The Open Geospatial Consortium has published the openEO specification as a new OGC Community Standard.
According to the OGC, openEO specifies an open API for connecting applications and other client software to large-scale Earth observation (EO) cloud backends in a simple and unified way.
The specification aims to increase interoperability in the processing of large EO datasets, including satellite imagery, in the cloud. Implementations of openEO can be used to add an interoperability layer on top of existing services.
Development of the standard has been led by the need to overcome challenges associated with different tools, APIs and data formats used in the geospatial sector.
The OGC says that openEO has been developed from the bottom up, with each version of the specification supported by implementations.
Already making a difference
According to the OGC, the primary use case for openEO is to simplify and unify data processing through a common API and a specification for a set of predefined processes.
Users can continue working in their preferred programming language without needing to manage data organisation and pre-processing.
The OGC also says that the standard should help to avoid vendor lock-in, as generated process descriptions can be executed across multiple provider endpoints.
openEO is already being used in major Earth observation initiatives, such as in the Copernicus Dataspace Ecosystem, where it supports both interactive querying and large-scale FAIR-compliant processing of EO data.
It has also been selected by ESA APEx and EarthCODE to expose on-demand services that support reproducible scientific workflows and near real-time processing.
“openEO has always focused on providing an accessible EO processing interface for researchers and other end users, as reflected in its broad ecosystem of user-friendly clients and datacube-centric predefined processes,” said Matthias Mohr, Managing Director of moreGeo.
“The specification has evolved alongside OGC Standards and aligns closely with existing standards, making openEO processing results readily usable across a wide range of OGC and STAC client software.”
