Re: skeleton Geolocation API

hello.

> - Mentioned that we default to WGS84 for the coordinate system and
> added an issue about supporting other geodetic systems.

wgs84 is not good enough as a reference system for altitude. altitude 
can also be measured in meters above geoids, which is the more accurate 
way of measuring altitude (egm96 is the most common model for that). and 
it can be measured using barometric measurements, which also is an 
important way of measuring altitude. we really should have some people 
looking at that who know this stuff from the inside out, i am a web 
person and my knowledge is not all that solid...

http://www.avionicswest.com/PDFiles/alt2.pdf#page=6

> I'd be very grateful if you could have another look and let me know
> what you think, especially if there are any fundamental changes that
> are still needed (things around the overall API design, things that
> should be addressed or should be left out, etc).

i still think that http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source.html#position 
is just too limited in its model of location. a location can be a 
lat/long pair of coordinates, but it also can be something else, like 
the identification of a city or a state or some other place-oriented 
location concept. this becomes critically important in the light of 
privacy issues, when a mobile user wants to get location-based services 
without having to disclose his coordinates. if he can still say "i am in 
berkeley" or "i am in california", this opens a much wider range of 
possible scenarios than a purely spatial location concept.

cheers,

dret. (loc:usgs.gov:/CA/Berkeley/UCBMainCampus/SouthHall)

Received on Thursday, 26 June 2008 23:36:56 UTC