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OGC seeks Input on Next Version of CityGML

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) is seeking broad input on enhancements and changes for a revision of the OGC City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) Encoding Standard (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/citygml). CityGML is an open information model and XML-based encoding for the representation, storage, and exchange of virtual 3D city models. CityGML is implemented as an application schema of the OGC Geography Markup Language 3 (GML3) Encoding Standard (http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml), an international standard for spatial data exchange and encoding approved by the OGC and ISO.

In contrast to other 3D vector formats, CityGML (http://www.citygml.org ) is based on a rich, general purpose semantic model as well as reference system, geometry and graphics content which support sophisticated analysis tasks. Applications include urban and landscape planning; architectural design; tourist and leisure activities; 3D cadastres; environmental simulations; mobile telecommunications; disaster management; homeland security; vehicle, pedestrian, and indoor navigation; training simulators; and mobile robotics.

The current version 1.0 of CityGML was adopted as an official OGC Standard in August 2008 and has come to wide use since then. The OGC Technical Committee seeks input from the wider community in the form of change requests, proposed additions and suggestions for the future development of CityGML. These should be submitted by February 26, 2010. The public OGC online form for change and feature requests is available at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/cr.

The next version of CityGML will be a minor revision of the standard to version 1.1. The anticipated release date will not be before autumn 2010. The main objective of this revision is to keep backwards compatibility with the current version 1.0 of CityGML.  Change and feature requests resulting in a loss of backwards compatibility are welcome but will be postponed to a major revision of CityGML to version 2.0.

The OGC® is an international consortium of more than 385 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.