Information technology —
Computer graphics and image processing —
Environmental Data Coding Specification (EDCS)

1 Scope

This International Standard provides mechanisms to unambiguously specify objects used to model environmental concepts. To accomplish this, a collection of nine EDCS dictionaries of environmental concepts are specified:

  1. classifications: specify the type of environmental objects;
  2. attributes: specify the state of environmental objects;
  3. attribute value characteristics: specify information concerning the values of attributes;
  4. attribute enumerants: specify the allowable values for the state of an enumerated attribute;
  5. units: specify quantitative measures of the state of some environmental objects;
  6. unit scales: allow a wide range of numerical values to be stated;
  7. unit equivalence classes: specify sets of units that are mutually comparable;
  8. organizational schemas: useful for locating classifications and attributes sharing a common context; and
  9. groups: into which concepts sharing a common context are collected.

A functional interface is also specified.

This International Standard specifies labels and codes because denoting and encoding a concept requires a standard way of identifying the concept.

This International Standard specifies environmental phenomena in categories that include, but are not limited to, the following:

  1. abstract concepts (i.e. absolute latitude accuracy, geodetic azimuth);
  2. airborne particulates and aerosols (i.e. cloud, dust, fog, snow);
  3. animals (i.e. civilian, fish, human, whale pod);
  4. atmosphere and atmospheric conditions (i.e. air temperature, humidity, rain rate, sensible and latent heat, wind speed and direction);
  5. bathymetric physiography (i.e. bar, channel, continental shelf, guyot, reef, seamount, waterbody floor region);
  6. electromagnetic and acoustic phenomena (i.e. acoustic noise, frequency, polarization, sound speed profile, surface reflectivity);
  7. equipment (i.e. aircraft, spacecraft, tent, train, vessel);
  8. extraterrestrial phenomena (i.e. asteroid, comet, planet);
  9. hydrology (i.e. lake, rapids, river, swamp);
  10. ice (i.e. iceberg, ice field, ice peak, ice shelf, glacier);
  11. man-made structures and their interiors (i.e. bridge, building, hallway, road, room, tower);
  12. ocean and littoral surface phenomena (i.e. beach profile, current, surf, tide, wave);
  13. ocean floor (i.e. coral, rock, sand);
  14. oceanographic conditions (i.e. luminescence, salinity, specific gravity, turbidity, water current speed);
  15. physiography (i.e. cliff, gorge, island, mountain, reef, strait, valley region);
  16. space (i.e. charged particle species, ionospheric scintillation, magnetic field, particle density, solar flares);
  17. surface materials (i.e. concrete, metal, paint, soil); and
  18. vegetation (i.e. crop land, forest, grass land, kelp bed, tree).

Figure 1.1 illustrates some of these environmental phenomena.

Environmental concepts

Figure 1.1 — Example environmental phenomena

http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/ISO_IEC_18025_Ed1.html