Re: Absence of key scientific spatial data formats within common formats to implementation of Best Practices [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Hi Lewis,

I have still to find the time to review the latest document and provide comment.

However regarding this issue, we have no intention of moving away from the scientific data formats that we use within our large data holdings.

If anything, I expect that we will need to work with our peers to define formal data format definitions that are consistent with modern spatial requirements, e.g. full support for Spatial Reference Systems and other CRS definition and that don't constrain our ability to adequately portray the complexity of our data. I expect that we'll probably need to do this via OGC processes. We want to ensure that the data that we collect and archive now will still be accessible for our key stakeholders who have not yet been born.

Further, I expect that we'll need to go further and work with our peers to agree on semantic definitions of the content that we portray for each relevant domain and its inter-relationships with other domains. This is similar in concept to what the hydrology community have done with WaterML 2, but I expect that we'll need to take it further, particularly the inter-domain relationships.

When we are trying to understand global systems and their interaction with other systems, and we are doing this with our peers in distributed data collections and services, the need for formal data definitions become critical. This is especially so if we want global, federated, data sets ***and dynamic services*** describing specific phenomena. It will allow us to spend much less wasted time in getting data prepared for global analysis and much more time on the actual analysis and understanding the implications of the results.

Regards,

Bruce

Bruce Bannerman
a/Data Director
Australian Bureau of Meteorology



________________________________
From: lewis john mcgibbney <lewismc@apache.org>
Sent: Thursday, 24 March 2016 6:30:30 AM
To: SDW WG Public List
Subject: Absence of key scientific spatial data formats within common formats to implementation of Best Practices

Hi Folks,
Upon reviewing the existing 'catalog' of common SD formats [0] I am not seeing any of the primary scientific data formats we use which encode spatial data e.g. netCDF, HDF and GRIB.
Is there any reason for this?
I understand that the bureaucrats @NASA have dropped participation in the W3C but surely others within this WG (outside of NASA) work with such data formats and are aware that a significant amount of spatial data is served over/on the Web in these formats...no?
I would really appreciate any comments.
Best
Lewis

[0] http://w3c.github.io/sdw/bp/#applicability-formatVbp