19 July 2012 -- The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) seeks public comment on the candidate OGC GeoServices REST API standard. The GeoServices REST Application Programming Interface (API) provides a standard way for web clients to communicate with geospatial technologies, such as Geographic Information System (GIS) servers, based on Representational State Transfer (REST) principles.

Using this API, clients, such as a web browser application, issue requests to resources on the server identified by structured Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). The server responds with map images, text-based location details or other representations of geospatial information.  From a services perspective the API offers a mechanism to interact with map, image and feature services and perform geospatial analysis. This JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)-based, RESTful API is intended to make implementing servers instantly usable by developers working with widely used REST-based scripting and programming languages, as well as mobile platforms. End users can then use these developers' Web applications to discover and access the services and use them in their workflows.

In early 2011, Esri contacted the Open Geospatial Consortium about submitting the GeoServices Rest API as a candidate OGC standard. This submission was approved through the OGC process and then a Standards Working Group (SWG), composed of many OGC members, performed a detailed review and rewrote the API as an OGC interface standard, removing Esri-specific software references. The OGC’s adoption of this candidate standard will provide the wider Web developer community with additional standards-based choices for leveraging geospatial information.

The candidate OGC GeoServices REST API standard documents are available for review and comment at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/89.

The closing date for comments will be 18 August  2012.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 445 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact.

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