[OSGeo-Standards] OGC vote on LAS 1.4 as a community standard

Sun Jan 29 20:08:25 PST 2017

Hello Scott,

The OGC Community standard is intended to be an endorsement of an existing,
> widely-used specification by a voluntary consensus-based standards
> organization.
>

Thanks for your response. The LAS format perfectly fits that description
for an "OGC Community standard" and I want to see it succeed, both in its
current form as well as in its future updates. But I would object strongly
to call the ASPRS working group that currently maintains it a
"consensus-based standards organization". It more like a "discord-based
format flight club" ... (-;

I was just looking back at a format suggestion that I had made to make the
storage of the GPS time stamps more future proof that somehow was not at
all considered for inclusion in the LAS 1.4 standard.

http://groups.google.com/d/msg/lasroom/s3-OR4LP1IE/Jv9JoIvPCwAJ

Why not? Because there are no proper working group protocol (other than
some never-ratified document written by the chair overnight after me
complaining that there was no protocol a few years back).

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) ...

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 <(970)%20682-1922>
> mob +1 970 214 9467 <(970)%20214-9467>
> ssimmons at opengeospatial.org
>
> The OGC: Making Location Count…
> www.opengeospatial.org
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 29, 2017, at 5:20 PM, Martin Isenburg <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
>
> 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
>
> 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
>
> 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>
> 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>
> 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>
> 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> 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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>>
>
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