OASIS Emergency Management TC

>Delivered-To: 108-ejones@warningsystems.com
>Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:14:19 -0400
>From: Bob Bunge 

Interesting -

This is definitely a GIS/Geospatial type of discussion. To start the
discussion, I would suggest that the geometries be encoded as GML and not
SHAPE files. I would also look at a general solution for providing a
registry of geometries for any theme (not just FIPS codes). Two reasons
for the above statements: 1.) CAP is an International standard and not
just US and 2.) the INSPIRE directive in Europe mandates the use of
de-jure standards and GML is an ISO standard (Shape files are not).

More to follow on the use of Gazetteers as a registry of geometry resources.

Carl


I would encourage>
>>Delivered-To: 108-ejones@warningsystems.com
>>Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:14:19 -0400
>>From: Bob Bunge 

This is an issue in the U.S. because the existing EAS and Weather Radio
use FIPS county codes.  Other countries may have different legacies, or
none at all.  

The immediate requirement is to adapt information commonly available in
shapefile format to the existing CAP 1.1 format.  Again, this is an
implementation activity, not really a standardization issue.

Long term we should continue to discourage the use of a-priori
administrative boundaries such as those represented by FIPS codes for
alert targeting geometries.

- Art


Art Botterell, Manager
Community Warning System
Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff
50 Glacier Drive
Martinez, California 94553
(925) 313-9603
fax (925) 646-1120

>>> 

Thanks, Art -

Actually, it is a standards issue as a couple of the comments received
during the comment period have to do with how to enable CAP to deal with
more complex geometries than are currently supported. The key geometry
type of interest is "Polygon".

Cheers

Carl
> This is an issue in the U.S. because the existing EAS and Weather Radio
> use FIPS county codes.  Other countries may have different legacies, or
> none at all.
>
> The immediate requirement is to adapt information commonly available in
> shapefile format to the existing CAP 1.1 format.  Again, this is an
> implementation activity, not really a standardization issue.
>
> Long term we should continue to discourage the use of a-priori
> administrative boundaries such as those represented by FIPS codes for
> alert targeting geometries.
>
> - Art
>
>
> Art Botterell, Manager
> Community Warning System
> Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff
> 50 Glacier Drive
> Martinez, California 94553
> (925) 313-9603
> fax (925) 646-1120
>
>>>> 

The topic of the email Elysa forwarded was how to adapt existing
(shapefile) data to the existing CAP 1.1 format.  And in particular, how
best to simplify existing GIS polygons to keep their XML representations
from being unwieldy.  In that regard I'm not sure it makes a great deal
of difference whether the encoding is GML or not, but in any event CAP
1.1 is what it is.

And again I'd stress that this problem really only arises when the
originator tries to use some pre-determined and -coded geometry as a
shortcut to describing the area of a particular incident.  That's a
legacy practice we have to accommodate for now, but it's not a practice
we want to encourage, at least not in the alerting domain.

- Art


>>> 

Hi,

When you say simplify what exactly do you mean?  Not having holes? (i.e.
only a single boundary).  This can easily be done by stating as such.
You could more formally restrict this in GML as well if you wish.

R



                                                

					
                                                    

        
                                                
				
                                                

                                                    
                                                        
                                                        Original Message
                                                
                                                Original Message-----
From: Art Botterell [mailto:ABott@so.cccounty.us] 
Sent: September 16, 2008 12:16 PM
To: creed@opengeospatial.org
Cc: emergency@lists.oasis-open.org; Elysa Jones
Subject: Re: [emergency] Fwd: Re: [CAP] Need advice on FIPS code
toPolygon conversion

The topic of the email Elysa forwarded was how to adapt existing
(shapefile) data to the existing CAP 1.1 format.  And in particular, how
best to simplify existing GIS polygons to keep their XML representations
from being unwieldy.  In that regard I'm not sure it makes a great deal
of difference whether the encoding is GML or not, but in any event CAP
1.1 is what it is.

And again I'd stress that this problem really only arises when the
originator tries to use some pre-determined and -coded geometry as a
shortcut to describing the area of a particular incident.  That's a
legacy practice we have to accommodate for now, but it's not a practice
we want to encourage, at least not in the alerting domain.

- Art


>>>