Topic: Use GeoJSON

The GeoJSON format is quite popular on the web. The OGC may want to adopt the format. However, while the format could be quite useful for OGC services, the OGC cannot adopt GeoJSON without modification because GeoJSON has an ambiguous axis order policy which conflicts with OGC rules regarding axis orders. That ambiguity makes the format unsuitable for use as a general purpose spatial data format. In order to use GeoJSON, the OGC would have to develop a profile which would
  • require GeoJSON processors to check the CRS and adopt processing based on the manifold of the coordinate system, and
  • restrict the allowed CRS to CRSs with axes which can be unambigously mapped to 'east' and 'west'.
The best policy for the GeoJSON profile would probably be to limit the use to the two CRS used in the vast majority of the time: CRS:84 and Google Spherical Mercator.

Additionally or alternatively, the OGC could develop a GeoJSON like format for general use that followed the same rules as GeoJSON but simply changed the axis order policy to be that the order of ordinates in coordinate tupeles follows the order of the axes in the CRS. When used with the two CRS named above, this format would be identical to GeoJSON but the format could additionally be used with all other CRSs.

Additional comment(s): OldTechnicalDiscussions

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Seems the best way forward for the community at large is: team up with the GeoJSON developers, explain the obvious shortcomings, collaborate on improvements. Coupling axis order to the CRS makes a lot of sense and is in coherence with the OGC Name Type Definition BP, so clearly defined = good to explain and to implement; OGC members might implement JS snippets performing CRS inspection (OWS?). All other alternatives (competing spec, restrictions to 2D, ...) IMHO will fail on the long run for diverse reasons.

-- PeterBaumann - 30 Jun 2013



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