CEN/TR 15449-3:2012

Geographic information - Spatial data infrastructures - Part 3: Data centric view

Part 3 of the Technical Report describes a data-centric view of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). The Data Centric view addresses the concepts of semantic interoperability, the methodology for developing data specifications through the application of the relevant International Standards, and the content of such specifications including Application Schemas, Feature Catalogues, General Feature Model, Data Lifecycle Management and Data Quality, Data Access and Data Transformation.
The intended readership of this Technical Report are those people who are responsible for creating frameworks for SDI, experts contributing to INSPIRE, experts in information and communication technologies and e-government that need to familiarise themselves with geographic information and SDI concepts, and standards developers and writers.

Geoinformation - Geodateninfrastrukturen - Teil 3: Datenzentrierte Sicht

Teil 3 dieses Technischen Berichts beschreibt eine datenzentrierte Sicht einer Geodateninfrastruktur (GDI). Diese datenzentrierte Sicht befasst sich mit der semantischen Interoperabilität, der Methodik für die Entwicklung von Datenspezifikationen durch Anwendung der zutreffenden internationalen Normen sowie dem Inhalt dieser Spezifikationen, darunter Anwendungsschemata, Feature-Kataloge, allgemeines Feature-Modell (General Feature Model), Datenlebenszyklus Management und Datenqualität, Datenzugriff sowie Datentransformation.
Der vorliegende Technische Bericht wendet sich an die Entwickler von GDI Rahmenrichtlinien, an die an der Erarbeitung der INSPIRE Richtlinie beteiligten Fachleute, Experten auf dem Gebiet der Informations  und Kommunikationstechnologie und des E Governments, die sich mit Geoinformations  und GDI Konzepten vertraut machen müssen, sowie an die Entwickler und Autoren von Normen und Standards.

Information géographique - Infrastructures de données spatiales - Partie 3: vue centrée sur les données d'une infrastructure de données spatiales (IDS)

Geografske informacije - Infrastrukture za prostorske podatke - 3. del: Podatkovno usmerjen vidik

3. del tehničnega poročila opisuje podatkovno usmerjen vidik infrastrukture za prostorske podatke (SDI). Podatkovno usmerjeni vidik obravnava pojme semantične interoperabilnosti, metodologijo za pripravo podatkovnih specifikacij z uporabo ustreznih mednarodnih standardov in vsebino tovrstnih specifikacij, vključno s sistemi uporabe, katalogi lastnosti, splošnim modelom lastnosti, upravljanjem z življenjskim ciklom podatkov ter kakovostjo podatkov, dostopom do podatkov in pretvorbo podatkov. To tehnično poročilo je namenjeno ciljnim skupinam ljudi, ki so odgovorni za oblikovanje okvirov infrastrukture za prostorske podatke, strokovnjakom, ki prispevajo k direktivi INSPIRE, strokovnjakom na področju informacijskih in komunikacijskih tehnologij, e-upravi, ki se mora seznaniti s konceptoma geografskih informacij in infrastrukture za prostorske podatke, ter pripravljavcem in avtorjem standardov.

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 23-Oct-2012
• ICS: 07.040 - Astronomy. Geodesy. Geography
• ICS: 35.240.70 - IT applications in science
• Technical Committee: CEN/TC 287 - Geographic Information
• Drafting Committee: CEN/TC 287 - Geographic Information
• Current Stage: 6060 - Definitive text made available (DAV) - Publishing
• Start Date: 24-Oct-2012
• Due Date: 28-Feb-2013
• Completion Date: 24-Oct-2012
• Ref Project: SIST-TP CEN/TR 15449-3:2013 - Geographic information - Spatial data infrastructures - Part 3: Data centric view

Relations

• Replaces: CEN/TR 15449:2011 - Geographic information - Standards, specifications, technical reports and guidelines, required to implement Spatial Data Infrastructures
• Effective Date: 08-Jun-2022

Standards Content (Sample)

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
SIST-TP CEN/TR 15449-3:2013
01-januar-2013
1DGRPHãþD
SIST-TP CEN/TR 15449:2011

Geografske informacije - Infrastrukture za prostorske podatke - 3. del: Podatkovno

usmerjen vidik

Geographic information - Spatial data infrastructures - Part 3: Data centric view

Geoinformation - Geodateninfrastrukturen - Teil 3: Datenzentrierte Sicht

Information géographique - Infrastructures de données spatiales - Partie 3: vue centrée

sur les données d'une infrastructure de données spatiales (IDS)
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: CEN/TR 15449-3:2012
ICS:
07.040 Astronomija. Geodezija. Astronomy. Geodesy.
Geografija Geography
35.240.70 Uporabniške rešitve IT v IT applications in science
znanosti
SIST-TP CEN/TR 15449-3:2013 en,fr,de

2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

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SIST-TP CEN/TR 15449-3:2013
TECHNICAL REPORT
CEN/TR 15449-3
RAPPORT TECHNIQUE
TECHNISCHER BERICHT
October 2012
ICS 35.240.70; 07.040 Supersedes CEN/TR 15449:2011
English Version
Geographic information - Spatial data infrastructures - Part 3:
Data centric view

Information géographique - Infrastructures de données Geoinformation - Geodateninfrastrukturen - Teil 3:

spatiales - Partie 3: vue centrée sur les données d'une Datenzentrierte Sicht
infrastructure de données spatiales (IDS)

This Technical Report was approved by CEN on 27 May 2012. It has been drawn up by the Technical Committee CEN/TC 287.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,

Finland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania,

Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United

Kingdom.
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION
EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG
Management Centre: Avenue Marnix 17, B-1000 Brussels

© 2012 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. CEN/TR 15449-3:2012: E

worldwide for CEN national Members.
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Contents Page

Foreword ..............................................................................................................................................................4

Introduction .........................................................................................................................................................5

1 Scope ......................................................................................................................................................7

2 Normative references ............................................................................................................................7

3 Terms and definitions ...........................................................................................................................7

4 Abbreviated terms .................................................................................................................................8

5 Data-centric view on SDI .................................................................................................................... 10

5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 10

5.2 The model-driven approach ............................................................................................................... 11

6 Aspects of data specifications .......................................................................................................... 12

6.1 General ................................................................................................................................................. 12

6.2 Semantics and semantic interoperability ......................................................................................... 12

6.3 Conceptual schema language ........................................................................................................... 13

6.3.1 Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 13

6.3.2 Relevant standards ............................................................................................................................. 14

6.3.3 Examples and tools ............................................................................................................................ 14

6.4 Application schema ............................................................................................................................ 14

6.4.1 Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 14

6.4.2 Relevant standards ............................................................................................................................. 16

6.4.3 Examples and tools ............................................................................................................................ 16

6.5 Features and feature catalogues....................................................................................................... 17

6.5.1 Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 17

6.5.2 Relevant standards ............................................................................................................................. 18

6.5.3 Examples and tools ............................................................................................................................ 18

6.6 Portrayal .............................................................................................................................................. 18

6.6.1 Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 18

6.6.2 Relevant standards ............................................................................................................................. 18

6.6.3 Examples and tools ............................................................................................................................ 19

6.7 Encoding .............................................................................................................................................. 19

6.7.1 Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 19

6.7.2 Relevant standards ............................................................................................................................. 20

7 Data management ............................................................................................................................... 20

7.1 Accessing data .................................................................................................................................... 20

7.2 Quality and conformity of spatial datasets ...................................................................................... 20

7.2.1 Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 20

7.2.2 Relevant standards ............................................................................................................................. 21

7.3 Spatial referencing.............................................................................................................................. 22

7.3.1 Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 22

7.3.2 Relevant standards ............................................................................................................................. 23

7.3.3 Examples and tools ............................................................................................................................ 23

7.4 Identifier management ....................................................................................................................... 23

7.4.1 Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 23

7.4.2 Relevant standards ............................................................................................................................. 24

8 Metadata .............................................................................................................................................. 24

8.1 Metadata types .................................................................................................................................... 24

8.1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 24

8.1.2 Discovery metadata ............................................................................................................................ 24

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8.1.3 Feature level metadata ........................................................................................................................ 24

8.1.4 Dataset metadata ................................................................................................................................. 24

8.3 Examples and tools ............................................................................................................................. 25

9 Data Product Specification ................................................................................................................. 25

9.1 Role of a Data Product Specification ................................................................................................ 25

9.2 Stepwise approach .............................................................................................................................. 25

9.2.1 General ................................................................................................................................................. 25

9.2.2 Step 1 – Use case development ......................................................................................................... 26

9.2.3 Step 2 – Identification of the user requirements and spatial object types .................................... 27

9.2.4 Step 3 – As-is analysis ........................................................................................................................ 27

9.2.5 Step 4 – Gap analysis .......................................................................................................................... 28

9.2.6 Step 5 – Data Specification Development ......................................................................................... 28

9.2.7 Step 6 – Implementation, test and validation ................................................................................... 28

9.2.8 Step 7 – Cost-benefit analysis ........................................................................................................... 28

9.3 Content of a Data Product Specification ........................................................................................... 29

9.4 Relevant standards ............................................................................................................................. 29

9.5 Examples and tools ............................................................................................................................. 29

Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................................... 30

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Foreword

This document (CEN/TR 15449-3:2012) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 287

“Geographic information”, the secretariat of which is held by BSI.

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent

rights. CEN [and/or CENELEC] shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

This document supersedes CEN/TR 15449:2011.
The present standard comprises the following parts:

 CEN/TR 15449-1, Geographic information — Spatial data infrastructures — Part 1: Reference model

 CEN/TR 15449-2, Geographic information — Spatial data infrastructures — Part 2: Best practices

 CEN/TR 15449-3, Geographic information — Spatial data infrastructures — Part 3: Data centric view (the

present part);

 CEN/TR 15449-4, Geographic information — Spatial Data Infrastructure — Part 4: Service centric view

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Introduction

Spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is a general term for the computerised environment for handling data that

relates to a position on or near the surface of the earth. It may be defined in a range of ways, in different

circumstances, from the local up to the global level.

This Technical Report focuses on the technical aspects of SDIs, thereby limiting the term SDI to mean an

implementation neutral technological infrastructure for geospatial data and services, based upon standards

and specifications. It does not consider an SDI as a carefully designed and dedicated information system;

rather, it is viewed as a collaborative framework of disparate information systems that contain resources that

stakeholders desire to share. The common denominator of SDI resources, which can be data or services, is

their spatial nature. It is understood that the framework is in constant evolution, and that therefore the

requirements for standards and specifications supporting SDI implementations evolve continuously.

SDIs are becoming more and more linked and integrated with systems developed in the context of e-

Government. Important drivers for this evolution are the Digital Agenda for Europe, and related policies (see

Part 1). By sharing emerging requirements at an early stage with the standardization bodies, users of SDIs

can help influence the revision of existing or the conception of new standards.

The users of an SDI are considered to be those individuals or organisations that, in the context of their

business processes, need to share and access geo-resources in a meaningful and sustainable way. Based on

platform- and vendor-neutral standards and specifications, an SDI aims at assisting organisations and

individuals in publishing, finding, delivering, and eventually, using geographic information and services over

the internet across borders of information communities in a more cost-effective manner.

Existing material about SDIs abounds. The criteria used for determining if a given standard or specification is

referred to in this report are that the publication addresses an aspect of SDI, and that it is non-proprietary in

nature.

Based on these considerations, the following reports have been taken into account:

• legal texts and guidelines produced in the context of INSPIRE;
• documents produced by ISO/TC 211 (and co-published by CEN);

• documents produced by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), including the OpenGIS Reference

Model (ORM);
• the European Interoperability Framework and related documents;
• deliverables from the European Union-funded projects (e.g. GIGAS, SANY).

Considering the complexity of the subject and the need to capture and formalise different conceptual and

modelling views, CEN/TR 15449 is comprised of multiple parts:

• Part 1: Reference model: this provides a general context model for the other Parts, applying general IT

architecture standards;

• Part 2: Best Practice: this provides best practices guidance for implementing SDI, through the evaluation

of the projects in the frame of the European Union funding programmes;

• Part 3: Data centric view: this addresses concerns related to the data, which includes application schemas

and metadata;
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• Part 4: Service centric view (in preparation): this includes the taxonomy of services, concepts of

interoperability, service architecture, service catalogue, and the underlying IT standards.

Further parts may be added in the future.
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1 Scope

Part 3 of the Technical Report describes a data-centric view of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). The Data

Centric view addresses the concepts of semantic interoperability, the methodology for developing data

specifications through the application of the relevant International Standards, and the content of such

specifications including Application Schemas, Feature Catalogues, General Feature Model, Data Lifecycle

Management and Data Quality, Data Access and Data Transformation.

The intended readership of this Technical Report are those people who are responsible for creating

frameworks for SDI, experts contributing to INSPIRE, experts in information and communication technologies

and e-government that need to familiarise themselves with geographic information and SDI concepts, and

standards developers and writers.
2 Normative references
Not applicable.
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
3.1
conceptual formalism
set of modelling concepts used to describe a conceptual model
EXAMPLE UML meta model, EXPRESS meta model.

Note 1 to entry: One conceptual formalism can be expressed in several conceptual schema languages.

[SOURCE: EN ISO 19101:2005]
3.2
conceptual model
model that defines concepts of a universe of discourse
[SOURCE: EN ISO 19101:2005]
3.3
conceptual schema
formal description of a conceptual model
[SOURCE: EN ISO 19101:2005]
3.4
conceptual schema language

formal language based on a conceptual formalism for the purpose of representing conceptual schemas

EXAMPLE UML, EXPRESS, IDEF1X.

Note 1 to entry: A conceptual schema language may be lexical or graphical. Several conceptual schema languages

can be based on the same conceptual formalism.
[SOURCE: EN ISO 19101:2005]
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3.5
conformance
fulfilment of specified requirements
[SOURCE: EN ISO 19113:2005]
3.6
component

physical, replaceable part of a system that packages implementation and provides the realisation of a set of

interfaces
[SOURCE: ISO/TS 19103:2005]
3.7
identifier

linguistically independent sequence of characters capable of uniquely and permanently identifying that with

which it is associated
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 11179-3:2003]
3.8
interoperability

capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among various functional units in a manner that

requires the user to have little or no knowledge of the unique characteristics of those units

[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993]
3.9
reference frame
aggregation of the data needed by different components of an information system
3.10
resource
asset or means that fulfils a requirement
[SOURCE: EN ISO 19115:2005]
3.11
spatial data infrastructure
SDI

policies, standards and procedures under which organisations and technologies interact to foster more

efficient use, management and production of geo-spatial data
[SOURCE: United Nations SDI initiative (UNSDI)]
3.12
Use Case

specification of a sequence of actions, including variants, that a system (or other entity) can perform,

interacting with actors of the system
[SOURCE: OMG UML Specification]
4 Abbreviated terms
API Application Programming Interface
ATS Abstract Test Suite
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CEN European Committee for Standardization / Comité Européen de Normalisation
CRS Coordinate Reference System
DCE Distributed Computing Environment
DPS Data Product Specification
ebXML Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language
EDR Entity Relationship Diagrams
EN European Standard (CEN deliverable)
EPSG European Petroleum Survey Group
ESDIN European Spatial Data Infrastructure Best Practice Network
INSPIRE Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe
IT Information Technology
GEOSS Global Earth Observation System of Systems
GIGAS GEOSS, INSPIRE and GMES an Action in Support
gmd Geographic MetaData
GMES Global Monitoring for Environment and Security
GML Geography Markup Language
GSDI Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association
IEC International Electrotechnical Commission
ISO International Organisation for Standardization
NMA National Mapping Agency
OCL Object Constraint Language
ODP Open Distributed Processing
OGC Open Geospatial Consortium
OMG Object Management Group
OSI Open System Interconnection
RM-ODP Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing
REST Representational State Transfer
SDI Spatial Data Infrastructure
SOA Service Oriented Architecture
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SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol
SQL Standard Query Language
TC Technical Committee
TR Technical Report
TS Technical Specification
UML Unified Modelling Language
UNSDI United Nations SDI
URI Uniform Resource Identifier
UUID Universally Unique Identifier
WSDL Web Service Description Language
XMI eXtensible Markup Interface
XML eXtensible Markup Language
5 Data-centric view on SDI
5.1 Introduction

Exchange of and access to spatial data is the principal objective of an SDI. The data are at the heart of an SDI.

The spatial data in an SDI are a model of the real world. This model is developed according to well defined

methodologies described in different standards. The model is made explicit through a concise description of

data specifications in data specification documents. These specifications can then be used to develop new

datasets or to transform existing datasets to the specifications by mapping the existing model to the model

described in the specifications. In this way, semantic interoperability can be achieved: i.e. different datasets

can be used together and be understood by different users in the same way. Metadata are part of the datasets

and should get proper attention during the data modelling. Metadata will play a crucial role in documenting

and understanding the content of the data model and data product specification, in achieving technical

interoperability.

On top of the data, and by making use of the metadata, services can be built to make the data accessible

through the web and to use them in any information system by viewing, downloading or processing them.

This is often referred to as a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). A SOA enables new and existing enterprise

systems to share services, information and data across technical platforms, departments and ultimately

across organisational, regional and national boundaries. The benefit is that this leads from a stand-alone

system-centric view to an enterprise data-centric view of IT. The transition to a data-centric SOA allows an

SDI to better leverage new and existing IT investments to support such an infrastructure. The data-centric

transition builds a strategy around the organisations and their geospatial data infrastructure both to preserve

the IT investment and to provide better access to authoritative data sources.

In the next clauses and sub-clauses the data modelling approach, the different aspects and role of data

specifications, as well as the data management aspects are elaborated. The service centric view and SOA will

be further developed in a separate part of this Technical Report. Where appropriate, the relevant international

standards will be summarised and examples of implementations are given, as well as existing tools for

implementation.
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5.2 The model-driven approach

The model-driven approach follows the concepts developed in the model-driven architecture defined by

OMG . The lifetime of a technical implementation is shorter than the lifetime of the information it handles.

This makes it necessary to describe the information in a way that allows for new techniques and

implementation environments to be applied.

The starting point of information modelling is the universe of discourse. This is a specific part of the real world

that we want to describe in a model. The universe of discourse may include not only features such as roads,

watercourses, lakes, property boundaries, but also their attributes, their functions and the relationships that

exist among those features. A universe of discourse is described in a conceptual model. This model is

formally represented in one or more conceptual schemas using a conceptual schema language. A conceptual

schema that defines how a universe of discourse is described as data and can be used by one or more

applications, is called an application schema. It provides a description of the semantic structure of the spatial

dataset. The application schema also identifies the spatial object types and reference systems required to

provide a complete description of geographic information in the dataset. Figure 1 describes the relationship

between modelling the real world, the conceptual model and the resulting conceptual schema that represents

it.

Figure 1  The Universe of Discourse as the starting point for conceptual modelling and application

schema (EN ISO 19101)

The EN ISO 19100 series of standards provide the mechanism for such a model-driven approach: the

information is described by a formal, implementation-independent schema. Implementations for various

techniques (e.g. XML file transfer, different types of web services , relational database) and implementation

environments (e.g. J2EE, .Net) can be derived from the schema in a more or less automatic way. Changes in

information requirements are applied to the schema; never directly to the implementation. Figure 2 depicts

these principles.

1) OMG, 2003. Object Management Group, Model Driven Architecture Guide Version 1.0.1. [Online]

http://www.omg.org/mda/ (last visited 2011-11-09).

2) Emphasis has been moving away from SOAP based services towards RESTful services. The latter do not require XML,

SOAP, or WSDL service-API definitions.
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Figure 2  The model-driven approach is promoted for SDI development
6 Aspects of data specifications
6.1 General

In this clause several aspects of data specifications are described. First, we explain the basis for data

specifications, the concept of semantics and semantic interoperability. Next, we describe the different aspects

which play an important role in the data specifications development:
 the conceptual schema language used to describe the application schema;
 the application schema itself;

 the features which make up these application schemas and the organisation of features in feature

catalogues;
 portrayal aspects to define the way features are visualised;
 and the implementation through encoding rules.

For each of the aspects we give an overview, the relevant standards and examples and possible tools where

relevant.
6.2 Semantics and semantic interoperability

In general terms, semantics relates to the meaning of words. In the context of spatial data and data

specifications it relates to the meaning of spatial objects and their attributes. While the semantics refer to the

content, the syntax refers to the structuring or ordering of things. In order to reach interoperability, both

elements should be considered.

The information viewpoint from the ISO Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM ODP ) is

focusing on the semantics of information and information processing. A specification developed from this

viewpoint provides a model of the information that could be used in a GIS or similar system. The information

viewpoint is the most important viewpoint for the ISO 19100 series of standards (EN ISO 10101).

3) ISO/IEC – RM ODP: Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing, www.rm-odp.net/ .

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Semantic interoperability refers to applications and people interpreting data consistently in the same way in

order to ensure they are understood as it was int
...