OGC Membership approves and publishes minor update to GeoPackage

V1.3 is a minor update to GeoPackage, the open, standards-based, platform-independent, portable, self-describing, compact format for transferring geospatial information.

Contact: info@ogc.org 

25 February 2021: The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) membership has approved and published the latest version of the GeoPackage Standard, v1.3.0. GeoPackage is an open, standards-based, platform-independent, portable, self-describing, compact format for transferring geospatial information.  

As well as being fully interoperable and open, GeoPackage was designed with three additional goals in mind: to be a convenient and efficient container for geospatial information; to enable operations in all computing environments, including those with Disconnected, Degraded, Intermittent, or Limited (DDIL) network connectivity; and to be extensible, allowing it to evolve to meet future operational needs.

GeoPackage can store multiple datasets, data types, and metadata records in the same file, minimizing cumbersome and inefficient file manipulation. By building on the industry-standard SQLite relational database, GeoPackage enables rapid reading and writing operations. Since nearly every operating system today supports SQLite, GeoPackages can be used on virtually any device on the planet – from Cloud infrastructure to a smartphone. For a primer on the capabilities of GeoPackage, read the blog post: #GeoPackageDay 2020 – what is GeoPackage?

GeoPackage version 1.3.0 is a minor revision to the current version 1.2.1. All of the changes were carefully considered for impact on existing implementations. Any changes considered to have a significant impact on reverse compatibility were rejected or recast in order to limit their impact.

In addition to a number of administrative changes to improve readability, clarity, and correctness, the following substantive changes were incorporated into the GeoPackage 1.3 release:

• Enforce alignment of Spatial Reference System (SRS) Identifiers between tables.
• Clarify use of views in user-defined tables.
• Relax Requirement 104 to allow use of schemas with attributes and extensions.
• Allow metadata scopes to be extended.
• Create new Requirement 152 to describe empty geometries.

For the full list of changes, see the OGC GeoPackage Encoding Standard v1.3.0 release notes.

OGC Members interested in staying up to date on further progress of this standard, or contributing to its development, are encouraged to join the SWG via this link on the OGC Portal.

As with any OGC standard, the open GeoPackage standard is free to download and implement. Interested parties can view the standard on the OGC GeoPackage Standard Page.

About OGC
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international consortium of more than 500 businesses, government agencies, research organizations, and universities driven to make geospatial (location) information and services FAIR – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
OGC’s member-driven consensus process creates royalty free, publicly available geospatial standards. Existing at the cutting edge, OGC actively analyzes and anticipates emerging tech trends, and runs an agile, collaborative Research and Development (R&D) lab that builds and tests innovative prototype solutions to members’ use cases.
OGC members together form a global forum of experts and communities that use location to connect people with technology and improve decision-making at all levels. OGC is committed to creating a sustainable future for us, our children, and future generations.
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