposals received. In the last example above, two increments totaling $10,000 might be offered in response to the request for three increments.

Each bidder will have the option to accept or reject this offer (of course).

In general, each bid will be evaluated based on how well the proposed deliverables will contribute to achievement of the goals described in the Sprint Scenarios. Here are some additional considerations that might lead to otherwise equal proposals to be preferred.

Stipend funds may be used as the participant sees fit. There are no restrictions so long as the proposed scope is delivered on schedule and the participant meets all the administrative requirements under Initiative Organization and Execution.

This initiative will be conducted within the policy framework of OGC’s Bylaws and Intellectual Property Rights Policy ("IPR Policy"), as agreed to in the OGC Membership Agreement, and in accordance with the OGC Innovation Program Policies and Procedures and the OGC Principles of Conduct, the latter governing all related personal and public interactions.

Several key requirements are summarized below for ready reference:

The San Diego CDB sample data that was used for the Year 1 Sprint will also be available for the Year 2 Sprint. The dataset may be downloaded as needed, but please note that clicking the following link might automatically start a download of a 17GB file.

This is public data being made available without restriction. Bidders may also propose their own dataset(s) for use in the sprint.

Participants will be required to make administrative deliverables in the form of labor hours. These will be consumed by participation in scheduled telecons during the weekly mini-sprints and in a demo telecon at the end of the final mini-sprint.

Participants will also be required to make contributions to the ER in the weeks following the mini-sprints (if not before).

All technical activities in this testbed will result in one or more deliverables which generally take the form of demonstration of component implementations or document (ER) contributions.