Standards in the SITUS approach

Geographical Information Systems I as an autonomous discipline to be applied in several different application areas, has not yet reached full development. Similarly, the referral to Standards as a base for data interchange has never become the greatest care of manufacturers or system integrators. Nevertheless, the possibility to use graphics standards has been considered a feasible answer to the increasing demand of integration between different applications. On another hand, the graphics standards for the coding territorial images has decreased its relevance, due to two general parallel processes: -The wide acceptance of Open Systems, both as data structures and message interchanges, that fulfill the ISO/OSI architectural features, so easying the translation from a format to another. -The arising issues of semantics, dealing with the deeper problems of image interpretation, over those of pure image availability. All this has leaded the whole issue of GIS Standards to diversify from the initial aspect of data representation towards a threefold structure where each of the three areasa deals with a specific aspect: Framework: answers the need of an overall reference frame for GIS' S irrelevant to the specific images and related DB's, to know "what we are talking about" in common terms. Format: set of rules that guidelines the syntax of the managed information. Contents: set of rules that allows the semantic description of the managed information.