[OSGeo-Standards] Simple (COGO) Coordinate Geometry Text Format Specification Released Today

[Landon Blake]

I'm not sure how many of you were aware of LandXML, or aware that it died
last year. I was disappointed to learn this, as it was basically the only
effort to transparently share land surveying and civil engineering data
between software programs.

The land surveying world seems to be even more locked down by hardware and
software vendors than the GIS world, and it is very hard to exchange data
between programs. The RINEX format for the exchange of GPS data may be the
one exception, and I think it only survives because of support from
academia.

Today, I made the first release of an open technology standard from the
SurveyOS Project. The Simple COGO Text Format Specification defines a
simple delimited text format for the transfer and storage of common land
surveying measurements.

I'm currently working on some open source Java code to support the reading
and writing of the format.

Please remember this is very preliminary stuff, and it will probably evolve
a bit as I work the kinks out of the software library.

It is a small step, but I hope and important one after the death of
LandXML. I hope to release other file format specifications for related
surveying/geospatial data in the coming months.

I'd welcome involvement from other OSGeo members in the specification
development, as well as support for the spec in other programming languages.

You can learn more, and download the Simple COGO Text Format Specification
from:
http://www.redefinedhorizons.com/surveyos/standards-simple-cogo-text-format-version-1-0-released/

Thanks.

Landon (AKA - The Sunburned Surveyor)
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