Interoperable Data Formats Technical Session Summary Report

International Ice Charting Working Group – VI Ottawa, October 2005 John Falkingham

Action Item 5.6

 Clearly define the objective of developing common data base scheme i.e. seamless customer support vs ice service interoperability. Outline a project plan including goals for the first technical workshop on the issue

Objectives for Technical Workshop

    Education To understand better what we mean by interoperable data formats  Decision Where we want to go with interoperable data formats – are we on the right track?

 What can we achieve within our own organizations and what can we achieve together?

 Commitment to Action To develop action plans, that we can all commit to, for going forward

Outline for Technical Workshop

 Education    Ice in Electronic Chart Systems  Tim Evangelatos & Doug O’Brien - Canadian experts on ECDIS and IHO under contract to the Canadian Hydrographic Service Advances in Sea Ice Presentation for ECDIS  Yuri Scherbakov – AARI expert on ECDIS Interoperable Data Formats in Production Systems   Dave Denault – CIS expert on Geographic Information Systems Brian Scarlett – ESRI contractor at CIS

Outline for Technical Workshop

  Decision   Plenary discussion Breakout Groups   Operational Ice Information Producers Standards Enforcers Commitment to Action   Breakout group reports Workshop Report

Results

 Agreement from the entire group that:   Developing standards for incorporating ice information into Electronic Chart Systems is a role that the JCOMM ETSI should play  With IICWG as its Technical Advisory body Now is an appropriate time to be doing this  We are not at the bleeding edge but are close enough to it to be effective  It may be a lot of work for which resources (people) are not easily available but that will never change

Results (cont)

  Should separate the content from the carrier  Carrier issues are already resolved by others Content model is an essential first step for interoperability between ice services and with users  Define how ice information is described in a common way by all ice services

Results (cont)

 IHO Ice Register (Ice Object Catalogue) is the logical starting point for a content model     Register was developed under ISO standards and has a formal “home” ICE Register should reference and be completely compatible with the WMO Sea Ice Nomenclature SIGRID-3 should be merged into the Register ETSI should be the “owner” of the register and be responsible for the “control body”

Results (cont)

  Ice Object Catalogue must incorporate standards for display of images It is not necessary for ETSI to define the portrayal (presentation) standards but it would be useful to define a default set  Existing WMO Symbology and Colour Standards would suffice

Operational Ice Information Producers Breakout Group

 Participants:           Klaus Strubing, German Ice Service, BSH Keld Hansen, Danish Met Institute Thor Jakobsson, Iceland Met Service Robert Ringrose, Qinetiq Corp Helge Tangen, Norwegian Met Service Paul Seymour, National Ice Center Ari Seina, Finnish Ice Service Barbara O’Connell, Canadian Coast Guard Brian Scarlett, GIS Technical Expert Lina Assad, rapporteur

Standards Enforcers Breakout Group

 Participants:          Doug O’Bren – IDON Corp Tim Evangelatos – Terraquaeous Corp Vasily Smalyanitsky – AARI, ETSI, Yuri Scherbakov – AARI John Falkingham – Canadian Ice Service Ian Pilling – Qinetiq Corp Eric Madsen – NOAA Dan Fequet – Canadian Ice Service Mikhail Krasnoperov - WMO

Issues/Challenges

      Communications cost too high when accessing data over web Security model to protect data that needs to be protected Portrayal of the data format is not the same for different clients Inter-operability of data and charts Standard settings must be established in order to enable the exchange Technological progress (tap from each other’s skills)

Barriers

   Government regulations; Ownership of data, licensing, management of data; Resources (people) to do the necessary work

Action Plan – next 6 months

  Complete final version of the Ice Objects Catalogue    editorial changes correct references review for consistency with Sea Ice Nomenclature and SIGRID-3 Survey/questionnaire to Ice Services to determine common denominator  What is the current capability for inter operability?

Action Plan – next 6 months

 Establish formal relationships    Letter of liaison from JCOMM co-presidents to IHO (Technical, CHRIS) (1 March 2006) Done?

Letter of liaison from JCOMM ETSI chair Vasily Smolyanitsky to ISO TSMAD chair, Mike Brown (before 7-11 November 2005) Letter of liaison from JCOMM co-president to ISO Chair to expand existing WMO liaison domain to include sea ice (15 May 2006)

Action Plan – next year

    Standardize the SIGRID3 implementation among ice centres ISO standard for metadata   Complete metadata definition for sea ice Investigate relations with MarineXML (JCOMM ETMDP) ISO standard for imagery  No need to define standards for imagery but must define what standards we shall employ at user level  possible solution is to follow IHO Presentation content  Recommend default presentation in isolation  WMO Nomenclature, Colour standard for Ice Charts

Action Plan – longer term

  Encoding  Develop SIGRID-4 in alignment with ISO GML (ISO 19136)  S57 will serve in the interim to carry ice information in Electronic Ice Systems Web Services  Determine the level of standard web services required for interoperability among producers   Web Mapping Services Web Feature Services  Web Coverage Services

In Summary Did we meet our objectives?

   Education -

Accomplished

 We are all at a common level of understanding Decision –

Accomplished

 Agreed that we should progress in a certain direction Commitment–

Partially Accomplished

  Relatively detailed action plan drafted – we know what to do Resources to implement this action plan not identified – we don’t yet know how to do it