Fwd: Geolocation and POI [at W3C]
Dan Brickley
followup to the recent W3C AR event in Barcelona. There's a new W3C WG
proposal in preparation; see message below on some practicalities of
chartering POI work versus including it in the next phase of the
ongoing Geolocation work. For more context see Phil's blog post at
http://www.w3.org/QA/2010/06/point_of_interest_working_grou.html
To join the public W3C list to discuss this, send a mail to
public-poi...@w3.org with 'subscribe' in the Subject line. Or
just discuss it here on the OpenARWeb and hope your thoughts find
their way back to the drafters.
My own take: I'd prefer to see a unified activity from W3C around geo
and POIs; and in other WGs, work on access to camera video via .js /
HTML Canvas APIs. Augmented Reality isn't a distinct technical problem
space, but rather a crossroads. POI data is itself an open-ended
problem space; we'll be wanting "what's on" info for cinemas, product
lists and opening hours from shops, and all kinds of other information
needed for filtering and discovery. W3C's Geo work should deliver just
enough of the primitives (eg. link to homepage and URI identifiers) to
allow richer linked descriptions (RDFa etc) to be found. Something
like an Augmented Reality Interest Group (or Incubator) could serve as
a loose integration point to make sure that technical work elsewhere
in W3C (for positioning data, entity identification, camera access,
...) meet the needs of the AR community. Establishing parallel
geolocation and AR/POI technical groups seems to raise too large a
risk of overlap and fragmentation...
cheers,
Dan
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lars Erik Bolstad <lbol...@opera.com>
Date: Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 2:58 PM
Subject: Geolocation and POI
To: public...@w3.org, public-geolocation <public-ge...@w3.org>
Hi,
There is an interest in producing specifications for POI (Points of
Interest) data and work is underway on a charter for a new POI working
group:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-ac-members/2010AprJun/0067.html
We are currently working on the charter for the next set of
deliverables from the Geolocation working group.
At this time our scope includes some specific additions to the
Geolocation API ("Level 2"), as well as a separate DeviceOrientation
Event specification and most likely also a Location Provider REST API
specification, but there is an interest in extending the scope.
The discussions around Augmented Reality on the Web and
standardization of POI data are clearly relevant to the scope of work
in the Geolocation working group, and I am wondering if it would make
sense to consider including the planned POI work in the Geolocation
charter. The feedback I have received so far suggests that this is an
interesting idea to some, but there might be good arguments against.
What do you think?
Lars Erik
Christine Perey
the instructions provided by dan bri and sign up for the public W3C list
public-poiwg list.
In case there are some who can't or choose not to, here are my thoughts.
I feel that a new WG is what is needed in order for the momentum we have
established to really build up steam among the diverse AR community
members and to achieve the contribution it has the potential to make for
the publishers and the consumers of digital content.
The focus of a W3C WG on defining an AR data format (I am a little
uncomfortable calling this "POI" for fear that it is too narrowly
defined) could be:
to define new specifications or extensions to specifications (which
exist and already work on the Web) in the area of metadata for AR and
ensuring that when a publisher associates content with "triggers" (of
any kind here: geo-spatial, visual/image, audio, etc), alone or in
combination, there is the most efficient "serving up" of the most
appropriate form of the associated content.
This as a *MANY possible triggers* (sensed by sensors in any
device-fixed or mobile--and very soon these will be the results of
sensor fusion which will make matters more complicated) to *MANY
possible outputs* problem.
For example, one possible output could be a 3D object, if that is what
was published and the device can display it, and here there are many
resolutions possible. If the device can only produce text or sounds to
augmented the experience, and there is a sound file published in
association with that trigger, then it would be the output displayed for
the user.
At the end of the day the WG's work must assure three outcomes:
1. any publisher can "prepare" content in a data format which is "AR
ready" or AR enhanced and
2. any user can have (reach the data for) the AR experience which is
most appropriate given the limitations of device, network, license
agreement with the publisher, etc.
3. the AR experience produced is a "true AR" outcome, meaning that the
digital is fully inserted or otherwise overlaying/sensed by the user in
the real world, not a visual search.
To achieve the above means creating specifications which are usable by
the existing AR SDKs and AR development platforms, with modifications,
of course.
In parallel, the work in the graphics community around X3D and Web3D
Consortium will focus on the "representation problem" of making sure
that objects look and "act" correctly in the real world.
There would also be liaisons with ISO, OMA and other organizations.
--
Christine
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Christine Perey
re Dan's concern that two WGs run risk of overlap and fragmentation.
I could be mistaken, but I believe that the work undertaken by two
separate WGs can be "unified" by having a common W3C staff person's
support and strong collaboration by the chairs.
There are examples of this in the past. Phil Archer wrote "the Device
Description and BPWG worked well together with co-located meetings
arranged so that the same people could go to both.
We also have a precedent of 2 W3C WGs working on a single spec. RDFa was
the product of both the HTML and Sem Web Deployment WGs [1] so that
might give us another way forward. "
I agree with Dan that another risk could be lack of participation
(apathetic or diffuse "AR Community") due to a multitude of reasons...
A lot depends on how many people from the community of those interested
are truly willing to step up and commit their time to working on a draft
recommendation and then to test writing/driving one or more.
Can those who are prepared to invest in this AR WG activity in a
meaningful way (and that could mean joining W3C at some level certainly
means teleconferences and several-max4- face-to-face meetings/year),
please raise their hands?
Regards,
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-rdfa-primer/
--
Christine
Spime Wrangler
cpe...@perey.com
mobile +41 79 436 68 69
VoIP (from US) +1 (617) 848-8159
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