Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI
Hi, 2015-03-03 7:13 GMT+01:00 Even Rouault even.roua...@spatialys.com wrote: Hi Cameron, ... Currently there's no finalized conformance test suite available for GeoPackage to test implementations, so there's no official reference implementation or conformant implementations. I'd wish Scott or somebody from OGC could comment on this (and this thread in general). * It is probably not appropriate for OSGeo as an organisation to directly point out ESRI's lack of support for GeoPackage write capability. I agree. The best marketing, if needed, would be to point at our implementations that do support write capability. Be aware that it's not only read/write support one should report and request in order to make a standard format an alternative to Shapefiles. For ArcGIS it's also edit capabilities (for whatever reason...). Yours, S. 2015-03-03 7:13 GMT+01:00 Even Rouault even.roua...@spatialys.com: Hi Cameron, It is difficult for OSGeo to stop a vendor from promoting their product, or promoting a specific lock in strategy. Of course. That was exactly my point. But we can: * Support the OGC in developing an OGC standard for LiDAR. Once a standard is in place, there is a much stronger reason to make use of that Open Standard. In particular, many national government agencies have policies which promote standards over proprietary interfaces. With my mostly uninformed eyes in that topic, I don't know if OGC is the most relevant organization in that matter. It seems that the ASPRS would be a more natural host as it has already published the spec of the (uncompressed) LAS format: http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange- Activities.html I'm not sure about the LASzip format however, the compressed one, which is the one that ESRI has cloned into zLAS. I skimmed through http://www.laszip.org/ and couldn't find a reference to something more formal than LGPL code that implements it ;-) * Provide a position statement (as has been suggested) which explains technically the pros and cons of both the proprietary and open LiDAR interface. There are at least a few persons in the OSGeo community that have direct interest in LiDAR and are likely reading this thread. Perhaps some discussions are already happening behind the scene ? Regarding OGC GeoPackage standard: * I would hope that OGC's list of standards supported has a tick for read only, and tick for read/write support, so consumers can tell the difference. Currently there's no finalized conformance test suite available for GeoPackage to test implementations, so there's no official reference implementation or conformant implementations. I guess the conformance test suite would be similar to the KML one, in that you submit a file, and it is validated. So it proves that you can write a conformant file. Funnily, read-only implementations could not get the stamp! * It is probably not appropriate for OSGeo as an organisation to directly point out ESRI's lack of support for GeoPackage write capability. I agree. The best marketing, if needed, would be to point at our implementations that do support write capability. * However, it is totally appropriate for individuals and news agencies to write about it. On 2/03/2015 9:37 pm, Even Rouault wrote: Stefan, That a proprietary vendor decides not to implement a standard in its products is mainly its problem (as well as the one of its customers). Especially as they are plenty of FOSS alternatives that implement the standard! So I'd say it is a selling point for FOSS. The annoying thing here is that a proprietary vendor aggressively pushes his *closed* format and tries to undermine an open format implemented by FOSS. So it really harms the FOSS community. In that matter, the Geoservices REST API episode would have been less critical as the protocol had been at least opened... Even Dear all, dear OSGeo Board While supporting this LAS related initiative I'd like to draw your attention to a potentially similar use case which is at least of same relevance: In April 2014 Esri officially announced support for GeoPackage vector in version 10.2.2 and raster in 10.3: http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2014/04/14/support-for-ogc-geopackages -in -arcgis/ (Support for OGC GeoPackage in ArcGIS) Now Esri support confirmed that in ArcgIS Desktop 10.3 only read-only access is possible. So, there's still no write nor edit capability (and no ArcGIS Server no Runtime) despite this FAQ: http://support.esri.com/en/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/42567 (What versions of the OGC GeoPackage standard are supported?) I'm still looking for an answer for an Enhancement Request but I'm really concerned about Esri's commitment to (promised OGC) standards. Yours, S. 2015-03-01 22:38 GMT+01:00 Suchith Anand suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk: Colleagues, I see these kind of developments also
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI
(note: resend to make sure this gets on the lists) Hi Stefan, I will make a few comments! GeoPackage: the OGC Compliance Program develops conformance test suites for OGC Standards after the Standards have been officially adopted. This process takes time and requires thorough testing itself. A GeoPackage test suite has not yet been completed, but you can see a list of tests and roadmap for test development here: http://cite.opengeospatial.org/roadmap http://cite.opengeospatial.org/roadmap The most complete listing of implementations for GeoPackage is here: http://www.geopackage.org/#implementations http://www.geopackage.org/#implementations With another registry here: http://www.opengeospatial.org/resource/products/byspec http://www.opengeospatial.org/resource/products/byspec Yes, I know that the two registries have some differences - something we are working on in OGC to synchronize! With respect to support of an OGC Standard by any organization, the OGC membership provides the Standards as free and open and thus, they can be implemented by anyone; we don’t rate nor comment on the degree to which an organization implements the Standard unless the implementation is submitted for formal Certification by OGC. LiDAR: the OGC is certainly open to reviewing standardization of LiDAR and other point cloud data. This thread has expressed interest for further discussion and I have been approached my other OGC members on the topic. For anyone attending the upcoming OGC TC meeting in Barcelona - find me and we can talk LiDAR. I will be happy to organize a telecon or face-to-face discussion at a future TC meeting to plan a way forward on this topic. I also recommend that interested people bring up the subject on the OGC 3D Information Management Domain Working Group (3DIM DWG) mailing list: 3dim...@lists.opengeospatial.org mailto:3dim...@lists.opengeospatial.org Best Regards, Scott Scott Simmons Executive Director, Standards Program Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) tel +1 970 682 1922 mob +1 970 214 9467 ssimm...@opengeospatial.org mailto:ssimm...@opengeospatial.org The OGC: Making Location Count… www.opengeospatial.org http://www.opengeospatial.org/ On Mar 3, 2015, at 1:18 AM, Stefan Keller sfkel...@gmail.com mailto:sfkel...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, 2015-03-03 7:13 GMT+01:00 Even Rouault even.roua...@spatialys.com mailto:even.roua...@spatialys.com wrote: Hi Cameron, ... Currently there's no finalized conformance test suite available for GeoPackage to test implementations, so there's no official reference implementation or conformant implementations. I'd wish Scott or somebody from OGC could comment on this (and this thread in general). * It is probably not appropriate for OSGeo as an organisation to directly point out ESRI's lack of support for GeoPackage write capability. I agree. The best marketing, if needed, would be to point at our implementations that do support write capability. Be aware that it's not only read/write support one should report and request in order to make a standard format an alternative to Shapefiles. For ArcGIS it's also edit capabilities (for whatever reason...). Yours, S. 2015-03-03 7:13 GMT+01:00 Even Rouault even.roua...@spatialys.com mailto:even.roua...@spatialys.com: Hi Cameron, It is difficult for OSGeo to stop a vendor from promoting their product, or promoting a specific lock in strategy. Of course. That was exactly my point. But we can: * Support the OGC in developing an OGC standard for LiDAR. Once a standard is in place, there is a much stronger reason to make use of that Open Standard. In particular, many national government agencies have policies which promote standards over proprietary interfaces. With my mostly uninformed eyes in that topic, I don't know if OGC is the most relevant organization in that matter. It seems that the ASPRS would be a more natural host as it has already published the spec of the (uncompressed) LAS format: http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange- http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange- Activities.html I'm not sure about the LASzip format however, the compressed one, which is the one that ESRI has cloned into zLAS. I skimmed through http://www.laszip.org/ and couldn't find a reference to something more formal than LGPL code that implements it ;-) * Provide a position statement (as has been suggested) which explains technically the pros and cons of both the proprietary and open LiDAR interface. There are at least a few persons in the OSGeo community that have direct interest in LiDAR and are likely reading this thread. Perhaps some discussions are already happening behind the scene ? Regarding OGC GeoPackage standard: * I would hope that OGC's list of standards supported has a tick for read only, and tick for read/write support, so consumers can tell
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI
Hi Cameron, It is difficult for OSGeo to stop a vendor from promoting their product, or promoting a specific lock in strategy. Of course. That was exactly my point. But we can: * Support the OGC in developing an OGC standard for LiDAR. Once a standard is in place, there is a much stronger reason to make use of that Open Standard. In particular, many national government agencies have policies which promote standards over proprietary interfaces. With my mostly uninformed eyes in that topic, I don't know if OGC is the most relevant organization in that matter. It seems that the ASPRS would be a more natural host as it has already published the spec of the (uncompressed) LAS format: http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange- Activities.html I'm not sure about the LASzip format however, the compressed one, which is the one that ESRI has cloned into zLAS. I skimmed through http://www.laszip.org/ and couldn't find a reference to something more formal than LGPL code that implements it ;-) * Provide a position statement (as has been suggested) which explains technically the pros and cons of both the proprietary and open LiDAR interface. There are at least a few persons in the OSGeo community that have direct interest in LiDAR and are likely reading this thread. Perhaps some discussions are already happening behind the scene ? Regarding OGC GeoPackage standard: * I would hope that OGC's list of standards supported has a tick for read only, and tick for read/write support, so consumers can tell the difference. Currently there's no finalized conformance test suite available for GeoPackage to test implementations, so there's no official reference implementation or conformant implementations. I guess the conformance test suite would be similar to the KML one, in that you submit a file, and it is validated. So it proves that you can write a conformant file. Funnily, read-only implementations could not get the stamp! * It is probably not appropriate for OSGeo as an organisation to directly point out ESRI's lack of support for GeoPackage write capability. I agree. The best marketing, if needed, would be to point at our implementations that do support write capability. * However, it is totally appropriate for individuals and news agencies to write about it. On 2/03/2015 9:37 pm, Even Rouault wrote: Stefan, That a proprietary vendor decides not to implement a standard in its products is mainly its problem (as well as the one of its customers). Especially as they are plenty of FOSS alternatives that implement the standard! So I'd say it is a selling point for FOSS. The annoying thing here is that a proprietary vendor aggressively pushes his *closed* format and tries to undermine an open format implemented by FOSS. So it really harms the FOSS community. In that matter, the Geoservices REST API episode would have been less critical as the protocol had been at least opened... Even Dear all, dear OSGeo Board While supporting this LAS related initiative I'd like to draw your attention to a potentially similar use case which is at least of same relevance: In April 2014 Esri officially announced support for GeoPackage vector in version 10.2.2 and raster in 10.3: http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2014/04/14/support-for-ogc-geopackages -in -arcgis/ (Support for OGC GeoPackage in ArcGIS) Now Esri support confirmed that in ArcgIS Desktop 10.3 only read-only access is possible. So, there's still no write nor edit capability (and no ArcGIS Server no Runtime) despite this FAQ: http://support.esri.com/en/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/42567 (What versions of the OGC GeoPackage standard are supported?) I'm still looking for an answer for an Enhancement Request but I'm really concerned about Esri's commitment to (promised OGC) standards. Yours, S. 2015-03-01 22:38 GMT+01:00 Suchith Anand suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk: Colleagues, I see these kind of developments also directly affecting Open Principles in Geo Education that Geo for All , OSGeo, ICA all stand for and are working together in our common mission of making geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all. Geo for All will take a stand on this as it not only affects our Academic colleagues and students working in LIDAR research and teaching but will have long term impacts on Open Principles in Geo Education. We will work to put our ideas in the Open Letter from OSGeo explaining this. Geo for All started from very humble beginnings and this was only possible because academic colleagues globally came together to change the status of Geo education. For decades even though there was great progress in GIS technologies, educational opportunities esp. in developing and poor countries were very small. This is now changing dramatically thanks to the efforts of our
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI
The ASPRS LAS committee has been roundly criticized in the past for not operating in an open, consensus-driven, transparent manner. My personal feeling is that LAS - or any future lidar standard - is now too important a topic to be left to the ASPRS committee. The OGC model and the grass-roots, GeoJSON-style model both have their own pros and cons, admittedly, but at least with those two models you know where you stand. -mpg On Mar 3, 2015, at 1:13 AM, Even Rouault even.roua...@spatialys.com wrote: With my mostly uninformed eyes in that topic, I don't know if OGC is the most relevant organization in that matter. It seems that the ASPRS would be a more natural host as it has already published the spec of the (uncompressed) LAS format: http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange- Activities.html ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI
Hi Even, It is difficult for OSGeo to stop a vendor from promoting their product, or promoting a specific lock in strategy. But we can: * Support the OGC in developing an OGC standard for LiDAR. Once a standard is in place, there is a much stronger reason to make use of that Open Standard. In particular, many national government agencies have policies which promote standards over proprietary interfaces. * Provide a position statement (as has been suggested) which explains technically the pros and cons of both the proprietary and open LiDAR interface. Regarding OGC GeoPackage standard: * I would hope that OGC's list of standards supported has a tick for read only, and tick for read/write support, so consumers can tell the difference. * It is probably not appropriate for OSGeo as an organisation to directly point out ESRI's lack of support for GeoPackage write capability. * However, it is totally appropriate for individuals and news agencies to write about it. On 2/03/2015 9:37 pm, Even Rouault wrote: Stefan, That a proprietary vendor decides not to implement a standard in its products is mainly its problem (as well as the one of its customers). Especially as they are plenty of FOSS alternatives that implement the standard! So I'd say it is a selling point for FOSS. The annoying thing here is that a proprietary vendor aggressively pushes his *closed* format and tries to undermine an open format implemented by FOSS. So it really harms the FOSS community. In that matter, the Geoservices REST API episode would have been less critical as the protocol had been at least opened... Even Dear all, dear OSGeo Board While supporting this LAS related initiative I'd like to draw your attention to a potentially similar use case which is at least of same relevance: In April 2014 Esri officially announced support for GeoPackage vector in version 10.2.2 and raster in 10.3: http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2014/04/14/support-for-ogc-geopackages-in -arcgis/ (Support for OGC GeoPackage in ArcGIS) Now Esri support confirmed that in ArcgIS Desktop 10.3 only read-only access is possible. So, there's still no write nor edit capability (and no ArcGIS Server no Runtime) despite this FAQ: http://support.esri.com/en/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/42567 (What versions of the OGC GeoPackage standard are supported?) I'm still looking for an answer for an Enhancement Request but I'm really concerned about Esri's commitment to (promised OGC) standards. Yours, S. 2015-03-01 22:38 GMT+01:00 Suchith Anand suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk: Colleagues, I see these kind of developments also directly affecting Open Principles in Geo Education that Geo for All , OSGeo, ICA all stand for and are working together in our common mission of making geospatial education and opportunities accessible to all. Geo for All will take a stand on this as it not only affects our Academic colleagues and students working in LIDAR research and teaching but will have long term impacts on Open Principles in Geo Education. We will work to put our ideas in the Open Letter from OSGeo explaining this. Geo for All started from very humble beginnings and this was only possible because academic colleagues globally came together to change the status of Geo education. For decades even though there was great progress in GIS technologies, educational opportunities esp. in developing and poor countries were very small. This is now changing dramatically thanks to the efforts of our colleagues from Nepal to Uruguay. We got excellent support from all sectors (universities, industry , governments etc) but to my surprise ESRI was the only proprietary vendor who was trying to undermine this initiative indirectly from the very start. I still cannot understand why this particular vendor wants to do that. I really hope the proprietors of this company will also support Open Principles in Geo Education (not just telling externally on Openness but actually practicing this). We want to have good relations with everyone in the Geospatial domain , so our hand of friendship is always open. So please let us all work together. Hardware costs are (and will) keep coming down, internet access is increasing (and will keep increasing) even in developing countries and with free and open source software, even poor schools in developing countries are getting small computer labs established ( i know this from my experience in India) .The convergence of all these factors with a great team of dedicated people is changing geoeducation forever. I strongly believe access of good quality education is everyones birthright and now we are for first time in history getting opportunity to make this possible. We will not accept putting artificial barriers like high cost proprietary software (which quite frankly they won't be able to even think of affording) which will continue denying quality education opportunities for millions of students globally (both in developed and
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Board] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI
Carl, No, it doesn't really clarify it. I think what people are wondering is does OGC have a default mission and position that closed formats are bad for the industry and would it publicly admonish a member who took actions that ran counter to that position. I assume that, as a member driven organization whose membership includes the offender, the OGC will not be standing up and publicly saying this company is contravening the spirit of our organization and mission, that it is supposedly supportive of. Am I incorrect? WRT to OSGeo, I think that black letter cases like this come along infrequently enough that it would not be at all inappropriate for OSGeo to publicly state what is wrong with the direction being taken in the world of LAS formats. The only trouble is, it's exactly what everyone expects we would do, and therefore will be greeted with a collective yawn. But it is the right thing, so we should still do it. ATB, P. On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 8:23 AM, Carl Reed cr...@opengeospatial.org wrote: All - The OGC is not currently involved in activities related to defining or maintaining LIDAR specific modeling and related encoding standards. Any work the OGC has been doing WRT LIDAR is within the context of processing, visualization, and analytics. Obviously, existing OGC standards such as WCS and GMLJP2 can be used to encode and share small, processed LIDAR data sets. Feel free to check OGC email archives, project pages, and so forth for documentation on any ongoing discussions in the OGC related to LIDAR. http://www.opengeospatial.org/pub/www/ows9/innovations.html : The thread participants looked at NITF, LIDAR, and DAP/OPeNDAP, and investigated their re-implementation in an OWS environment with a focus on the Web. or http://koenigstuhl.geog.uni-heidelberg.de/publications/bonn/conference/LanigGeoinformatik09.pdf for examples. Hope this clarifies the current OGC position. Regards Carl -Original Message- From: Suchith Anand Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2015 4:20 AM To: Cameron Shorter ; P Kishor ; Suchith Anand Cc: discuss@lists.osgeo.org ; Hogan, Patrick(ARC-PX) ; bo...@lists.osgeo.org ; ica-osgeo-l...@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [Board] [OSGeo-Discuss] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI Hi Cameron, Thank you for this excellent suggestion. I remember this previous Geoservices REST API issues and discussions. Patrick - Could you please start a wiki page and input as much information as you know on this (ideally in the same structure as the Geoservices REST API wiki ). Once it is ready, please email the community and OSGeo Board and we all can look into this. Anyone from OGC willing to help with this? I think this should be open letter from the OSGeo Board to the whole Geo community. I really hope this proprietary vendor (ESRI) will be decent enough to not keep repeating these inappropriate actions in the future. Best wishes, Suchith From: Cameron Shorter [cameron.shor...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2015 10:47 AM To: P Kishor; Suchith Anand Cc: discuss@lists.osgeo.org; Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX); bo...@lists.osgeo.org; ica-osgeo-l...@lists.osgeo.org Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] [Ica-osgeo-labs] The LAS format, the ASPRS, and the “LAZ clone” by ESRI Patrick, others, OSGeo and related OGC communities have been successful previously in stopping ESRI's inappropriate creation of OGC standards. See here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Geoservices_REST_API I'd suggest that if we as OSGeo wish to be effective at blocking a vendor lock-in tactic, as seems to be the case, then we should consider developing a similar wiki page for the LAS format debate. 0. Write an open letter (who to? OGC?) 1. Describe the issue. (Is there someone who knows the issues well enough to describe them?) 2. Describe technically why one format is or is not better than the other, on both a technical and commercial point of view. 3. Is the Open LIDAR format an OGC standard? 4. If needed, collect signatures. 5. If needed, ask OSGeo Board to present the open letter On 28/02/2015 11:18 am, P Kishor wrote: Thanks Patrick for surfacing this. Yes, this should be opened up for scrutiny by the entire community and we should all weigh in. On Fri, Feb 27, 2015 at 4:13 PM, Suchith Anand suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.ukmailto:suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk wrote: Hi Patrick, Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I believe the OSGeo Board need to look into this and prepare a position paper with inputs from the community as this has wider implications. This also need to be discussed with like minded organisations. We all can provide the needed support for this. Jeff and OSGeo Board - please add this to the next month Board meeting's agenda items. Thanks. Best wishes, Suchith From:
