What is the OGC and Open GIS?

MAGIC Online Mapping Help     MAGIC Online Mapping FAQs  What is the OGC?

What is the Open Geospatial Consortium?

"The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc (OGC) is an international industry consortium of 368 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS® Specifications support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications."  from the OGC website

For more information about the OGC and their policies regarding the development of interoperable GIS please visit their FAQ page

What is Open Source GIS?

Open source is a software concept of allowing the source code to be open and free to distribute and modify. MAGIC uses PostgreSQL database and PostGIS spatial layers in its online mapping tools and creates geospatial data that meet OGC standards.Data created in MAGIC are accessible in Open Source GIS software.Other open source GIS applications include the GDAL raster plugin, Quantum GIS, Grass and many others.  

By developing web mapping services and web file services using OGC standards users will be able to take MAGIC's online data and use in it in a variety of GIS applications.  For example,a user will be able to view the 1934 aerial photography from MAGIC's providedthrough a web mapping service in programs like Google Earth, ArcMap or in Quantum GIS.