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Exploitation unleashes the value of Earth Observations. OGC, IEEE GRSS, and other communities work in coordination to define standards and community practices for advancing EO Exploitation. This paper provides a summary of OGC activities in the development of platforms, applications and open standards for EO Exploitation. A key example is the use of OGC exploitation platform for application of Machine Learning to EO Data.

UAVs are a disruptive technology bringing new geographic data and information to many application domains. UASs are similar to other geographic imagery systems so existing frameworks are applicable. But the diversity of UAVs as platforms along with the diversity of available sensors are presenting challenges in the processing and creation of geospatial products. Efficient processing and dissemination of the data is achieved using software and systems that implement open standards. The challenges identified point to the need for use of existing standards and extending standards. Results from the use of the OGC Sensor Web Enablement set of standards are presented. Next steps in the progress of UAVs and UASs may follow the path of open data, open source and open standards.

A Concept Development Study by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has highlighted the importance of high-quality feature data for underground urban infrastructure (UGI). Analysis of large survey datasets, including both visual and non-visual methods, is essential for creating and maintaining UGI geodata. Connecting hidden features with diverse, high-velocity sensing streams and realistic predictive models that effectively characterize them is key to lower construction costs, efficient infrastructure operation, sound disaster preparedness, and new smart city services. IoT principles that combine OGC geodata and Sensor Web observation standards may offer the best chance for working towards functional “digital twins” of such hidden infrastructure that are both cost effective and scalable with the increasing complexity and instrumentation of the underground built environment. Technical and policy challenges remain, however, before this can be achieved.

IoT, EO and the Web are providing ever increasing amounts of geospatial information. In order to access and integrate the data using geospatial and temporal methods, standards are needed. This paper provides a summary of current capabilities and recent advancements in standards from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) that provide these capabilities.

Geospatial fusion provides methods to get the most value from geospatial information. A previous OGC study on geospatial fusion identified recommendations for observation fusion, feature fusion and decision fusion. Many of the recommendations were taken up in OGC Innovation Program and are now present in the OGC Standards baseline. This paper reviews the remaining recommendations from the previous study. This paper also examines the affect of recent information technology trends on geospatial fusion including big data, cloud technologies, linked data and new sources of geospatial observations.

This paper describes how the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) are individually and collaboratively strengthening worldwide ability for agencies to manage the disasters lifecycle. The Architecture Implementation Pilot (AIP) of GEO has, through an agile development process, deployed and tested advanced information systems for Earth Observations based on interoperability arrangements. In particular, AIP has focused on several disaster management scenarios resulting in an architecture that has improved the ready viability and usability of data for disasters. CEOS is constructing a reference architecture, intended to streamline access to satellite data and services for disaster management and risk assessment. The CEOS approach aims to support disaster management activities with satellite information in a holistic fashion, taking account of their overlaps and interdependencies. Jointly GEO and CEOS are now working to align the approaches for disaster management to describe enterprise components and improve understanding of contributed systems and their roles. The coordination has lead to refinements of the Disaster Management Scenario via further implementation in AIP-5. By collaborating via the CEOS working groups and the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS) communities of practice, these efforts are intended to engage the international community focused on disaster management and risk assessment to fully utilize remote sensing resources for societal benefit.

Researchers face increasingly large repositories of geospatial data stored in different locations and in various formats. To address this problem, the Open Geospatial Consortium and the Open Grid Forum are collaborating to develop standards for distributed geospatial computing.

International audience; Today an experience developer must choose tools for authoring AR experiences based on many factors including ease of use, performance across a variety of platforms, reach and discoverability and cost. The commercially viable options are organized in closed technology silos (beginning with SDKs). A publisher of experiences must choose one or develop for multiple viewing applications, then promote one or more application to the largest possible audience. Developers of applications must then maintain the customized viewing application over time across multiple platforms or have the experience (and the application) expire at the end of a campaign

The Group on Earth Observations, GEO, has identified the need to improve disaster risk management by providing timely information relevant to the full disaster management cycle of mitigation, preparedness/warning, response and recovery. The Committee on Earth Observing Satellites, CEOS, as the satellite arm of GEO, has recognized the important role that remote sensing contributes to all phases of the disaster management cycle. Activities to address the satellite information needs and gap analysis for disaster management systems are ongoing. This paper reports on results from two such activities, the southern Africa Flood and Health Pilot addressing annual floods in Namibia, and the GEOSS Architecture for Disasters analysis to enhance the use of satellite data. Direct interaction with Namibian hydrologists to experiment with satellite and in situ data products has helped inform the disasters architecture, providing lessons learned and best practices for the GEO societal benefit areas.

With the increasing pace of change in computing technology, islands of relative stability become important to reaping the benefits of geospatial information. Geospatial standards are bases for persistent developments in the complex adaptive ecosystem of geospatial computing technology. Standards are the backbone of the Geoweb and will be also for the Internet of Things (IoT).At COM. Geo 2011, the workshop, "Expanding Geoweb to An Internet of Things", explored ways in which the success of the Geoweb were a basis for the emerging Internet of Things. COM. Geo 2012 aims to continue this discussion of sensor and mobile computing for geospatial research and application.IoT can be seen as a fuller expression of a vision of The Computer for the 21st Century (M. Weiser, 1991, Sci. Amer.). That vision of "Ubiquitous Computing" anticipated computers disappearing into the fabric of everyday life. What perhaps could not have been anticipated was how computing would be changed by the WWW making information ubiquitously accessible via the internet. Now, everyday objects with embedded computers are becoming ubiquitously accessible and interactive via the internet and mobile communications to the benefit of researchers, decision-makers, developers, and application users.Sensor webs and RFID are major elements of IoT. Beginning in 2000, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) anticipated the proliferation of network-accessible sensors and defined a set of Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards. SWE allows sensors to be used in user applications not anticipated with the initial deployment of the sensors. The AutoID lab is a pioneer identifying how RFID systems and SWE can work together to for understanding real world objects both from physical measurements and identity.Geospatial location is fundamental to IoT with the spaces in which IoT operates going beyond the geographic positioning technologies currently on mobile devices. Fusion of information from new sensors on-board mobile devices will enable positioning indoors and other locations where GPS is not present. "Indoor maps" with the complexity of 3 dimensions and complex route topology are needed for IoT be placed and used in a rich spatial computing context.End user applications will reap the benefits of ubiquitous information from IoT. Augmented Reality applications will allow users to view a rich set of information about the space around them both historical information and real-time information. The many domains of Business Intelligence will be informed by this stream of information enabling better decisions.OGC brings several innovative, yet stable standards to the computing and geospatial world of IoT. The second generation of SWE standards is currently being finalized. CityGML and IndoorGML meet the need for indoor maps. And the Augmented Reality Markup Language is poised to bring IoT information into a context aware visualization on mobile devices. OGC will continue to work with other standards developing organizations that address IoT, e.g., ITU, JTC1, IETF, OMA.

This paper describes how GEOSS and CEOS are individually and collaboratively strengthening the world's ability to manage the disasters lifecycle. The Architecture Implementation Pilot (AIP) of GEOSS has, through an agile development process, deployed and tested advanced information systems for Earth Observations based on interoperability arrangements. In particular AIP has focused on several Disaster Management Scenarios resulting in an architecture that has improved the ready viability and usability of data for disasters. CEOS is constructing a reference architecture, intended to streamline access to satellite data and services for disaster management. The CEOS approach aims to support disaster management activities with satellite information in a holistic fashion, taking account of their overlaps and interdependencies. Jointly GEOSS and CEOS are now working to align the approaches for Disaster Management to describe enterprise components and improve understanding of contributed systems and their roles. The coordination will lead to refinements of the Disaster Management Scenario via further implementation in AIP-5. By collaborating via the CEOS working groups and GEOSS communities of practice, these efforts are intended to engage the international community focused on disaster management to fully utilize remote sensing resources for societal benefit.

What happens when you have connected sensors in everyone's pockets, homes, vehicles, workspaces, street corners, shopping areas, and more? With the convergence of Mobile Computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the ability to gather and analyze this Big Data, the availability of massive amounts of information will continue to be gathered and you can expect the unexpected to happen.The themes of this panel are driving development in information technology, but what is the intersection with geospatial? Location determination and use of location for context are core capabilities of Mobile and IoT. Knowing your location along with nearby Points of Interest (PoIs) and Indoor maps provide a new level of spatial awareness and decision making. This information will be used and viewed in new ways including Augmented Reality (AR). Social computing with geospatial checkins provides a rich picture of the social environment. With embedded computing becoming even more ubiquitous, Sensor Webs will provide opportunistic sensing of the physical environment. Geospatial filtering is one of the most effective methods to extracting information from these big data streams. These streams will continue to grow, e.g., mobile 3D video at incredibly high resolution. Data Fusion to combine multiple data sources will create new capabilities many based on geospatial processing.How can we realize the full potential of these technological capabilities in regards to geospatial? We can envision a lot of upside with the technology, but at what cost to privacy and rights? How should policy, privacy and rights be included in the conversations and deployments of these technologies and the resultant data? What role will ambient and participatory crowdsourcing play? A goal of our technology development must be to reduce the apparent tradeoff between surveillance for public safety vs. interests and rights of people. Technology development will continue to be a social activity based on geospatial APIs and standards for mobile platforms from organizations like W3C, OGC, IETF, and OMA. Development of these technologies are a basis for the critical outcomes, e.g, in creating Smart Cities including Smart Energy. Crowdsourcing from mobile platforms and M2M-based sensors webs will provide a basis for humanity to better understand our world and make critical decisions about the livability of our future..

Presents a collection of slides covering the following topics: GEOSS interoperability arrangements; drought index use scenario; global drought monitor configuration; water ontology; water information services; DIAS ontology browser; and land surface module.

Connecting our world with accessible networks is scaling to trillions of everyday objects. The Internet of Things, Pervasive Computing, Sensor Web are research names for this development. Planetary Skin, Smarter Planet and CeNSE are several corporate names. The Internet will be augmented with mobile machine-to-machine communications and ad-hoc local network technologies. At the network nodes, information about objects will come from barcodes, RFIDs, and sensors. The location of all objects will be known.This workshop seeks to explore the role of location in expanding GeoWeb to an Internet of Things. The workshop seeks presentations on functions enabled by geographic location and to location relative to surrounding objects. Most of the objects will be indoor in a 3D setting. The workshop also seeks presentations on relevant technologies such as location determination, geocoding, schemas for points of interest, ad-hoc network formation based on location, processing of information of the objects to detect phenomena of interest and location based services. Technology standards will be important for interoperability at this scale, e.g., OpenLS, CityGML, and Sensor Web Enablement standards from the OGC.

With the increasingly seamless integration of geospatial intelligence into mainstream IT solutions and the rise of the "Geospatial Web", the need for geoinformatics standards is ever more critical. Geoinformatics standards detail the engineering aspects (and rules) capturing common agreements for implementing an interface or encoding that applies to specific geospatial interoperability problems. Standards from organizations such as ISO and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) enable users to more freely exchange and apply geospatial information, applications and services across networks, platforms and products.This panel is about the emerging agile processes behind the development of such standards in the geoinformatics field, specifically complementing the traditional formal consensus processes as a way to keep up with rapid technology changes, and the immediate needs for these standards in a wide range of domains. Agile processes are based on iterative, incremental and collaborative development, and typically deliver increased value, higher adaptability and reduced risk levels in meeting customer requirements and project objectives.As an example in the geospatial field, the OGC Interoperability Program organizes and manages Interoperability Initiatives based on a rapid engineering process to develop, test, demonstrate, and promote the use of OGC standards. Such initiatives typically provide the initial working prototypes that are positioned to be the next best standards. Complemented by a solid architecture framework, this process allows for the development of set of standards for adoption in mature products.This panel hosts representatives from standards-development organizations and industry to provide their perspectives on the agile processes in geoinformatics standards development and their value to their members/customers in the era of ubiquitous geospatial informatics. Such agile processes contribute to achieving the guiding vision of a world in which everyone benefits from geographic information and services made available across any network, application, or platform.

In a multi-vendor environment, development of the Internet of Things (IoT) will be limited without the emergence of open, consensus standards that enable collaboration. Such standards will define an infrastructure that raises the level of services and quality of information for the marketplace thereby providing more opportunities, particularly for the vendors that collaborate to define the standards. Collaborative development is key to consensus adoption and wide use of information technology standards.Development of effective open standards is a balancing act. The standards need to be agile and adaptive to the rapidly changing developments in the marketplace. The standards also need to have a sound engineering foundation and respect relevant aspects of the existing technology base. The use of open standards to connect components, applications, and content -- allowing a "white box" view on the components' functionality and interfaces without revealing implementation details -- fulfills the industry requirement for protection of intellectual property and the user requirement for transparency.The COM.Geo Workshop on "Expanding GeoWeb to an Internet of Things" is an excellent opportunity to discuss how organizations can increase their business based on quality location information in the Internet of Things. Quality information in a multi-vendor environment can only be obtained using standards. An industry-based consortium is needed to establish effective standards for information sharing about location in the Internet of Things. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has a proven process for industry-wide collaborative development of efficient standards for spatial and location information.The mission of OGC is to serve as a global forum for the development and promotion of open standards and techniques in the area of geoprocessing and related information technologies. The OGC has 410+ members - geospatial technology software vendors, systems integrators, government agencies and universities - participating in the consensus standards development and maintenance process. Through its Specification Program, Interoperability Program, and Marketing and Communications Program, the OGC develops, releases and promotes open standards for spatial processing. Technology and content providers collaborate in the OGC because they recognize that lack of interoperability is a bottleneck that slows market expansion. They know that interoperability enabled by open standards positions them to both compete more effectively in the marketplace and to seek new market opportunities.The OGC recommends the following steps for advancing the GeoWeb to an IoT-based marketplace:• Definition of a standards-based "GeoWeb meets IoT" framework to spur coordinated application development.• Coordination of standards for location in IoT with other relevant standards development organizations.• Discussions of the framework in the OGC Specification Working Groups to identify if additional standards are needed.• Conduct an Embedded Mobile Ecosystem Testbed using the OGC Interoperability Program approach.

Geospatial data accessible on the web has become common place and transformative. The GeoWeb allows us to view geographic information about any location on the planet and to make plans based on this. Planning routes for travel using the GeoWeb has become highly advanced enabled by open standards. Using the GeoWeb for environmental studies is advancing but requires additional standards regarding semantics of the features of the world. The GeoWeb is now moving to mobile internet platforms. Soon, if not already, mobile devices will be the predominant method to access the Internet. This is enabled by dramatic advances in technologies and business models for electronic communications and hand held devices. Smartphones have led the way enabling access on mobile devices similar to fixed internet locations. The initial generation of Location Based Services were defined based on walled gardens. Now we are extending the GeoWeb to the mobile internet and enhancing it based on location context and by access to an Internet of things including sensors. Using mobile GeoWeb devices embedded in the world enables an augmented understanding of our geospatial reality.

Discoveries in the geosciences are increasingly taking place across traditional disciplinary boundaries. The EarthCube program, a community-driven project supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, is developing an information- and tool-sharing framework to bridge between disciplines and unlock the modern geosciences' transformative potential.

Decision makers in business and government have historically depended on geomatics experts when they have sought to benefit from Earth observation systems. Similarly, scientists in fields other than geomatics have had to either learn about geomatics or team with geomatics experts to benefit from these systems. Fortunately, as Earth observation technologies and markets have progressed, standards have steadily advanced, which, along with other benefits described below, allows geomatics experts to establish reusable services for routine decision-making.

This document provides a high level overview if the Sensor Web Enablement work of the Open Geospatial Consortium. This paper provides a high level architecture and includes descriptions of the OGC sensor interface and encoding standards that have been approved or are soon to be approved.