RE: [georss] was kml reference placemarks - now KML into OGC

Hi Mike:

 

Just a clarification.  Annotation in the OGC means to associate places
or geographic regions with something - anything (text, GML, web pages,
video, imagery) that "describes" that place - so they are very
geographic.  I agree one would like richer drawing functionality but
that will likely come.  

Ron

 

________________________________

From: georss-bounces@lists.eogeo.org
[mailto:georss-bounces@lists.eogeo.org] On Behalf Of Mike Liebhold
Sent: March 2, 2007 11:40 AM
To: Carl Reed OGC Account
Cc: public-xg-geo@w3.org; georss@lists.eogeo.org
Subject: Re: [georss] was kml reference placemarks - now KML into OGC

 

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@well.com>  

	To: georss@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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