A standards-based framework to foster geospatial data and process interoperability

The quest for interoperability is one of the main driving forces behind international organizations such as OGC and W3C. In parallel, a trend in systems design and development is to break down GIS functionalities into modules that can be composed in an ad hoc manner. This component-driven approach increases flexibility and extensibility. For scientists whose research involves geospatial analysis, however, such initiatives mean more than interoperability and flexibility. These efforts are progressively shielding these users from having to deal with problems such as data representation formats, ...