[OSGeo-Discuss] Open Letter for the need for Open Standards in LiDAR

[Suchith Anand]

To all colleagues in Academia, Government and Industry who have interest in maintaining Open Standards:


On behalf of "Geo for All" community, http://www.geoforall.org<http://www.geoforall.org/>, I would like to bring to your kind attention a significant development that can lead to undermining our principle for Open Geospatial Standards. I request you review the wikipage http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter   that is meant to represent our concern and allow for ongoing input and expression by our geospatial community.

We specifically thank Martin Isenburg (author of LASzip and LAStools, http://laszip.org<http://laszip.org/> and http://lastools.org<http://lastools.org/>) for  bringing this matter to our attention (email below) and an email thread of our initial discussion of this subject that highlight the wider implication of this issue http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html
We request all who wish to support this effort to protect Open Standards for Geospatial data to kindly add your name , email, affiliation details to the wikipage directly or email  Patrick Hogan (Email - patrick.hogan at nasa.gov<mailto:patrick.hogan at nasa.gov> ) with the subject heading "Support for Open Geo Standards" and the following fields (Name, Email, Affiliation ) and we will gladly add this to the wiki.

There is current interest by the OGC in pursuing point cloud encoding standards, including a member-initiated mechanism to extend LAS data with OGC-standard XML content. The OGC invites interested members who wish to  work on this effort to please contact Scott Simmons (Executive Director, Standards Program  E-mail : ssimmons at opengeospatial.org<mailto:ssimmons at opengeospatial.org>  ) to register their interest and discuss details.  OGC will also be holding an ad hoc session at our next Technical Committee meeting in Boulder, CO, USA in June 1st (more details will be send soon) to bring together all interested from all sectors (government, industry, academia) for this and plan next steps. We welcome feedback and input from Esri and invite them to join this effort to  support open LIDAR formats.

I thank you all again for your attention and support for this important matter.

Best wishes,

Suchith Anand
Founder, GeoForAll
http://www.geoforall.org<http://www.geoforall.org/>




-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:        Please review: Open Letter asking to avoid format fragmentation in LiDAR standards
Date:   Sat, 11 Apr 2015 12:14:51 +1000
From:   Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com><mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
To:     standards at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:standards at lists.osgeo.org> <standards at lists.osgeo.org><mailto:standards at lists.osgeo.org>


Hi all,
A number of us have been collaboratively developing an Open Letter asking key stakeholders to avoid fragmentation in LiDAR standards.

It starts:
We, the undersigned, are concerned that the current interoperability between LiDAR applications, through use of the open "LAS" format, is being threatened by ESRI's introduction and promotion of an alternative "Optimized LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced interoperability between applications and organisations, and introduce vendor lock-in.

Could all interested please:
1. Review and provide feedback to this standards email list
2. If you agree with the letter, please add your name to the "Signed" section


--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009

P +61 2 9009 5000,  W www.lisasoft.com<http://www.lisasoft.com>,  F +61 2 9009 5099






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