Number of boxes in Extent → Spatial → bbox

[ways]

There's some confusion whether bbox should consist of an array, or an array of arrays.

Single bbox:

"extent": {
        "spatial": {
          "bbox": [
            -180.0,
            -89.9,
            180.0,
            89.9
          ],
          "crs": "..."
        },

Multiple bboxes:

"extent": {
        "spatial": {
          "bbox": [
            [
              -180.0,
              -89.9,
              180.0,
              89.9
            ],
          ],
          "crs": "..."
        },

According to opengeospatial/ogcapi-environmental-data-retrieval#331 originally option number 1 was correct, but later versions allowed option number two, with the warning that client supporting core could break.

I think it's important we choose one of these, not both.

[havardf]

The description in the OpenAPI specification (https://github.com/opengeospatial/ogcapi-environmental-data-retrieval/blob/master/core/standard/openapi/schemas/collections/extent.yaml) says this about the bbox:

One or more bounding boxes that describe the spatial extent of the dataset. In the Core only a single bounding box is supported. Extensions may support additional areas. If multiple areas are provided, the union of the bounding boxes describes the spatial extent.

I struggle to understand why this is allowed, and why not just make the union of multiple areas into one bigger bbox in the first place.

However, if the profile say array of numbers instead of array of array of numbers, then we could cause problems for client libraries. So it seems to me that the best we can do is to say its an array of array with min and max values equal to 1?

[geira]

I struggle to understand why this is allowed, and why not just make the union of multiple areas into one bigger bbox in the first place.

Consider the US of A, it makes more sense to have one bounding box for the 48 contiguous states and others for Hawaii and Alaska, respectively.