Establishing TC UNITS and adopting UnitsML

CalConnect announces the establishment of its Technical Committee on Units of Measure (TC UNITS) and the adoption of UnitsML, the authoritative mechanism for encoding scientific units of measure.

Originally developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the late 1990s and later standardized through OASIS, UnitsML is now finding a new home at CalConnect.

The initiative aims to publish UnitsML 1.0 under the leadership of committee co-chairs Karen Olsen and Nick Nicholas.

TC UNITS is chartered to provide international standards for the representation and encoding of units, quantities, and dimensions, as well as mechanisms for encoding and interpreting formulas that utilize units. A key objective is to pursue international standardization through ISO and IEC, while working closely with the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) towards an interoperable "Digital SI" infrastructure.

The committee’s deliverables include:

  • Standardization of a comprehensive data model for units representation

  • Multiple data serialization formats including XML (UnitsML), JSON, and YAML

  • The authoritative UnitsDB register containing information about current units

  • Integration guidelines with existing technologies such as MathML

  • Development and maintenance of the UnitsML official website at www.unitsml.org

"Units and their representations form the basis of measurements, critical to everything from timekeeping and trade to manufacturing and mission-critical operations," said Mike Douglass, Executive Director of CalConnect. "Our collaboration with ISO, IEC, and BIPM will ensure UnitsML becomes a globally recognized standard for digital unit representation.”

Established in September 2022 as a standing committee, TC UNITS represents a significant step forward in the standardization of scientific unit representation while pursuing broader international adoption.