Since 1993 Safe Software has enabled organisations worldwide to overcome challenges associated with the efficient sharing of geospatial data. Safe Software’s FME (Feature Manipulation Engine) allows organisations to seamlessly access and translate data in over 190 GIS, CAD, raster and database formats. FME is a spatial ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) platform that enables users to easily design automated transformations that restructure data models so as to create datasets tailored to specific requirements. FME is deployed at over 5,500 sites in 116 countries and supports hundreds of different formats from dozens of vendors and agencies.

Interoperability
As a company that has built its business around providing access to spatial information, Safe Software has supported the initiatives of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) since it was established in 1994. Over the last thirteen years we have seen OGC influence lead to greatly enhanced data interoperability as vendors have increasingly recognised the value of adopting Geography Markup Language (GML) and other OGC specifications. This widespread implementation of OGC standards has provided us with substantial benefits. Most notably, OGC standards have en–abled more efficient fulfilment of our commitment to support as many differing formats from as many regions as possible. It is now much easier, for example, to support emerging national formats as international governments make the shift away from diverse approaches to the storage and exchange of information to formats based on GML. Instead of beginning from base principles each time, we are able to implement these new national formats by leveraging existing FME GML capability. Similarly, the OGC Simple Features Specification for SQL, currently implemented by many spatial databases, has enabled us to streamline development of interfaces and share architecture, design and implementation techniques.

Grammar
On a more conceptual level, the OGC’s OpenGIS Abstract Specification, which includes a common framework for describing interactions between feature geometries, has greatly simplified the challenges we face in preserving the meaning of data during data exchange. In essence, the OGC has not only created a common “language” for describing real-world geospatial objects, but has defined the grammar as well. In the emerging sphere of web services, OGC standards have been essential to the success of Safe Software’s server-based solutions. Broad implementation of OGC standards for Web Mapping Service (WMS) and, more recently, Web Feature Service (WFS), have enabled us to offer web services that can be read by a wide range of clients, even though these services have been developed in isolation by end users. Recent OGC initiatives to ratify new formats such as Keyhole Markup Language (KML) and GeoRSS are also an advantage to us; OGC endorsement will encourage adoption of KML and GeoRSS, thereby validating our investment in supporting these formats.

The geospatial community owes much to the OGC for championing the vision of data interoperability and providing a framework for the realisation of this vision. Safe Software is proud to play its part in bringing the benefits to users worldwide.

Editor’s note: RSS is a family of XML formats for exchanging news about web content; GeoRSS concerns RSS feeds described by location.