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 <mailto: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.
>
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     _______________________________________________
>     georss mailing list
>     georss@lists.eogeo.org
>     http://lists.eogeo.org/mailman/listinfo/georss
>