RE: [emergency] Circle and Polygon

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@intergraph.com>]

Having taken a look at the referenced documents:

1.  By claiming geography, GML claims geometry.   I am 
curious why you say this is not a mapping application. 
It appears to be the geometric component which 
can then be mixed via namespaces with other components, 
but the primary application is mapping for information 
management purposes.  It is clearly GIS.  It is not 
the whole story on geometry.

2.  GML application languages incorporate GML geometry. 
Are they free to incorporate geometry from other vector 
formats?

The problem here is that not all elements that are spatio-temporal 
and application specific are best described by this model.  I 
recognize the XML means and that is sound.   However, the issues 
of object-model behavioral fidelity and rendering fidelity are 
not addressed AFAICT.   Where GML is an excellent basis for 
GIS, GIS is not the whole story of spatial management because 
the most important aspects of distributed simulation are not 
described.

So there is a case to be made for X3D systems that reuse GML 
information.  I suspect however, there will be clashes in the 
object model fidelity as rendered into the simulation systems. 
It seems odd that the OGC works with SVG yet does not work 
with X3D given that the other important standards (XSBC, 
XMSF) work with X3D.  What is the story for the use of GML 
in real-time distributed simulation and visualization of 
real world objects?

len


From: Carl Reed OGC [mailto:creed@opengeospatial.org]

Claude -

GML is not a mapping standard! GML is a standard, grounded in a variety of 
ISO 19*** series standards, for 
encoding/expressing/communicating/transporting 
geographic/location/geospatially enabled content. Now, in terms of 3D, I 
would strongly encourage you to check out LandGML 
(http://www.transxml.org/GML+Experiment/Resources/261.aspx and 
(http://www.opengeospatial.org/initiatives/?iid=133) and CityGML 
(http://www.ikg.uni-bonn.de/sig3d/docs/Gi4Dm_2005_Kolbe_Groeger.pdf), both 
application profiles of GML 3.1.

In terms of SVG, there are any number of tools that do GML to SVG for 
rendering. Some are free, some are for fee.