MicroImages, Inc. contributed the following write-up about its free TNTmap, a browser and viewer for accessing WMS and WFS layers. If your organization uses OGC Standards and has a story to tell, particularly including why it uses OGC Standards and any "Lessons Learned," please contact <editor at opengeospatial dot org>. Tina Cary, Editor

Developed by Geoscience Australia, the MapConnect application provides access to topographic data for the entire country of Australia. Currently, the only data set available is GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 3 data. The underlying spatial database is constantly maintained, ensuring that users always access the most recent data. Additional national data sets at other scales will be added.

At Where 2.0 OGC's Raj Singh spoke about OGC, its developer program and how most of the audience didn't know much about the standards organization. The podcast of his presentation was posted earlier this week at IT Conversations.

By Adena Schutzberg and members of the ESG Team

With all the mapping portals available today on the Web, there's clearly no "one size fits" all that addresses the needs of everyone. Instead, focused portals addressing specific needs are popping up. The user friendliness of the Web means that they can be as accessible to scientists as to students and amateurs. One case in point is NASA's Earth Science Gateway, ESG.

The National Weather Service, part of NOAA, is seeking input on what weather information users need and in what geospatial formats that information should be delivered.

Specifically, we seek input on what classes of information are most valuable (e.g., radar, temperature, winds, hurricane track), preferred formats (e.g., shapefile, OGC compliant), and types of access (e.g., ftp download, map/feature service). Please be a specific as possible. For instance, the NWS provides temperature information in a number of ways - if particular temperature data are important, please identify them.

Slashgeo shared a note from Tim Schuab about his new wms-sites.com website. The site "aims to be a visual catalog of public Web Mapping Service (WMS) resources online." Visitors can search for WMS data by keyword and see the results mapped in a "preview." He's looking for more sites to add to his catalog.

OGC News reader Jordi Lopez Ramot wrote to share a WMS enabled GPS mapping application. He writes:

The website WikiLoc is a completely free service built in my spare time that allows anyone in the world to post and share GPS information mainly about outdoor activities, be walking, hiking, cycling, sailing... It's based in Google Maps/Earth and you can switch the base maps to layers served by whatever freely accesible Open Geospatial Web Map Service you like.

François-Xavier Prunayre
GIS Engineer
International Office For Water

The French Data Reference Centre for Water (Sandre) has been in charge of implementing a common language for water data exchange since 1993. The Sandre is a common initiative within the French Information System for Water (SIE), a national project managed by the French Ministry of Ecology and sustainable development. The French Information System for Water includes ministries, river basin agencies, offices for water, INERIS (National Institute for the Industrial Environment and Risk), BRGM (Bureau of Research for Geology and Minerals), EDF (electric group), MeteoFrance (weather agency) and the Office International de l'Eau (International Office of Water).

Ron Exler writes in his blog The GeoFactor about the Open Geospatial Consortium Interoperability Day held last week in conjuntion with other meetings going on in Vienna Virginia. He uses the term "fascinating" quite a bit in his two part overview. (1, 2)

Refractions Research received certification for compliance for PostGIS for Simple Features (SFS 1.1.0 (compliant), SFS(TF) 1.1 (compliant)).