The OGC® Releases Basic Profile for Geography Markup Language (GML™)


location based services

Wayland, Mass., June 5, 2006 - The membership of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) has approved and released the OpenGIS® Geography Markup Language (GML™) Simple Features Profile Specification. This standard defines a simple profile of GML version 3.1.1.

The OGC's GML specification defines a large number of data encoding options that support a very wide variety of capabilities. Profiles of GML provide useful subsets of these options. The Simple Features profile specifies 2D geometry features such as Point, Curve (LineString), Surface (Polygon), MultiPoint, MultiCurve and MultiSurface.

Profiles reduce the time and resources required for an organization to develop software and applications that use GML. Communities of interest that agree on how to implement the profile using a common model greatly enhance interoperability and their ability to share data.

Submitting organizations included Cadcorp Ltd. (U.K.), CubeWerx Inc. (Canada), ESRI (U.S.), Galdos Systems Inc. (Canada), interactive instruments GmbH (Germany) and PCI Geomatics (Canada).

The OGC is an international industry consortium of more than 310 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS® Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.