[OSGeo-Standards] OGC vote on LAS 1.4 as a community standard
Arnulf Christl
arnulf.christl at metaspatial.net
Thu Feb 2 04:43:19 PST 2017
Hi Martin,
lets separate out two different issues:
1. OSGeo's membership slots
2. Lack of established protocol for the LWG of the APSRS.
1. OSGeo's membership slots
"Full voting rights" in OGC entails some complexity due to the fee-based
membership model. Check out the full shebang here:
http://www.opengeospatial.org/node/36
"Individual Members" is the humblest type of OGC membership. It cannot
vote in the Technical Committee, same as the 6 types of Associate
Membership levels. Only from Technical Committee Level "upward" do you
have to vote.
For the record: When we discussed and then drafted the MoU with OGC we
evaluated different options. We also discussed a voting level
membership. But in the TC only vote per organization can be cast. Now
imagine somebody within OSGeo would disagree with your opinion and would
want to vote differently? To me it appeared quite obnoxious to
accomplish one(!) vote for anything at all within OSGeo at that time. So
we opted for the original idea of the MoU which was to not influence
anything specific within OGC but to give a handful (6 actually)
individuals the opportunity to work in closed OGC groups without having
to pay a membership fee [disclaimer]. That's all what its good for.
2. Lack of established protocol for the LWG of the APSRS.
This is one of the things which OGC is very good in: Policies and
procedures and nudging (technical) things along in a more or less
orderly way. So why not propose to the LWG to use some of the templates,
time lines and habits from the OGC to somewhat formalize the process?
But this is something that has to come from within the LWG or the
stakeholders facilitating it (ASPRS?).
Best regards,
Arnulf
[disclaimer]
As an aside; I have never personally used an OSGeo membership slot to
stay out of any favoritism doubts (but given current practice in
politics this might change... :-).
Am 02.02.2017 um 04:37 schrieb Martin Isenburg:
> Hello,
>
>
> So I would hope that OGC will not only accept the current LAS 1.4 as
> a community standard (and that is what I intend to vote for
> [assuming I can] unless other OSGeo members who are represented by
> this vote are in vehement disagreement) but that OGC will also
> encourage ASRPS to maintain this "de-facto" standard in a more
> transparent manner in the future (in whatever form such an
> encouragement can happen) ...
>
>
> It seems the OSGeo membership slots to the OGC TC do not come with full
> voting rights? After logging in with my OSGeo membership to the OGC
> Portal i can see the current vote and look at the results but there is
> no option to log my own vote. OSGeo is not listed among the voter pool
> of 154 members from 90 distinct organizations.
>
> Currently there is a motion in the LWG that seems supported by 4 members
> to a revision 14 of the spec that is current at revision 13 before it
> gets "frozen" as a OGC community standard to fix one little issue,
> clarify some poor formulations, and fix some minor typos. Hopefully the
> current vote will also cover a slightly "improved" version of the LAS
> 1.4 spec.
>
> If and how soon that will happen and who will do the release is,
> however, completely unclear as there is no established protocol
> or predictable procedure in the LWG of the APSRS. The current approach
> is to dig back though one's archived email history for all suggestions
> since the revision 13 release and then repeatedly nudge the chair to
> update the current document and put it on the Website. You are out of
> luck, if you cannot convince the LWG chair that a wording improvement is
> needed because all major hardware vendors (Leica, RIEGL, Optech,
> Trimble) have (sometimes repeatedly) miss-interpreted the specification
> (as it happened for [1,2]). If the chair does not agree to this, then
> specification rewrite will simply not happen.
>
> Regards,
>
> Martin
>
> [1] http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lasroom/KPPsO8twg9I/discussion
> [2] http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lasroom/g4VsXH3CRZo/discussion
>
>
>
> Regards from Singapore,
>
> Martin
>
>
> In such an endorsement, OGC membership is recognizing the value
> of a particular specification as being part of the OGC standards
> baseline and relevant for normative reference by the OGC.
> Numerous organizations (usually government agencies) require
> consensus-based standards to be part of their own standards
> baseline, and the Community standard process assists the
> promotion of standards that developed external to the OGC to be
> recognized as having a consensus endorsement.
>
> All this being said, the OGC will rely upon the originating
> organization to further evolve the specification and decide
> whether any revisions should be submitted to the OGC. Upon
> adoption by the OGC, the standard can receive Change Requests
> from anyone and these Change Requests will be passed to the
> source of the standard for consideration.
>
> This is a new process in the OGC, so we don’t yet have a feel
> for how successful or not the efforts may be.
>
> Best Regards,
> Scott
>
> Scott Simmons
> Executive Director, Standards Program
> Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)
> tel +1 970 682 1922 <tel:(970)%20682-1922>
> mob +1 970 214 9467 <tel:(970)%20214-9467>
> ssimmons at opengeospatial.org <mailto:ssimmons at opengeospatial.org>
>
> The OGC: Making Location Count…
> www.opengeospatial.org <http://www.opengeospatial.org>
>
>
>
>
>> On Jan 29, 2017, at 5:20 PM, Martin Isenburg
>> <martin.isenburg at gmail.com <mailto:martin.isenburg at gmail.com>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello Bruce,
>>
>> I assume that your refer to the email exchanges that
>> eventually led to this open letter
>>
>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter
>> <http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/LIDAR_Format_Letter>
>>
>> No. These concerns are not addressed. The proposed adoption of
>> the latest LAS 1.4 specification does - imho - *nothing* to
>> address what the open letter was about. The OGC is merely
>> taking the existing open, already widely used, and
>> uncompressed LAS 1.4 specification from the ASPRS [1] and
>> makes it a "community standard" of the OGC. This does *not*
>> address the concern about fragmentation of the compressed
>> LiDAR via the introduction of a proprietary "Optimized LAS"
>> format by ESRI. Is it a "first step" ... ? Maybe, but I do not
>> see how this leads to a second step ... especially given the
>> opinion of the chair of the ASPRS LAS Working Group (see below).
>>
>> [1] http://www.asprs.org/a/society/committees/standards/LAS_1_4_r13.pdf
>> <http://www.asprs.org/a/society/committees/standards/LAS_1_4_r13.pdf>
>>
>> There is complete lack of transparency and history keeping in
>> the ASPRS LAS Working Group (LWG) that defines the LAS format.
>> I am a member of the LWG and have repeatedly asked the chair
>> to please follow the usual protocol of a standardization body.
>> Currently all final decisions are made by the chair after a
>> round of emails on which the 15 or so members are copied. Most
>> of these members never participate in any discussion. The
>> history of all decision making only exists in form of emails
>> of the individual LWG members. This somehow works well when
>> the chair makes only wise decisions, but fails when there is
>> serious disagreement like in the "laser war of 2011" [2]. The
>> LAS format is called an "ASPRS standard" which means little
>> given how the LWG works but makes it looks really "legit" to
>> the public eye.
>>
>> [2] http://www.pobonline.com/articles/96260-proposed-las-1-4-spec-is-broken-says-lwg-member
>> <http://www.pobonline.com/articles/96260-proposed-las-1-4-spec-is-broken-says-lwg-member>
>>
>> I was hoping with the OGC giving the LAS 1.4 format its "stamp
>> of approval" the OGC would at least require some form of
>> openness in the way the LAS standard is maintained by asking
>> the ASRPS to make the LWG operate more like a proper
>> standardization body. But that does not seem to be the case as
>> evidenced by the email of the LWG chair copied below. So I
>> wonder ... what is the point of making LAS 1.4 an "OGC
>> community standard"? What does it accomplish? How do you want
>> me to vote?
>>
>> Maybe Howard Butler - also a member of the LWG - should weigh
>> in here.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> =====================================
>>
>> From: Lewis Graham <lgraham at geocue.com
>> <mailto:lgraham at geocue.com>>
>> Date: Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 1:14 AM
>> Subject: LAS to become OGC Community Standard
>> To: LAS Working Group Members
>>
>> Dear LAS Working Group –
>>
>> The OGC approached ASPRS (Michael Hauk) regarding the LAS
>> format becoming an OGC Community Standard. Though I am not
>> entirely sure of the value of a community standard (not
>> criticizing, just don’t know), the Community Standard status
>> has no impact on the workings or flexibility of the LWG.
>>
>> The summary points are:
>> · OGC would like to bring LAS 1.4 in as a Community
>> Standard (CS)
>> · The format document can remain as is with the
>> addition of a cover page and Intellectual Property Rights
>> statements.
>> · The CS of LAS 1.4 would be a frozen snapshot of
>> LAS. It would not be evolved by OGC.
>> · If LAS is to be updated by the OGC, it will be via
>> the same mechanism – e.g. LAS 2.0 would be developed by ASPRS
>> LAS Working Group (LWG)and then considered by OGC as a new
>> Community Standard
>> · Questions regarding the Community Standard version
>> of LAS 1.4 would be vectored to the LWG of the ASPRS. We
>> never approve changes to a fielded standard that would byte
>> someone. These questions are usually interpretation of fields
>> (for example, what does “Return 0 of n” mean? Is this a
>> warning level standard violation or a rejection level error?)
>> · The OGC is not concerned with the structure or
>> processes used by the LWG
>> · ASPRS would maintain its copyright
>> · The LAS Working Group remains the keeper and evolver
>> of LAS
>>
>> The ASRPS Board of Directors (I am not a member of the BOD)
>> voted to approve the adoption of LAS as an OGC Community
>> Standard on Sunday, 11 September 2016.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Lewis
>>
>> =====================================
>>
>> From: Lewis Graham <lgraham at geocue.com
>> <mailto:lgraham at geocue.com>>
>> Date: Fri, Sep 30, 2016 at 7:24 PM
>> Subject: RE: LAS to become OGC Community Standard
>> To: Martin Isenburg <martin.isenburg at gmail.com
>> <mailto:martin.isenburg at gmail.com>>
>> Cc: LAS Working Group Members
>>
>> Hi Martin,
>>
>> Sure, for reposting.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> Usually someone takes their standard to the OGC and asks if it
>> can become a “Community Standard.” I understand the OGC came
>> to ASPRS in this case.
>>
>> Seems completely benign to me in terms of the forward
>> direction of LAS.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Lewis
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 11:25 PM, Bruce Bannerman
>> <bruce.bannerman.osgeo at gmail.com
>> <mailto:bruce.bannerman.osgeo at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Colleagues,
>>
>> I recall a number of emails over recent years over
>> concerns regarding LIDAR data formats.
>>
>> I also saw the OGC TC vote that is currently open (see below).
>>
>>
>>
>> Have the issues that OSGeo members expressed a concern
>> with been resolved with this version of the proposed spec?
>>
>>
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>>
>>
>> =====
>>
>> This ballot is for recommendation to approve a new
>> Community standard work item for LAS 1.4.
>>
>>
>>
>> Abstract: LAS is a specification for a point cloud file
>> format. It is primarily used for transmitting laser point
>> cloud data (LiDAR) but can be used for any general 2D or
>> 3D point oriented encoding. The LAS specification is a
>> relatively compact binary encoding of point location and
>> point attribute data. Rather than store attributes in
>> referenced records, the light-weight attribute data of LAS
>> is stored in the same record as the point data. LAS is
>> widely implemented across the entire LiDAR community.
>>
>>
>>
>> The LAS 1.4 Community standard justification document
>> [16-139] can be downloaded from:
>>
>>
>>
>> Therefore, the Technical Committee Chair has initiated a
>> vote to recommend approval of a new Community standard
>> work item for LAS 1.4.
>>
>> This is a 45 day electronic vote. The vote will end on 2
>> February 2017.
>>
>> =====
>>
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