[MetaCRS] 'FOSS Maintained' Source of CRS Definitions

[Dean C.Mikkelsen]

A brief history of the EPSG can be found here:

http://www.energistics.org/posc/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=242&SnID=2

Cheers,
Dean


On Mon, 12 May 2008 16:31:35 -0500
  Howard Butler <hobu.inc at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On May 12, 2008, at 2:52 PM, Norm Olsen wrote:
>>
>> OPERATIONAL APPLICATION
>>
>> Establishing an operational site sounds like a nightmare 
>>for a  
>> volunteer based organization.  OGP/EPSG has established 
>>a web based  
>> site from which a web client can obtain EPSG definitions 
>>in GML  
>> form.  EPSG does not support all the definitions we 
>>would like.  So  
>> I think the appropriate course of action is to establish 
>>a working  
>> relationship with EPSG and use what they have 
>>established and work  
>> to get the definitions we require added to the database.
>>
>> There may be fees involved in using this service, but 
>>funds to  
>> operate need to come from someplace. :>)
>>
> 
> At the time we rolled out http://spatialreference.org, 
>the EPSG  registry was just coming into existence (I 
>don't know who preceded  who, but EPSG's idea for the 
>site must have existed for much longer  than the two days 
>in which we conceived and implemented sr.org ;).    The 
>EPSG registry website (http://www.epsg-registry.org) is 
>atrocious  to use, especially from a hands-off, developer 
>perspective.  One thing  we wanted sr.org to excel at was 
>to allow softwares that can speak  HTTP to easily be able 
>to fetch (and create new) coordinate reference  systems. 
> In that sense, I think sr.org has been a successful 
> demonstration as shown by proj4js' and GDAL's ability to 
>consume  sr.org URLs and dereference them into something 
>they can interpret. If  we were to take on building 
>something (as http://spatialreference.org  or otherwise), 
>I think that property of sr.org is an important one to 
> keep.
> 
> I'll confess to being quite naive when it comes to 
>coordinate  reference system description, and I will 
>gladly leave the details to  the experts like yourself 
>who work with this stuff all day everyday.   On the other 
>hand, I'm skeptical that coming up with a uber- 
>encompassing dictionary of descriptions is a project that 
>has a high  probability of success.  A question I ask 
>myself is if this problem is  solvable, why hasn't it 
>been solved yet?  Is it merely a communication  problem, 
>where getting all of the right people in a room can solve 
> it?  Is it a complexity issue, where all of the 
>permutations of how  people/software can do things make 
>capturing all of it a monumental  task?  Is it a 
>political issue, where organizations like EPSG who act 
> as authorities move too slow to update their registry? 
> Does *THE  STANDARD* already solve it and it is just 
>generally not in wide enough  use yet?
> 
> Is the juicy, solvable problem for MetaCRS the common 
>description of  coordinate reference systems (and all of 
>the details that you've  described), or is it software(s) 
>that can speak all of the coordinate  reference system 
>description languages that are out there (31 flavors  of 
>WKT, proj, EPSG codes, etc) and act as a Babel Fish? Or, 
>to be  successful, do we really have to tackle both?
> 
>> OK, you can wake up now.  I'm done.
> 
> Thanks for the excellent treatise of where things are 
>currently.   Sorry that I just have more meandering 
>questions to ask...
> 
> Howard
> _______________________________________________
> MetaCRS mailing list
> MetaCRS at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/metacrs

Dean C. Mikkelsen, B.Sc., P.Eng.

E-mail: dcmikkelsen at terraetl.com

http://www.terraetl.com