Overview of OGC and ISO support
Release 9.2 Last modified January 26, 2007	Print all topics in : "Interoperability and standards support"

A number of organizations help to develop and contribute to interoperability standards and specifications for the geospatial (GIS) community. ESRI remains committed to interoperability and is active in supporting and enhancing support for various standards developed through these organizations. This help section provides a guide to support capabilities in ArcGIS.

There are two primary (and often collaborative) standards efforts led by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the International Standards Organization (ISO). ESRI, along with other participants of the GIS profession, participates in the development of numerous specifications within these organizations. For example, ESRI led the effort on authoring the OGC and ISO simple features specification and was the U.S. representative for the ISO 19139 technical committee metadata standards efforts.

ESRI actively pursues adding standards support in ArcGIS and its related products.

Standards are ongoing and evolve over time. ESRI builds support for key standards and maintains its support as the standards evolve. We update our support for OGC and ISO specifications with each software release and often we provide other mechanisms to deliver support through special add-on solutions between software releases.

Web Services

Specification	Common tasks
WMS - Web Mapping Service	Adding a WMS layer to ArcMap Publishing a WMS service using ArcIMS. Refer to the ArcIMS 9.2 Help topic named "WMS Connector." Publishing a WMS service using ArcGIS Server. Refer to the ArcGIS Server 9.2 help topic named "WMS services" located in Publishing services>How to publish services. Viewing WMS services using GIS Portal Toolkit Registering WMS services using GIS Portal Toolkit
WMC - Web Mapping Context	Using a WMC document in ArcMap Generating a WMC document using ArcGIS Server Generating a WMC document using the GIS Portal Toolkit Using a WMC document in GIS Portal Toolkit
SLD - Style Layer Descriptor	Using a WMS service containing a SLD in ArcMap Publishing a WMS service with a SLD in ArcIMS Using a WMS service containing a SLD in GIS Portal Toolkit
WFS - Web Feature Service	Adding a WFS layer in ArcMap Publishing WFS service using ArcIMS. Refer to the ArcIMS 9.2 Help topic named "WFS Connector." Registering a WFS service using the GIS Portal Toolkit View a WFS service using the GIS Portal Toolkit
WCS - Web coverage service	Using a WCS service in ArcMap Using a WCS service in geoprocessing Registering a WCS service using GIS Portal Toolkit Viewing a WCS service using GIS Portal Toolkit
Z39.50 catalog services	Publishing a Z39.50 metadata service using the ArcIMS Metadata Service. Refer to the ArcIMS Help topic named "An overview of connecting Z39.50 clients." Registering a Z39.50 metadata service using the GIS Portal Toolkit Harvesting from a Z39.50 metadata service using GIS Portal Toolkit Searching a Z39.50 metadata service using the ArcIMS Metadata Explorer
CS-W - Catalog services - Web	Publishing a CS-W metadata service using ArcIMS. Refer to the ArcIMS 9.2 help topic "An overview of OpenGIS catalog services." Registering a CS-W metadata service using the GIS Portal Toolkit Searching and using a CS-W metadata service in ArcMap
OpenLS - OpenGIS Location-based Services	Using OpenLS with ArcWeb Services Using OpenLS web services with ArcIMS Using OpenLS Web services with GIS Portal Toolkit

Data format specifications

Specification	Common tasks
GML Simple Features Specification (also known as "Simple features GML")	Direct use of the GML simple features specification in ArcGIS Importing and exporting GML simple features specification Publishing a WFS service using the GML simple features specification
GML - Geography Markup Language	Adding support for new GML profile formats in ArcGIS Using supported GML profiles. For example, GML profiles are supported for the following: United Kingdom Ordnance Survey MasterMap GML Netherlands Top10 GML The government of British Columbia, Canada's various GML formats
OGC and ISO Simple Features (See note below)	Using OGC and ISO simple features in geodatabases Using SQL to access and work with simple features in a geodatabase Using the OGC OLE DB simple features interface to access the geodatabase.

NOTE: Geodatabases in IBM DB2, Informix, and Oracle implement the OGC and ISO SQL data type for Spatial. This data type provides full geodatabase support as well as SQL access to feature class geometry.

NOTE: The OGC reference is OpenGIS® Implementation Specification for Geographic information - Simple feature access - Part 2: SQL option.

NOTE: The ISO reference is ISO/IEC 13249-3 SQL multimedia and application packages - Part 3: Spatial.

Metadata Specifications

Specification	Common tasks
FGDC - U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee	Using the FGDC metadata editor in ArcCatalog
ISO 19115/19139 Geographic Information Metadata	Using the ISO metadata editor in ArcCatalog
Metadata conversion between profiles	Converting metadata in ArcGIS
Publishing metadata as a web service	Publishing a metadata catalog using ArcIMS Publishing metadata using the GIS Portal Toolkit
OAI-PMH - The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting	Harvesting metadata using the OAI protocol in ArcIMS

If you cannot find support information about a particular standard that you are interested in, please contact us at support.esri.com/feedback to see if we can help support you. In addition, we would like to hear feedback on new or evolving standards you would like for ESRI to support.

Information on OGC compliance testing can be found at:
http://www.opengeospatial.org/resources/?page=products

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