OGC Joins Interoperability Pact

The Open Geospatial Consortium (MA, USA), jointly with the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) and the North American Chapter of the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI-NA), has announced a formal co-operation agreement. An initial focus is likely to be creating an ifcXML- ifcGML model to improve the sharing of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) models between the AEC (architecture, engineering, construction) and geospatial communities. The IAI developed the IFC standard to facilitate interoperability in the building industry. IFC models include not just tangible components such as walls and furniture, but also concepts such as activities, spaces and costs. OGC's GML (Geography Markup Language) is one of the standards developed in its consensus process to facilitate interoperability when dealing with geospatial technologies such as GIS, GPS, aerial and satellite images, location services and sensor webs.