Ben Domenico October 25, 2009 Standards Process OutlineThe goal of this activity is to establish CF-netCDF as an OGC binary encoding standard. The approach is modeled on that taken for establishing KML as an OGC standard for XML encoding. One difference is that CF-netCDF will be standardized with a core and a set of extensions.. The standardization process for the core and each of the extension will involve the following steps:
This process is repeated (most likely with some overlap) by the SWG for the core and for each extension standard. The plan is to start with a core standard (the NetCDF classic) and at least one extension for the CF conventions. 1. A core netcdf encoding standard that is essentially the same as the netCDF standard that has been through the NASA ESDS (Earth Science Data Systems) Standards Process Group (SPG) process, namely: This will provide the foundation or substrate on which a number of extensions can be built. Exactly what those extensions will be is not clear in great detail at this time, but CF will have to be among the extensions in order to provide the needed semantic elements. A draft of the netCDF specification has been submitted to the OGC TC as discussion paper: 09-122 2. A CF extension standard based on the Climate and Forecast (CF) Conventions http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/documents/cf-conventions The CF Conventions standard document is also being developed for submission to the NASA ESDS Standards Process Group. So the CF extension will also be a joint OGC / NASA standard. Thus the core netCDF standard and the CF extension will form the basis for OGC CF-netCDF encoding specification. Other extensions may be added, but those will be addressed later. TimetableThe proposed timetable for establishing the core standard and the CF extension as an OGC encoding specification is ambitious:
Future Extensions and Related EffortsOther possible extensions that have been discussed are the netCDF API(s) and the data model(s) as well as XML/GML extensions that include the semantic metadata in a form compatible with the other OGC standards. One example of such a possible extension is ncML (netCDF Markup Language) and ncML-GMLencoding as well as encodings for other CF convention data types such as the proposed CF conventions for point/station data. Initial discussions have been initiated with the CF community and a draft CF standard specification is being developed. Further discussion will take place at the GO-ESSP (Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals) meeting October 6-8. The plan is to conduct this CF-netCDF effort in parallel with the work already underway in the WCS SWG to establish CF-netCDF as a specific binary encoding format for WCS. Charter Members of the SWG
Related Documents:Draft CF-netCDF Candidate Standardas OGC pending document 09-122 |