The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is pleased to announce that its Membership has approved OGC API – Discrete Global Grid Systems – Part 1: Core as an official OGC Standard. 

The OGC API - Discrete Global Grid Systems - Part 1: Core Standard defines requirements that can be implemented and integrated into a deployed Web API to support the retrieval of geospatial data for a specific area, time and resolution of interest, based on a specific Discrete Global Grid Reference System (DGGRS). Additionally, the Standard defines operations to query the list of DGGRS zones from which data is available and/or matching a query, which can be specified using the OGC Common Query Language (CQL2). 

A DGGRS is an integrated system comprised of a specific Discrete Global Grid Hierarchy (DGGH), a Zone Identifier Reference System (ZIRS), and a deterministic sub-zone ordering. Although the term Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS) is commonly used to refer to either a DGGH or a DGGRS, OGC terminology defines a DGGS as an integrated system comprising a hierarchy of discrete global grids (DGGH), spatiotemporal referencing by zonal identifiers (ZIRS), and functions for quantization, zonal query, and interoperability. This definition of DGGS implies a system in the sense of a software implementation, which may support one or more DGGRS, as opposed to merely a “series of discrete global grids” (a DGGH), as used in some literature.  

The OGC API - Discrete Global Grid Systems - Part 1: Core Standard also specifies the DGGS-JSON encoding for retrieving raster data quantized to sub-zones of an ancestral base DGGRS zone, as well as the DGGS-JSON-FG extension to the Features and Geometry JSON (JSON-FG) data format for encoding features and geometry whose vertices are quantized to sub-zones of an ancestral DGGRS zone. Requirements classes for additional widely adopted geospatial data formats are also specified to ensure interoperability with traditional tools that may not yet be DGGRS-aware.

Compact binary representations of these JSON-encoded formats based on Universal Binary JSON, as well as alternative DGGS-optimized encodings based on Zarr and netCDF, are also proposed. Zone lists are encoded in JSON using a simple array of textual identifiers, while a compact binary representation of zone lists is also defined. 

To help developers quickly implement products that support this Standard, example API definitions and schemas are available on the OGC API – DGGS webpage. These resources conform to OpenAPI Specification v3.0, making them easy to integrate into various Web APIs.   

OGC API - Discrete Global Grid Systems - Part 1: Core is the outcome of the work and dedication of the Discrete Global Grid Systems Standards Working Group. Development of the Standard was led by the following editors and submitters:  

  • Matthew Brian John Purss (Editor), Pangaea Innovations Pty. Ltd. 
  • Jérôme Jacovella-St-Louis (Editor), Ecere Corporation 
  • Robert Gibb, Landcare Research New Zealand 
  • Fuhu Ren / 任伏虎, Peking University Collaborative Innovation Center for Geospatial Big Data 
  • Peter Strobl, European Commission Joint Research Centre 
  • Ryan Ahola, Natural Resources Canada 
  • Alexander Kmoch, University of Tartu 
  • Ferran Gascon, European Space Agency 
  • Luís Moreira de Sousa, Open Source Geospatial Foundation 
  • Perry Peterson, University of Calgary 
  • Michael Jendryke, GeoInsight AG 

Dr Matthew Brian John Purss, Chief Executive Officer of Pangaea Innovations Pty. Ltd., highlighted the significance of this milestone, “The new OGC API DGGS Standard addresses a critical gap in how we interact with DGGS-enabled data resources and achieve interoperability between datasets indexed by different DGGRS instances. With this standard, data discovery across all DGGS-enabled resources can now be performed using a common, standardized approach. This opens significant market opportunities for federated DGGS-enabled data infrastructures and services. I’m incredibly proud to be part of the effort to bring standardized DGGS technologies to the global spatial data community.” 

Adding to this, Jérôme Jacovella-St-Louis, Chief Technology Officer of Ecere Corporation, noted that the new Implementation Standard builds on the foundation of existing DGGS Abstract specifications, “While the OGC Abstract Specification Topic 21 / ISO 19170-1:2021 DGGS Standard laid down the conceptual foundation of DGGS, the publication of the OGC API – DGGS Standard, as well as the establishment of an OGC register for DGGRS definitions, fill the last remaining critical gaps to achieve DGGS interoperability. Developers of geospatial client and server products now have a clear set of requirements they can implement for the efficient exchange of multi-resolution data quantized to a particular DGGRS, as well as for performing queries whose responses are spatiotemporal regions represented as compact lists of DGGRS zones. I am particularly excited about the potential of this standard for distributed data integration and analytics leveraging progressive refinement, close-to-the-data queries, and lazy evaluation for reducing the total amount of computation needed and improving performance.” 

As with any OGC Standard, the OGC API – Discrete Global Grid Systems – Part 1: Core Standard is free to download and implement. Interested parties can learn more on the OGC API – Discrete Global Grid Systems webpage. 

About OGC

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is a membership organization dedicated to using the power of geography and technology to solve problems faced by people and the planet. OGC unlocks value and opportunity for its members through Standards, Innovation, and Collaboration. Our membership represents a diverse and active global community drawn from government, industry, academia, international development agencies, research & scientific organizations, civil society, and advocates.

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