The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) have agreed to work together more closely in the application and promotion of standards and best practices for the location and geospatial industries.

"The advancement of standards and best practices in areas such as point clouds benefits from the partnership of key organizations," said Mark Reichardt, OGC's president and CEO. "We are deeply appreciative of the alliance recently established between ASPRS and OGC. This alliance encourages our respective members to join forces in collaborative activity that will result in benefits for the whole global community as photogrammetry and remote sensing grow in importance."

"Both the OGC and the ASPRS have long-established roles in the expanding field of location and geospatial technologies," said Michael Hauck, ASPRS's Executive Director.

"The two organizations share a mission to advance technical interoperability in this field. They share many members and both have active and complementary standards processes.

"The organizations recognize the synergies that can accrue to their members and the general public if the organizations more closely align some of their activities and work together to promote interoperability in the geospatial technology industry."

The OGC and ASPRS will work jointly to develop use cases and requirements for open geospatial standards in the domains of data acquisition and dissemination, image processing, and remote sensing science.

An early priority is to jointly assess the current state of adopted and de facto standards for Point Cloud data and consider collaborative publication of one or more standards where there is a mutual benefit of both organizations. The two organizations invite the public to participate in the Point Cloud standards discussion. The members of the OGC Point Cloud Domain Working Group DWG have made the Working Group open to members and the public by allowing open membership to the email list and all meetings.

The two organizations will identify the scope of future standards that will facilitate interoperability of other kinds of remotely sensed data besides point clouds, such as photogrammetric measurements and imagery data of various types.

They will also cooperatively promote and participate in relevant OGC and ASPRS initiatives, including working groups, committee activities, Testbed and Pilot initiatives, regional forums, and workshops.