OGC GeoTIFF Standard

Overview

The GeoTIFF format was initially developed during the early 1990’s (N. Ritter & Ruth, 1997). The objective was to leverage a mature platform independent file format (TIFF) by adding metadata required for describing and using geographic image data. TIFF met the requirements for an underlying format, as it was – and still is (though JPEG compression was added) – lossless and extensible. In September 1994, SPOT Image Corp proposed a GeoTIFF structure that was limited to Universal Transverse Mercator (N. Ritter & Ruth, 1997). The proposed GeoTIFF specification was further augmented and formalized by Ritter and Ruth as Revision 1.0, specification version 1.8.2 in November 1995 (N. Ritter & Ruth, 1995), with minor adjustments published in 2000, available at http://geotiff.maptools.org/spec/geotiffhome.html, which is the official GeoTIFF specification version 1.0.

The GeoTIFF format is used throughout the geospatial and earth science communities to share geographic image data. That usage inevitably leads to identification of new requirements and needs for profiles, extensions, and improvements to the original GeoTIFF Specification. The OGC is well established as a forum for standardization in the GeoTIFF producer and user communities and, as such, it provides an inclusive standardization process for those communities. This document is the first step in the process of integration of the GeoTIFF specification into that standardization process, with the adjustment of a minor revision in order to allow the use of modern EPSG register and still allowing backward compatibility with Revision 1.0. Moving forward within the OGC, the standard can be evolved using a formal process.

This OGC Standard defines the Geographic Tagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF) by specifying requirements and encoding rules for using the Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) for the exchange of georeferenced or geocoded imagery. The OGC GeoTIFF 1.1 standard formalizes the existing community GeoTIFF specification version 1.0 and aligns it with the continuing addition of data to the EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset.

OGC Standards

• 3D Tiles
• 3dP
• ARML2.0
• Cat: ebRIM App Profile: Earth Observation Products
• Catalogue Service
• CDB
• CityGML
• CityJSON
• COG
• Coordinate Transformation
• CoverageJSON
• EO-GeoJSON
• Filter Encoding
• GML in JPEG 2000
• GeoAPI
• GeoPackage
• GeoPose
• GeoSciML
• GeoSPARQL
• Geography Markup Language
• GeoRSS
• GeoXACML
• Geospatial User Feedback (GUF)
• GeoTiff
• GroundwaterML
• HDF5
• I3S
• Indoor Mapping Data Format (IMDF)
• IndoorGML
• KML
• LandInfra/InfraGML
• LAS
• Location Services (OpenLS)
• Moving Features
• NetCDF
• Observations, Measurements, and Samples
• OGC API – EDR
• OGC API – Common
• OGC API – Features
• OGC API – Processes
• OGC API – Tiles
• Open GeoSMS
• OpenMI
• OpenSearch
• Ordering Services Framework for Earth Observation Products
• OWS Context
• OWS Security
• PipelineML
• PubSub
• PUCK
• SWE Common Data Model
• SWE Service Model
• Sensor Model Language
• Sensor Observation Service
• Sensor Planning Service
• SensorThings
• Semantic Sensor Network (SSN)
• STAplus
• Symbology Core
• Simple Features
• Simple Features CORBA
• Simple Features OLE/COM
• Simple Features SQL
• Styled Layer Descriptor
• Symbology Encoding
• Table Joining Service
• Time Ontology in OWL
• TimeseriesML (tsml)
• TrainingDML for AI
• Two Dimensional Tile Matrix Set
• WaterML
• Web Coverage Processing Service
• Web Coverage Service
• Web Feature Service
• Web Map Context
• Web Map Service
• Web Map Tile Service
• Web Processing Service
• Web Service Common
• WKT CRS