FW: [emergency-comment] Public Comment

["David Danko" <DDanko@esri.com>]

EM TC (and Maurits)

Some comments on the comments below about using GML:

1. If we want to use GML, keep it OPTIONAL AND IN-ADDITION to the way it
is now, mandating a few simple geometries and WGS 84

2. True, Australia uses GDA 94, North America uses NAD 83; but in an
international specification it is best to use a global model especially
for what EDXL is designed for. To quote an Australian publication:

"Given that the ITRF and WGS84 reference frames are also
very closely aligned, for most practical purposes GDA94
and WGS84 coordinates can be considered the same"

3. When you use a GPS receiver the coordinates are displayed in WGS 84
(even in Australia)

4. EDXL will be used in clients that CAN NOT handle coordinate
transformations. So the coordinate reference system should be known
ahead of time - identifying it in the EDXL is the best way to do this.

Using GML/user identified coordinate reference systems will be fine for
users needing to additionally identify target areas down to the
centimeter and correcting for tectonic plate continental drift.
  
Dave


David M. Danko
GIS Standards
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.
8620 Westwood Center Drive
Vienna, VA 22182-2214
USA
E-mail: ddanko@esri.com
Tel: 703-506-9515 x 8011
Mobile: 703-989-1863
Fax: 703-506 9514

-----Original Message-----
From: comment-form@oasis-open.org [mailto:comment-form@oasis-open.org] 
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2006 8:49 PM
To: emergency-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [emergency-comment] Public Comment

Comment from: mvandervlugt@skm.com.au

Name: Maurits van der Vlugt
Title: Senior Business Systems Consultant
Organization: Sinclair Knight Merz Pty Ltd
Regarding Specification: EDXL-DE

Dear EM TC Members,

I am responding to the EDXL-Dev1.0 specification, issued 14 February, on
behalf of Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), an international engineering
consulting firm, based in Australia.

Amongst others, we are involved in feasibility studies for Emergency
Management (EM) systems, dispatching, GIS and interoperability, for a
wide range of clients. Currently, we are finalising a "Resource Tracking
and Information Management Feasibility Study" for the Office of the
Emergency Services Commissioner (OESC) in the state of Victoria.

In this light, we applaud the efforts by this TC and welcome the
EDXL-Dev1.0 specification. However, we have some concerns about its
potential impacts on interoperability between EM and spatial information
systems (GIS):

1)	Through our experience in Australia with the OESC study and
other projects such as the Spatial Interoperability Demonstration
Project (SIDP: www.sidp.com.au), we know that (geo-)graphical display of
EM-related information (such as resources, dispatches, incident reports)
in multi-agency collaborative environments is critical.
2)	Geospatial display and analysis is most commonly done with
Commercial off the Shelf tools, virtually all of which now can by
default ingest Geographic Markup Language (GML) as the standard format
for exchange of geographic features and their attributes. Hence, the
inclusion of a (simple) GML structure in the TargetArea object of
EDXL-DEv1.0 would be considered critical for easy adoption of the
standard for EM interoperability purposes.
3)	By adopting GML as the method for location description, we would
also enable the use of alternative spatial reference systems. In
Australia, the national standard for instance is not GWS84, but GDA94.
And I'm sure similar situations exist in other countries.
4)	Adopting GML would also mean the automatic inclusion of an
altitude element (relevant for e.g. locating of aircraft) and temporal
resource tracking.

In summary: effortless and seamless interoperability between EM and
(COTS) GIS systems is an essential prerequisite for successful
multi-agency EM collaboration. We strongly recommend that this TC
seriously consider using the universally accepted standard of GML to
represent geographic locations within the EDXL-DE specification to
achieve this level of seamless and effortless interoperability.

Many thanks for your consideration, and wishing you all the best with
your work,

Regards,

Maurits van der Vlugt
Senior Business Systems Consultant
Sinclair Knight Merz Pty Ltd
mvandervlugt@skm.com.au 



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