1. ISO TC 211 Standard Development Activities Related to Earth Observations
A Liaison Report
from ISO TC211 to CEOS WGISS-44
Prof. Liping Di, Ph.D.
ISO/TC 211 liaison to CEOS WGISS
CEOS WGISS liaison to ISO/TC 211
Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems (CSISS)
George Mason University

2. Contents ISO TC 211 Organization Changes;
ISO TC 211 Standard projects related to CEOS

3. Introduction
ISO stands for International Organization for Standardization.
ISO Technical Committee 211 (TC 211) is responsible for setting international standards on geographic information/ geometics.
ISO TC 211 has set up liaison relationship with many related external organizations, including CEOS WGISS
CEOS WGISS is a class-A liaison of ISO TC 211
ISO TC 211 appointed Dr. Liping Di as its liaison to CEOS WGISS
CEOS WGISS appointed Dr. Wyn Cudlip, Mr. Lorant Czaran, and Dr. Liping Di as its liaison to ISO TC 211
This liaison report briefs some activities and changes in ISO TC 211 that CEOS WGISS may be interested

4. New Secretariat of ISO TC 211
Since the establishment of ISO TC 211 in 1994, its secretariat has been held in Norwegian Mapping Agency, with Mr. Olaf M. Østensen as the chair, and, Mrs. Bjørnhild Saeterøy as the Secretary
The ISO Executive Board has imposed the term limit for the Chair to two consecutive terms, with total of 8 years
Olaf was retired at the end of 2016
Norway expressed to give up the secretariat
Three countries offered to host the ISO TC 211 secretariat
Sweden, Turkey, China
The ISO TC 211 p-member voted to accept the offer from Sweden and ISO Technical Management Board (TMB) confirmed the voting result
Secretariat is hosted by Swedish Standards Institute (SIS)
Chairman: Ms. Christina Wasström  Lantmäteriet, Sweden
Secretariat: Ms. Therése Andrén Swedish Standards Institute (SIS)

5. Standards progressed since last report
ISO : Geographic information -- Calibration and validation of remote sensing imagery sensors -- Part: 3: SAR/InSAR
Passed DTS vote in April 2017
Will automatically become ISO Technical Specification in this year
ISO : Geographic information -- Imagery sensor models for geopositioning -- Part 1: Fundamentals (Revision of ISO/TS 19130:2010)
Passed the DIS vote (draft international standard)
No major technical changes is possible
Will become ISO standard sometime in the next year
ISO/TS Geographic Information – Coverage Implementation Schema
Passed the DIS vote

6. On-going projects that WGISS can contribute to
ISO Geographic Information – Coverage – Part 1: Fundamentals
A revision of ISO/TS 19123:2005 Schema for coverage geometry and functions
ISO Geographic Information- Imagery sensor models for geopositioning, Part 3: encoding schema
ISO Geographic information - Ontology, Part 4: Service ontology
Project at WD stage
ISO Geographic information -- Preservation of digital data and metadata -- Part 2: Content specifications for earth observation data and derived digital products

7. ISO 19123-1 Geographic Information – Coverage – Part 1: Fundamentals
This is a revision of ISO 19123:2005 Geographic information -- Schema for coverage geometry and functions
The revision of the standard just starts- Liping Di serving as the project chair.
Scope:Define conceptual schema for coverages. A coverage is a mapping from a spatial, temporal or spatiotemporal domain to attribute values sharing the same type within the domain. A coverage domain consists of a collection of direct positions in a coordinate space that may be defined in terms of spatial and/or temporal dimensions. Examples of coverages include rasters, triangulated irregular networks, point coverages and polygon coverages
Coverages are the prevailing data structures in a number of application areas, such as remote sensing, meteorology and mapping of bathymetry, elevation, soil and vegetation.

8. New work item proposal approved by ISO TC 211
ISO Geographic Information- Imagery sensor models for geopositioning, Part 3: implementation schema
New work item proposal approved by ISO TC 211
Form the project team and have the project team meeting in next plenary
Project chair: Yuqi Bai of China
Project editor: Liping Di of U.S.
Provide SensorML compatible XML schema for ISO and ISO

9. The project is at the development of working draft stage
ISO Geographic information - Ontology, Part 4: Service ontology
Scope: this part of ISO sets a framework for geographic information service ontology and the description of geographic information Web services in OWL
The project is at the development of working draft stage
Jiantao Bi of China as the project chair and Mr. Jean Brodeur of Canada as the editor

10. New work item proposal has approved
ISO Geographic information -- Preservation of digital data and metadata -- Part 2: Content specifications for earth observation data and derived digital products
Proposed by US (NASA)
New work item proposal has approved
9 countries will participate in the project
Define the content and metadata needed to preserve the digital EO data
Project chair is Hampapuram Ramapriyan of USA
This standard takes advantage of the work performed by the Data Preservation and Stewardship Committee of the U.S. Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), NASA, ESA, and CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services (WGISS). The documents from these groups are integrated, along with the ISO standards mentioned above to provide specific content items to be preserved from Earth observing missions for the benefit of users.

11. Next Plenary
The next ISO TC 211 will be held in Wellington, New Zealand November 27-December 1, 2017.
The following week is the OGC TC meeting in Palmer, NewZealand