If you don't choose 'earth realm' but go with a named geographic area,
I would have two recommendations: (a) pick the smallest represented
area that is appropriate, and (b) reference the name in a gazetteer
that lets you define metadata about your name (location, at minimum
corners in all dimensions, but better is a shape or volume;
relationship to other entries; synonyms; description) and specify it
with a resolvable URI. This takes care of most of the unpleasantness
associated with simple names of geographic regions or volumes.
John
On Oct 7, 2008, at 11:58 AM, Steve Hankin wrote:
Ben Domenico wrote:
[...snip...]
Others may disagree with me on this, but the other documents I find
helpful in understanding these feature/coverage concepts are those
of OGC Observations and Measurements.
http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/om
In particular they define "features of interest," examples of which
might be the Indian Ocean or the atmosphere above London. This
sort of feature fits will into metoceans community which models
such entities in terms of functions governed by the equations of
fluid dynamics.
Hi Ben,
Not to join the discussion in its essence, but a digression to share
an experience regarding the application of "Feature of Interest".
In the NOAA IOOS efforts (i.e. in the context of the coastal oceans)
to define an XML application schema suitable for SOS this topic came
up. Agreement on what the "Feature of Interest" was became elusive
in some cases, because the scope of interest by the final user of
the data is often ambiguous. If we place a mooring in the shelf
region off Fudge Point, Hartstine Island, Washington, in Case Inlet
in southern Puget Sound is the feature of interest
Fudge Point shelf?
Hartstine Island beaches?
Case Inlet?
South Puget Sound?
Puget Sound?
US NorthWest Pacific Coast
If there is a clear guideline on how to blend ones gazetteer with
the "Feature of Interest" to resolve this ambiguity, our folks in
IOOS didn't find it. Might this be another example where the
continuous nature of the medium (ocean or atmosphere), renders
otherwise straightforward GIS concepts fuzzy?
- Steve
