The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) membership has approved CDB as an OGC standard. The OGC CDB standard is based on and derived from an industry developed and maintained specification for the modeling and simulation community.
The CDB standard defines a conceptual model, as well as rules for implementing the model, for the storage, access, and modification of a synthetic environment data store as required in high-fidelity simulation and mission rehearsal, such as for battlefield simulation. The standard addresses the challenge of full plug-and-play interoperability and reuse of geospatial data in a modeling and simulation environment. A CDB data store is also useful as a geospatial data repository for legacy systems, which can be supported by off-line conversions and proprietary data generation systems. CDB data stores can be queried and accessed over the web using existing OGC interface standards.
A CDB ‘synthetic environment’ data store contains geospatial data that represents the natural environment, which can include terrain relief, terrain imagery, 3D models of natural and man-made cultural features, 3D models of dynamic (moving) objects, the ocean surface, and the ocean floor. CDB data stores can also be exposed by OGC web services, such as a Web Map Service (WMS) or Web Feature Service (WFS) to permit visualization of the content outside of the traditional simulator hardware environment.
“OGC CDB forms a bridge between the geospatial data providers and the modeling and simulation community to facilitate reuse of source geospatial content and provide more flexible maintenance of that content,” says Scott Simmons, Executive Director of the OGC Standards Program.
The application of the CDB standard to future simulator architectures will significantly reduce development, update, and configuration management timelines.
The CDB standard is in the process of being published and will soon be available from www.opengeospatial.org.
About the OGC
The OGC is an international consortium of more than 525 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at www.opengeospatial.org.
