Information technology —
Computer graphics and image processing —
Environmental Data Coding Specification (EDCS)
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:
- classifications: specify the type of environmental objects;
- attributes: specify the state of environmental objects;
- attribute value characteristics: specify information concerning the
values of attributes;
- attribute enumerants: specify the
allowable values for the state of
an enumerated attribute;
- units: specify quantitative measures of the state of some environmental objects;
- unit scales: allow a wide range of numerical values to be stated;
- unit equivalence classes: specify sets of units that are mutually comparable;
- organizational schemas: useful for locating classifications and attributes sharing a common
context; and
- 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:
- abstract concepts (i.e. absolute latitude accuracy, geodetic azimuth);
- airborne particulates and aerosols (i.e. cloud, dust, fog, snow);
- animals (i.e. civilian, fish, human, whale pod);
- atmosphere and atmospheric conditions (i.e. air temperature,
humidity, rain rate, sensible and latent heat, wind speed and direction);
- bathymetric physiography (i.e. bar, channel, continental shelf, guyot, reef,
seamount, waterbody floor region);
- electromagnetic and acoustic phenomena (i.e. acoustic noise, frequency, polarization,
sound speed profile, surface reflectivity);
- equipment (i.e. aircraft, spacecraft, tent, train, vessel);
- extraterrestrial phenomena (i.e. asteroid, comet, planet);
- hydrology (i.e. lake, rapids, river, swamp);
- ice (i.e. iceberg, ice field, ice peak, ice shelf, glacier);
- man-made structures and their interiors (i.e. bridge, building, hallway, road, room,
tower);
- ocean and littoral surface phenomena (i.e. beach profile, current, surf, tide, wave);
- ocean floor (i.e. coral, rock, sand);
- oceanographic conditions (i.e. luminescence, salinity, specific gravity,
turbidity, water current
speed);
- physiography (i.e. cliff, gorge, island, mountain, reef, strait, valley
region);
- space (i.e. charged particle species, ionospheric scintillation, magnetic field, particle
density, solar flares);
- surface materials (i.e. concrete, metal, paint, soil); and
- vegetation (i.e. crop land, forest, grass land, kelp bed, tree).
Figure 1.1 illustrates some of these environmental phenomena.

Figure 1.1
— Example
environmental phenomena
http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/ISO_IEC_18025_Ed1.html