[georss] was kml reference placemarks - now KML into OGC
Mike Liebhold
mnl at well.com
Fri Mar 2 11:40:23 EST 2007
Carl Reed wrote:
"KML is fundamentally focused on Geographic Visualization - meaning
visualization of places on the earth - and annotating or describing
places. "
Carl and epecially Josh
Another question:
Given that KML annotation -documents- are more web-like than
geographic, but strangely constrained; Shouldn't Google be invited to
submit at least those portions of KML for W3C review and
standardization process?
Carl Reed OGC Account wrote:
> Mike et. al.
>
> A bit on the submission by Google of KML into the OGC process.
>
> At the December San Diego meetings, Michael Jones, John Hanke, and
> Brian McClendon collectively spoke to the OGC Technical Committee in a
> Plenary session. One of the topics they discussed was a proposal to
> submit KML into the OGC standardization process. The next day at the
> OGC Planning Committee meeting, the PC members in attendance had a
> very open and frank discussion regarding Google's proposal. We covered
> such topics as how to best (and to what extent) KML should be
> harmonized with other OGC standards, the standardization timeline,
> intellectual property and copyright, how to make sure that the current
> (and future) KML developer community can remain engaged in the process
> without being OGC members, backwards compatibility issues, and so forth.
>
> The motion as approved by the OGC membership with endorsement by Google:
>
> * KML will be submitted to the OGC by the 3 week rule for the
> April meetings for consideration as an OGC Best Practices paper
> * The new Mass-Market Geo Working Group will be the home for
> discussions related to KML.
> * That a new OGC public discussion list (.dev) will be started for
> KML to allow coordination and engagement with the KML developer
> community.
> * That the OGC members will begin work on an initial, but limited,
> harmonization of KML with existing OGC and ISO standards. Stated
> work items include coordinate reference systems and geometry.
> The results of this work will be a candidate specification for
> consideration by the OGC membership for approval as an adopted
> OpenGIS specification. (Target date: end of 2007 early 2008)
> * Staff will work with Google and Mass Market Geo WG to facilitate
> this process.
> * There needs to be a position paper that clearly defines the
> problem domain that GML solves and the problem domain that KML
> solves.
>
> I am currently in the process of putting the KML reference guide into
> the OGC document format (including maintaining all links). This
> document will be posted to the OGC pending documents archive for
> discussion at the April meetings sometime next week.
>
> The key short term item beyond document formatting is developing
> the position paper that clearly defines the problem domain that GML
> solves and the problem domain that KML solves. I believe that there is
> a fair amount of confusion in the community as to what KML is best
> suited for and what GML is best suited for. The issue is doubly
> interesting given that the geometry elements in KML are identical to
> GML 2.1.2. We will be working on this position paper over the next
> month or so.
>
> Borrowing from Ron Lake and from discussions with GE staff, we think
> KML and GML are targeted at solving different problems. This has
> nothing to do with complexity vs simplicity - but rather just
> different objectives and requirements. KML is fundamentally focused
> on Geographic Visualization - meaning visualization of places on the
> earth - and annotating or describing places. It is not intended to
> model geographic objects. KML could even contain additional GML
> elements. KML, because it is connected to the description of place is
> also (KML Search) a means of providing spatial indexing - and this is
> being done through the Google robot.
>
> And for additional reflections on the legal aspects of this topic, I
> would suggest visiting Raj Singh's blog
> http://www.rajsingh.org/blog/?p=18 . If anyone on this list has any
> thoughts, suggestions, or concerns regarding the Google submission of
> KML into the OGC process, please let me know.
>
> Regards
>
> Carl
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Mike Liebhold <mailto:mnl at well.com>
> *To:* georss at lists.eogeo.org <mailto:georss at lists.eogeo.org>
> *Sent:* Thursday, February 22, 2007 10:59 AM
> *Subject:* [georss] kml reference placemarks v/ georss?
>
>
> I'm wondering what impact on georss adoption, will be from google
> and michael jones advocacy ( below) for using "kml reference
> placemarks" as standard format for located geo information.
>
> On a related point, I'd be very interested if Carl and OGC or
> anyone else cares to comment here on the scope and implications
> of google's efforts re: OGC adoption of KML
>
> Google KML Search: What Does it Mean for Geospatial Professionals?
> By Adena Schutzberg
> <http://www.directionsmag.com/author.php?author_id=49> ,
> Directions Magazine <http://www.directionsmag.com>
> February 16, 2007
>
> http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=2409&trv=1
>
> (DM = Directions magazine - Adena Schutzberg)
>
> There's been a lot of coverage of Google's recent announcement via
> a blog of a KML search capability from Google Earth and Google
> Search. Michael Jones, Google's Chief Technologist for Google
> Earth, Maps, Local answered some questions to clarify what it
> does, how it works and explored some of its implications for
> searching for geodata.
>
> DM:Are all publicly accessible KML files on the Web indexed by
> Google? Do their creators have to do something for them to be in
> the index?
>
> MJ: Every KML & KMZ file on the web that is found by the Google
> web crawl is noted and indexed. The crawl honors include/exclude
> guidance from robots.txt files and is educated by site maps to
> find content that would otherwise be difficult to locate. Every
> resulting KML & KMZ file found by the crawl is indexed by its
> name, location, and by the contents of the KML description.
> Through KML Search, all of these files are now searched by the
> text string entered in the Google Earth search box.
>
> Creators need only place their KML/KMZ on a publicly accessible
> web site and their geospatial data will be universally discoverable.
>
> People and program agents can also search directly using Google
> Web Search. For example, visit www.google.com and try the
> following search:
>
> filetype:kmz adena
>
> This will show you all seven (do not suppress duplicates) of the
> KMZ files containing 'adena' in their descriptions. ;-)
>
> DM: Does the search have a geographic part and a text part? How do
> those work? Based on where you are in GE? Based on text in KML?
>
> MJ: We show the 'best' result subset of all the results. The
> details are subtle, but the idea is that the list of textual
> matches is also scored geospatially to produce a conflated score
> representing a good match. A perfect text match right where you
> are looking is a perfect score, a great match nearby or a so-so
> match on screen would be next, followed by great matches far away
> and poor matches on-screen. Then the best 'N' of these are
> selected and presented as the results in such a way that the
> Google Earth client zooms in/over/out to encompass the set of
> selected results. Users can explore these or follow the provided
> "more..." link to get more results, which is just like going to
> page 2, 3, and subsequent pages in Google Web search results.
>
> DM: Might this be a way for all geo data to be found - both for
> advertising needs and for the sort of geodata search folks might
> currently do at GOS, etc? I'm thinking a small bit of KML in a
> page could make it geosearchable in a way "local searches" are not
> today.
> Could this be the answer to the old .geo idea?
>
> MJ: yes, Yes, YES!
>
> You are right on target with the "small bit of KML" comment.
>
> [Pre-KML-Search]
>
> If you want your county's fire plug Shape file to be findable on
> the WEB OF PAGES, you would have made an HTML reference page and
> decorated that with text that made searchers notice it when
> traversing your website, text that made it findable by web search
> tools like www.google.com, and added a hyperlink on the page
> referencing the Shape-file collection.
>
> [Post-KML-Search]
>
> Now, you have an additional choice. If you want your county's fire
> plug Shape file to be findable on the WEB OF PLACES (using an
> Earth browser such as Google Earth), then you make a KML reference
> placemark and load it's description with text so that searchers
> notice it when looking at the placemark (even when part of a
> collection), find it when using tools like Google Earth Search
> (aka KML Search), and you'd add a hyperlink in the description of
> the placemark that references the Shape-file collection.
>
> This simple step of creating a KML placemark (and waiting for the
> next web crawl) is all you need to let every one of the 200+
> million users of Google Earth who flies nearby and types "fire
> plug" into the search box find your KML and be presented with the
> hyperlink to the Shape file (and by extension, MapInfo TAB files,
> Autodesk formats, NITFs, etc., all based on desired audience.)
>
> Note that it is the author's option to also convert the referenced
> data into KML too. They would do this if their goal is to have
> those who browse, search, and explore the planet using Google
> Earth see the results (such as the fire plug locations) right
> there in Google Earth. This is an option, but is separate from
> using what you correctly describe as a small bit of KML to make
> the original data discoverable. This is the application of the
> world's most popular search technique to the task of finding data
> on a geospatial, view- based basis - addressing in many ways the
> goals of GOS and SDI efforts both past and present.
>
> DM: How does standard geo metadata play into such a search? I'm
> thinking not at all now, but maybe in the future?
>
> MJ: Everything in the KML is indexed. If the metadata are placed
> into the KML description, then they are searchable. However, this
> is not a smart search in the sense of "select fire plugs painted
> more than 6 years ago", so there is much more to be done in this
> area. You'll note that Google started out indexing page-describing
> HTML, and then moved to index other popular document formats such
> as PDF and Word's ".DOC"; likewise, we're indexing
> place-describing KML and may later understand a larger collection
> of geospatial formats. If so, we'll be in a better position to
> deal structurally with important metadata at that time.
>
> DM: So this is part of Google larger search vision?
>
> MJ: When I present a slide with the web browser on one side and
> Google Earth and Maps on the other, and say "everything you can do
> on the web of pages you will be able to do on the web of places
> (via a browser such as Google Maps or Google Earth)", the launch
> of KML Search is what has been on my mind as the most significant
> move in that direction.
>
> The Google Earth and Maps teams work to geolocate all information
> and help users find that information geospatially. While users
> need both halves, the finding part is a core Google skill and one
> that is very useful even when what is found is not hosted at
> Google, as is famously the case with Google Web Search. The launch
> of Google KML Search initiates this Google Earth Search capability
> for all of the world's spatially organizable data.
>
>
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