OGC is globally known for its proven widely implemented open standards. The OGC open consensus-based standards development process has evolved to move at the pace of innovation, with constant input from technology forecasting, practical prototyping, real-world testing, certification and compliance and community engagement. Today we are revolutionizing how geospatial/location information is shared, accessed, integrated, and analyzed via the OGC’s revolutionary APIs- the building blocks for location information.
OGC APIs are designed to make it easy for ANYONE to provide and use geospatial data on the web, and to integrate this data with ANY other type of information. These Standards build upon the legacy of the OGC Web Service Standards (WMS, WFS, WCS, WPS, etc.), but define resource-centric APIs that take advantage of modern web development practices. This web page provides information on these Standards in a consolidated location.
These Standards are being constructed as "building blocks" that can be used to assemble novel APIs for web access to geospatial content. The building blocks are defined not only by the requirements of the Standards specified in the OGC's Standards Program, but also through interoperability prototyping and testing in the OGC's Collaborative Solutions and Innovation Program.
To learn more about using the OGC APIs please view our guidelines here.
The OGC API Roadmap highlights the current and planned standards efforts as well as related extensions to those standards. The roadmap is available for the public to view at the links below.
To subscribe for notifications when the roadmap is updated, please contact us using the form below and include the message "Roadmap updates".
For more information on the OGC API Standards, please also contact us using the form below.
To find out more about the OGC please visit our public site.
Part 1 of the OGC API - Moving Features Standard defines a standard interface for querying and accessing geospatial data that changes over time, such as the location, trajectories and attributes of moving objects like vehicles, vessels, or pedestrians.
The OGC API - Environmental Data Retrieval - Part 2: Publish-Subscribe Workflow Standard provides recommendations on applying Publish-Subscribe architectural patterns to event-driven implementations of one or more OGC API Standards.
The OGC API - Maps Standard defines building blocks which can be used in a Web API implementation to retrieve maps that are visual portrayals of geospatial data, created by applying a style to the data. Maps can present the whole area of the geospatial data or a subset of the content, such as by filtering the data by extent.
Approved Standard
OGC API - Features - Part 1: Core and Part 2: Coordinate Reference Systems by Reference are both publicly available.
Approved Standard
OGC API - Common specifies those building blocks that are shared by most or all OGC API Standards to ensure consistency across the family.
Approved Standard
Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR) API provides a family of lightweight interfaces to access Environmental Data resources. Each resource addressed by an EDR API maps to a defined query pattern.
Approved Standard
OGC API - Tiles provides extended functionality to other OGC API Standards to deliver vector tiles, map tiles, and other tiled data.
Approved Standard
OGC API - Processes allows for processing tools to be called and combined from many sources and applied to data in other OGC API resources though a simple API.
Approved Standard
OGC API - Maps offers a modern approach to the OGC Web Map Service (WMS) standard for provision map and raster content.
Approved Standard
OGC API - Moving Features defines an API that provides access to data representing features that move as rigid bodies.
OGC API - Records updates OGC’s Catalog Services for the Web by building on the simple access to content in OGC API - Features.
OGC API - Coverages allows discovery, visualization and query of complex raster stacks and data cubes.
Enables applications to organise and access data arranged according to a Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS).
Enables applications to request routes in a manner independent of the underlying routing data set, routing engine or algorithm.
OGC API - Joins supports the joining of data, from multiple sources, with feature collections or directly with other input files.
The OGC API - Styles defines a Web API that enables map servers, clients as well as visual style editors, to manage and fetch styles.
OGC API - 3D GeoVolumes facilitates efficient discovery of and access to 3D content in multiple formats based on a space-centric perspective.
OGC API - Connected Systems act as a bridge between static and dynamic data collected by sensors.
Approved Standard
The OGC SensorThings API provides an open, geospatial-enabled and unified way to interconnect Internet of Things (IoT) devices, data, and applications over the Web.
The executable test suite for Parts 1 and 2 of the OGC API - Features Standard 1.0 is now available.
The executable test suite for the OGC API - Environmental Data Retrieval Standard 1.0 is now available.
The executable test suite for the OGC API - Processes Standard 1.0 is now available.
The executable test suite for the OGC API - Tiles Standard 1.0 is now available.
More information about Compliance certification is on the OGC website.
OGC continues to use special events, hackathons, and sprints to validate the OGC API draft candidate standards as those standards evolve. By including the broadest possible selection of stakeholders, OGC can be confident that when the standards are published, those standards have already withstood testing and suitability evaluation.
7 October to 9 October. This will be a hybrid event. The face-to-face element will be held in Bonn, Germany. The code sprint will cover several OGC Standards, Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, and Climate Science applications.
10 July to 12 July. This will be a hybrid event. The face-to-face element will be held in London, England. The code sprint will cover several OGC Standards.
The OGC API standards rely heavily upon fundamental concepts expressed in OGC White Papers and research and testing performed in OGC's Collaborative Solutions and Innovation Program activities and documented in Engineering Reports. OGC members are also specifying best practices for the use of web APIs and often share that guidance. The documents below provide some background to OGC API efforts.
The OGC Collaborative Solutions and Innovation Program provides a world-recognized process for users of geospatial technology to collaborate and share the advancement of technologies for future enterprise architectures.
If you have an idea for an initiative or simply have a question or comment, contact Ingo Simonis, Chief Technology Innovation Officer.
The following are frequently asked questions in relation to OGC API Standards.
While the OGC API standards are being developed in concert around common core elements, some older OGC web service standards have been described using OpenAPI. Examples of these legacy enhancements are found below.