Standards for Web dissemination

This group of standards builds on the reference model to support the dissemination of geographic information on the Web, e.g. through web services.

Standard web services for accessing geographic information

Services allow users (and applications) to access geographic information in a variety of formats ranging from a JPEG map image to a GeoJSON file containing the geometry and attribute data. The services provide a standard interface that can be deployed in geospatial applications and in spatial data infrastructures (SDIs). The standard interface allows the services to be interchangeable or to be chained chained into more complex services.

• ISO 19119:2005 Geographic information - Services, extends the architecture reference model to provide a framework for specifying individual geographic information services.

• ISO 19116:2004 Geographic information - Positioning services, specifies an interface between position-providing devices and position-using devices.

• ISO 19128:2005 Geographic information - Web Map Server interface, also published as the OGC Web Map Service (WMS), specifies a set of interfaces for producing spatially referenced maps from geographic information available through the world wide web.

• OpenGIS Web Map Tile Service Implementation Standard Implementation Standard specifies an interface for serving map tiles of spatially referenced data using tile images with predefined content, extent, and resolution.

• ISO 19142:2010 Geographic information - Web Feature Service, also published as OGC Web Feature Service (WFS), specifies the behaviour of a web feature service that provides transactions on and access to geographic features in a manner independent of the underlying data store. It specifies discovery operations, query operations, locking operations, transaction operations and operations to manage stored parameterized query expressions.

• ISO 19143:2010 Geographic information - Filter encoding, also published as OGC Filter Encoding, describes an XML and KVP encoding of a system neutral syntax for expressing projections, selection and sorting clauses, collectively called a query expression. These components are modular and intended to be used together or individually by other standards.

• OpenGIS Sensor Observation Service Interface Standard defines a Web service interface which allows querying observations, sensor metadata, as well as representations of observed features.

Standard web services for cataloguing geographic information

• OpenGIS Catalogue Service Implementation Specification supports the ability to publish and search collections of descriptive information (metadata) for data, services, and related information objects.

Web standards for styling geographic information

These two standards are rarely implemented without one another. Styled layer descriptor (SLD) and symbol encoding (SE) are also mainly implemented with WMS, which supports specifying a style for rendering allowing the user more freedom in their design decisions when requesting a map.

• OGC Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD) defines an encoding that extends the WMS standard to allow user-defined symbolization and coloring of geographic feature and coverage data. SLD addresses the need for users and software to be able to control the visual portrayal of the geospatial data served over the Web.

• OGC Symbology Encoding (SE) defines an XML language for styling information that can be applied to digital feature and coverage data.

See also

• Standards#Groups of standards for geographic information