The symposium covered a broad range of topics, in line with the terms of reference of the WG:

Symposium Themes

OGC:: Open geospatial standards

• Latest advances to OGC standards - OGC Technology Trends; WFS 3.0, Big Data, Linked Data
• National and regional implementations of OGC standards - IMGeo; CityGML in Rotterdam (ESPRESSO pilots), incl Indoor pilots; FCP1, ESPRESSO (Static and Fast moving data / Static using WFS, Fast moving using SensorThinsAPI)
• Industry take up of OGC standards - Avineon and 3D City Models; Virtual City Systems 3D City Models; Smart Cities picking up on 3D City Models
• Harmonisation and integration of OGC standards - in Smart Cities; results of plugfests
• Collaborations between OGC and other international and standardization bodies (e.g. OGC and ISO) - OCG and bSI (IDBE); OGC and W3C (SDWWG); OGC and ISO (TC211, TC84, IEC); OGC and ITU SG20 (Smart Cities)
• Future initiatives and activities - FCP2, ESPRESSO outcomes; Underground Pilots; Testbed 13 results, testbed 14

WG 1: Multi-dimensional Modelling

• Topological and geometric data structures
• Spatiotemporal data models and structures
• Multiple representations and cartographic generalisation
• Digital terrain modelling
• Indoor modelling of 3D buildings
• Spatial data formats and standards

WG 2: Ontologies, Semantics, and Knowledge Representation for Geospatial Information

• Ontologies of space, time, processes, and events
• Geospatial semantics
• Semantic information extraction, analysis, representation, and visualization
• Semantic enrichment and semantic annotation of geospatial information
• Geosemantic web
• New applications of ontologies and semantics in domains such as disaster Management, urban modeling, mobility, and architecture

WG 3: Spatial Data Analysis, Statistics and Uncertainty Modelling

• VGI and official geospatial data integration and validation 
• Quality assessment in GSN, VGI, Social networks and crowd source data 
• Quality assessment in multidimensional geospatial data 
• Spatial statistics for multidimensional geospatial data and analysis 
• Uncertainty assessment in collection, integration and analysis of geospatial big data 
• Uncertainty assessment in MCDM and SDSS 
• Uncertainty modeling in spatial data mining and spatial big data mining 
• Uncertainty modeling in spatial information fusion 
• Uncertainty assessment in multidimensional geospatial analyses 
• Uncertainty modeling in smart city management 
• Uncertainty modeling in mobile GIS and Ubiquitous GIS 
• Artificial intelligence in smart geospatial analyses and validation 
• Smart spatial analyses for disaster management (With some emphases on Kermanshah Earthquake, Iran on Nov. 12, 2017) and their uncertainty management

WG 4: Collaborative Crowdsourced Cloud Mapping

• Collaborative geospatial environments and services for managing crowdsourced (citizen science) spatiotemporal data
• Methods for assessing/improving the quality and usability of crowdsourced data 
• Data and metadata models for crowdsourced data
• Social, privacy and organizational issues related to crowdsourcing, cloud-based geo-services, collaborative systems, participative platforms
• Human-Machine Interaction (for Participative Mapping Included)
• Collaborative Crowdsourced Cloud Mapping and humanitarian/ SDG agendas
• The future of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and crowdsourcing
• OpenStreetMap: applications, issues and needs

WG 5: Indoor/Outdoor Seamless Modelling, LBS and Mobility

• Indoor mapping sensors and systems
• Indoor modelling
• Indoor localization
• Indoor/outdoor seamless navigation
• Location-based services
• Standards for indoor spatial information
• Emergency response and evacuation
• Evaluation of indoor spatial information

WG 6: SDI: Internet of Things and Spatial Decision Support

• Theories, frameworks, and paradigms of geospatial applications of the IoT
• Advancements in sensor networks and integration for geospatial applications
• Geoinformation search, retrieval, sharing and representation from IoT, including multi-level spatial data infrastructure and web services
• Spatial decision support systems with IoT
• AI and machine learning with IoT
• IoT, Big Data and Analytics: Challenges, solutions and potential
• Geospatial applications of IoT in urban, ecological, health, business and agricultural systems
• Geospatial education and capacity building efforts with IoT
• Ethical and privacy considerations of IoT

WG 7: Geo-Data Management

• Big geospatial data management
• Multi-dimensional databases
• Spatio-temporal and trajectory data management
• Multi-resolution and discrete geographic grid systems
• Data integration / BIM-GIS data integration

WG 8: GeoComputation and GeoSimulation

• Machine learning methods for big spatio-temporal data
• Integrating agent based modelling and big data
• Validation of agent based models
• GeoComputational methods for big spatio-temporal data
• Real time GeoSimulation
• High performance/cloud/parallel computing methods for GeoComputation /GeoSimulation
• Applications of GeoSimulation and GeoComputation

WG 9: Geovisualization, Augmented and Virtual Reality

• Human factors in geovisualization
• Augmented and virtual reality
• Evaluations of geovisualization/AR/VR design
• Spatial cognition in geovisualization/AR/VR 
• User-centered research and applications in geovisualization/AR/VR 
• Asssessments of geovisualization/AR/VR methods and techniques 
• Open source and open content geovisualization/AR/VR development 
• Novel use cases and applications of geovisualization/AR/VR 
• Conceptual and applied implications of the 
• Digital Earth Visualization and analysis of urban big data and smart cities 
• Geovisualization/AR/VR in Geodesign

WG 10: Advanced Geospatial Applications for Smart Cities and Regions

• Spatial information challenges in modelling urban air quality, noise mapping, micro-climate/heat islands, citizens’ health
• Data models for estimation/simulation/co-simulation of energy demand and supply, exploitation of local renewable energies, 3D solar cadastres;
• Mobility: transportation, logistics, transport-oriented development;
• Socio-economic and legal aspects of 3D cadastre, population growth/decline, land use and soil consumption;
• Emergency response and planning: disaster mapping and prevention/relief, public safety, cascading effects due to infrastructure failures;
• Tourism-related applications with focus on virtual tourism, web-based and mobile applications;

ICWG III/IVb and WG 4: Geospatial Big Data and Urban Studies

• Urban data models for the representation of geospatial big data
• Geospatial urban big data analytics and knowledge discovery
• Structured and unstructured big data quality for urban planning and development 
• Applications of sensor data in urban studies
• Studying the urban environment using remotely sensed data
• Uncertainty in remotely sensed urban big data
• Fusion and analysis of big data for urban smart cities
• Examples of city and urban studies on geospatial big data
• City dashboards for spatial planning and citizen engagement
• Urban data visualisation including virtual and augmented reality

• Initiatives and progresses in processing, updating and verification of global datasets, such as topographic vector datasets, digital terrain models, ortho-images and land cover datasets;
• Concepts, tools, and platforms for global datasets sharing, integration and management;
• Auto/semi-automatic processing of large volumes of global datasets using machine learning, big data analytics, cloud computing and other technologies;
• Developments on collaborative and dynamic global geographic information services to meet various analysis and application needs;
• Applications of global geographic information integrated with other global or national social economic datasets to support United Nation’s SDG Indicators;
• International validation of global land cover data products.

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