The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community
On-Demand Architect Keith L. Barber Director NSG Expeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office NGA
www.GIF-kmi.com
June 2012 Volume 10, Issue 4
Operational 3-D O Geospatial Collaboration Persistent Change Monitoring O Army GEOINT Roundtable
Perform Topographic Analysis. Identify Hidden Targets and Potential Threats. Deliver Mission Critical Geospatial Imagery. Exelis Visual Information Solutions provides superior geospatial software solutions to help defense, intelligence, and security professionals create important situational awareness. Whether you need to perform hyperspectral image exploitation to reveal camouflaged enemy targets, deliver up-to-date GEOINT to mobile devices for the forward deployed, or categorize terrain to determine the best avenue of approach, Exelis Visual Information Solutions has a solution to support your specific mission needs. Learn more about our products and services at www.exelisvis.com.
ENVI | E3De | IAS | Professional Services All rights reserved. E3De, ENVI and IDL are trademarks of Exelis, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. Š2012, Exelis Visual Information Solutions, Inc.
Geospatial Intelligence Forum
June 2012 Volume 10 • Issue 4
Features
Cover / Q&A Army GEOINT Perspectives GIF recently asked two key soldiers involved in the Army geospatial enterprise to discuss the benefits and challenges of using geospatial technology for the service’s intelligence and engineering needs.
6
3-D Goes Operational The Op3-D Joint Capability Technology Demonstration is facilitating the validation and fielding of 3-D geospatial technologies and promoting standards that would allow for more rapid development. By Peter Buxbaum
10
Change-Driven Mapping Persistent change monitoring, a method that efficiently detects where cultural change has occurred and targets the analyst accordingly, has been proven to drastically increase analyst productivity. By Roger Mitchell
22
17 Keith L. Barber Director National System for Geospatial-Intelligence, Expeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Departments 2 Editor’s Perspective 4 Program Notes/People
Tools for Geospatial Collaboration With demand increasing for shared geospatial information, industry is developing tools that shed legacy geospatial software and data formats and offer capabilities designed for effective collaboration. By Karen E. Thuermer
24
14 Industry Raster 21 Intel Update 27 Calendar, Directory
Industry Interview
28 Major General John M. Custer (Ret.) Director Federal Strategic Missions and Programs EMC
Geospatial Intelligence Forum Volume 10, Issue 4 • June 2012
The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community Editorial Managing Editor Harrison Donnelly harrisond@kmimediagroup.com Online Editorial Manager Laura Davis laurad@kmimediagroup.com Copy Editor Laural Hobbes lauralh@kmimediagroup.com Correspondents Peter A. Buxbaum • Cheryl Gerber Karen E. Thuermer • William Murray
Art & Design Art Director Jennifer Owers jennifero@kmimediagroup.com Senior Graphic Designer Jittima Saiwongnuan jittimas@kmimediagroup.com Graphic Designers Amanda Kirsch amandak@kmimediagroup.com Scott Morris scottm@kmimediagroup.com Kailey Waring kaileyw@kmimediagroup.com
Advertising Associate Publisher Scott Parker scottp@kmimediagroup.com
KMI Media Group Publisher Kirk Brown kirkb@kmimediagroup.com Chief Executive Officer Jack Kerrigan jack@kmimediagroup.com Chief Financial Officer Constance Kerrigan connik@kmimediagroup.com Executive Vice President David Leaf davidl@kmimediagroup.com Editor-In-Chief Jeff McKaughan jeffm@kmimediagroup.com Controller Gigi Castro gcastro@kmimediagroup.com Administrative Assistant Casandra Jones casandraj@kmimediagroup.com Trade Show Coordinator Holly Foster hollyf@kmimediagroup.com
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE In a magazine called Geospatial Intelligence Forum, and at a time of rapid advances in MASINT, SIGINT and other advanced technologies for obtaining information, it’s easy to forget that the oldest and lowest-tech form of intelligence is still one of the most important: the human. A renewed emphasis on HUMINT was one of the ideas behind the recent Department of Defense move to establish a Defense Clandestine Service (DCS) initially comprising several hundred current military intelligence operatives, with more to be added in the future. The new organization will work closely with the CIA to monitor international strategic trends and Harrison Donnelly future threats. Editor Defense officials and analysts described the new agency as responding to arguments—including those offered in the past by Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, who recently was confirmed as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency—that military intelligence programs had focused over the past decade on tactical information in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, at the expense of understanding broader issues and public opinion in key countries. The plan was put together under the leadership of Michael Vickers, under secretary of defense for intelligence, who in an interview earlier this year identified “national HUMINT” as an area needing more attention. (See GIF, March 2012) DCS has drawn some early criticism, including from a newspaper editorial that labeled the idea “spies run amok” and warned that it could add redundant bureaucracy, increase costs and undermine the independent judgments of the CIA. Maybe so, but I think the risks are outweighed by the value of restoring human intelligence as a complement to other forms of collection, no matter how technologically sophisticated. As Navy Captain John Kirby, deputy assistant secretary of defense for media operations, was quoted as saying, “The practical result will be a rebalancing of our efforts and our focus on the human side of intelligence collection. We’re very, very proficient at the technical side of intelligence collection, and I think this will help us get a little better at the human intelligence effort.”
Operations, Circulation & Production Circulation & Marketing Administrator Duane Ebanks duanee@kmimediagroup.com Data Specialists Arielle Hill arielleh@kmimediagroup.com Tuesday Johnson tuesdayj@kmimediagroup.com Summer Walker summerw@kmimediagroup.com Raymer Villanueva raymerv@kmimediagroup.com Donisha Winston donishaw@kmimediagroup.com
KMI Media Group Magazines and Websites Ground Combat Technology
Geospatial Intelligence Forum
Military Advanced Education
Military Information Technology
www.GCT-kmi.com
www.GIF-kmi.com
www.MAE-kmi.com
www.MIT-kmi.com
Border & CBRNE Defense Border Threat Prevention and CBRNE Response
SPECIAL SECTION:
Integrated Fixed Towers
Subscription Information
Geospatial Intelligence Forum
ISSN 2150-9468 is published eight times a year by KMI Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly forbidden. © Copyright 2012. Geospatial Intelligence Forum is free to qualified members of the U.S. military, employees of the U.S. government and non-U.S. foreign service based in the U.S. All others: $65 per year. Foreign: $149 per year.
Border Protector
www.BCD-kmi.com
Michael J. Fisher Chief U.S. Border Patrol U.S. Customs and Border Protection
June 2012 Volume 1, Issue 1
Leadership Insight: Robert S. Bray Assistant Administrator for Law Enforcement/Director of the Federal Air Marshal Service
Wide Area Aerial Surveillance O Hazmat Disaster Response Tactical Communications O P-3 Program
www.BCD-kmi.com
Medical Military Training Military Logistics Military & Veterans Technology Forum Affairs Forum
Tactical ISR Technology
U.S. Coast Guard Forum
www.SOTECH-kmi.com
www.TISR-kmi.com
www.USCGF-kmi.com
Dedicated to the Military Medical & VA Community
Leadership Insight :
NMLC
Corporate Offices KMI Media Group 15800 Crabbs Branch Way, Suite 300 Rockville, MD 20855-2604 USA Telephone: (301) 670-5700 Fax: (301) 670-5701 Web: www.GIF-kmi.com
Special Operations Technology
Health Care Collaborator Lt. Gen. Patricia D. Horoho Surgeon General U.S. Army Commanding General U.S. Army Medical Command
www.M2VA-kmi.com
May 2012 Volume 16, Issue 3
Who’s Who NATIONAL GUARD BUREAU
MAJ. GEN. DAVID L. HARRIS Director, J-3/7 National Guard Bureau
En Route Medical Evacuation O San Antonio Military Health System Veterans Affairs Police O AFMS Contracts
www.MLF-kmi.com
www.M2VA-kmi.com
www.MT2-kmi.com
SPOTLIGHT:
Cross-Domain XD Solutions
Swift and secure file transfers - up to 40 Gbps One-way transfer from Unclassified to TS/SCI levels Simple graphical user interface for fast and easy set-up Lower power utilization than any comparable guards
Customers around the world rely on Cubic to deliver advanced systems for high-fidelity training, tactical communications, global asset tracking, and cross-domain cyber security solutions. Cubic provides customers the technology, products and support needed to fight, win and return.
Cubic Cyber Solutions • 205 Van Buren St., Suite 310 • Herndon, VA 20170 • www.xd-solutions.com
PROGRAM NOTES
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Geospatial Tools Aid Water Resources, Simulation Programs The Army Geospatial Center (AGC) and Engineer Research and Development Center have released the Hydrologic Data Resources Application (HyDRA), a web-based data survey and analysis tool created to provide the Department of Defense logistics and geospatial intelligence-related water communities with information on water resources data collection, visualization and dissemination in a mobile, enterprise-enabled environment. HyDRA allows users to view, collect and edit unclassified water resources features via Android 2.2+ OS smart devices using Google Maps and Google Earth applications. Wells, water tanks, water storage points, dams, treatment plants and other features may be added, queried and edited in “connected” and “disconnected” modes, and collected features may also be edited through a Web page using the same functionality. The Web page and app were created to assist Army engineers and the water community working in infrastructure and reconstruction operations with feature collection
and identification. A compass feature is also included to assist the user in finding the nearest water feature and its bearings. The mobile application may be downloaded from the AGC’s website at www.agc. army.mil/wrapp/hydralogin.cfm. An offline version of the mobile application, currently under development, will allow the user to store collected data locally and sync to the server after an Internet connection becomes available. HyDRA’s database was initially populated with over 1.6 million features from across the globe. Information collected is added to the AGC’s Water Resources Data Base, an enterprise geodatabase containing information on the location, quantity and quality of land-based surface, ground and existing water facility features designed to support overseas DoD water resource missions. Both databases are maintained by the center’s water resources program, which serves as DoD’s primary agent for military water resource analysis and detection.
In addition, AGC recently announced that it has begun distributing modeling and simulation (M&S) terrain databases along with operational geospatial products on its Common Map Background (CMB) website, with the goal of providing a single repository for all geospatial products. There are 161 free synthetic terrain databases that support live, virtual and constructive simulations used in training, testing and experimentation hosted on CMB. These M&S terrain databases are available in multiple formats suitable for use in Joint Semi-Automated Forces, One Semi-Automated Forces, Virtual Battle Space 2 and other DoD simulations. Available terrain databases include selected Army training areas as well as areas of recent Army deployments. The terrain databases are available for download for free to DoD users with Common Access Cards at https://agcwfs.agc.army.mil/ cmb_online/default.aspx. CMB’s graphical interface is easy to use and users can select M&S terrain databases using a simple map interface.
PEOPLE
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
reassignment as the next director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Flynn is currently serving as assistant director of national intelligence for partner engagement for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Betty Sapp
Betty Sapp, who has been serving as principal deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, has been named as NRO director. She replaces General Bruce Carlson (Ret.), who is retiring. Army Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn has been nominated for reappointment to the rank of lieutenant general and
4 | GIF 10.4
Army Major General Theodore C. Nicholas, who is currently serving as deputy director of the Signals Intelligence Directorate at the National Security Agency, has been nominated for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and reassignment as assistant director of national intelligence for partner engagement for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Wiser Company has hired Steven Fones as GEOINT production division manager. Dr. Dean May has joined ManTech as vice president of intelligence solutions for its Mission, Cyber and Intelligence Solutions group. He recently retired from the CIA after more than 30 years of service in the intelligence community, including the National Reconnaissance Office. General Dynamics Information Technology has appointed Stanley Tyliszczak to the new role of staff vice president for technology integration and chief engineer. In this role, Tyliszczak will be responsible
for managing the company’s longterm technology plan and roadmap.
Marianne Meins
Agilex, a provider of mission and technology solutions to the national and homeland security, health care and public sectors, has appointed Marianne Meins as president of the company’s intelligence and defense sector business.
www.GIF-kmi.com
Special Report: Army GEOINT Profile
Army GEOINT Perspectives Key soldiers discuss benefits, challenges of using geospatial technology for the service’s intelligence and engineering needs. (Editor’s Note: The Army GEOINT enterprise is a vast and diverse undertaking that stretches from supporting flood control projects on the Mississippi River to planning operational missions in Afghanistan. As Lieutenant Colonel Jason Strickland, military executive, Army GEOINT Office, observed in an article last year, “The engineering and intelligence communities are together at last. While some are skeptical, many professionals are celebrating the long overdue union of these two disciplines.” To give an idea of the unity and diversity of Army GEOINT perspectives, GIF recently reached out to two leaders in the field—CW5 Michael Harper, who serves as the Army’s senior geospatial engineer technician at the Army Geospatial Center; and Lieutenant CW5 Michael Harper Lt. Col. David Pendall Colonel (P) David Pendall, G2 of the 1st Cavalry Division, who until recently served as the CJ2 for Regional Command-East/CJTF-1 in Afghanistan—for their views on Army GEOINT’s key issues and trends. Following are their responses.) What do you see as the most important and beneficial aspects of geospatial technology in your own work? Can you provide some examples of where it has made a difference for you? Harper: The ability to rapidly collect, disseminate, visualize and exploit high resolution terrain data and intelligence data from various platforms and sensors provides us with a level of fidelity and situational awareness that soldiers have never had. The ability to ingest open standard data and the ability to pull in and display various sensors feeds in one user-defined common operating environment is an incredibly powerful capability that enables the commander to visualize the battlespace and make informed decisions. Pendall: The ability to instantly visualize the operational environment (on demand) with 3-D, high resolution, tactically significant tools for additional analysis (slope, distance, dimensions, elevation, terrain masking, etc.), and overlays of additional data elements—social (tribal/ethnic), infrastructure, Ops graphics, threat reporting, radio propagation, etc. Low bandwidth delivery of GEOINT as a service as much as a product. Device agnostic, ingesting literally hundreds of additional data layers into a GEOINT service architecture and application for user defined display and visualization. The ability to ingest and update imagery and masint collection as they hit the enterprise. The ability to integrate ISR feeds [multi-INT] along with sensor locational data and fields of view. This is a significant array of 6 | GIF 10.4
capability and all deliverable to the tactical user [SQD-CO] as well as the two-star HQ—across common networks. What do you see as the most important capabilities for the Army as a whole? Pendall: The ability to deliver GEOINT as a service and to interact with the consumer/user to define the output in a mission relevant format. Real-time delivery across a network with tools in a web-enabled architecture. This is a capability for the force—not simply the intel elements—but all operators across all war fighting functions and echelon. The collection side of GEOINT should support user requirements and ingest into an accessible repository—which is what occurs now for the most part. National-tactical integration is a must-have enduring capability as well. The tactical consumer will be a co-producer/content collector/provider to the enterprise as well, from a variety of data streams and mobile devices with georeferenced tagged content. Harper: Our ability to rapidly collect and exploit terrain and intelligence data from multiple computing environments, including mobile and handheld devices, is our most important capability. This allows us to not only gather information at various stages of the mission, but also to collect various fidelities of data to support all war fighting functions. To fully realize the benefits of this information, we need to improve our ability to receive, seamlessly integrate and manage that soldier-generated data into an ops/intel www.GIF-kmi.com
Create maps tailored to your agency's needs. Open the poster to learn more.
Get accurate, current maps into the hands of your people–wherever they need them. Google's enterprise geospatial products can go anywhere, on any device, even in low-bandwitdth or disconnected environments. Design maps tailored to your employees' needs, with the same speed, ease-of-use and innovation of Google Maps. www.google.com/federal Request extra copies of the poster from federal@google.com.
Special Report: Army GEOINT Profile enterprise architecture that enables sharing of information vertically and horizontally and from tactical to national levels. What are the chief challenges you face in effective use of geospatial technology? Harper: Convincing people that the world is not adequately mapped at the scale required for most Army operations, and that we lack the detailed terrain data required for mission planning rehearsal and execution is one challenge. Mapping is something the Army did very well during WWII, Korea and Vietnam, but we divested ourselves of that capability over time and now lack an enduring capability to do it effectively. The technology is there to collect data at a higher fidelity and map more efficiently than ever before. We also struggle with educating people that “geospatial” is more than a map, it is an enabling, cross-cutting capability that provides a consistent framework and organizing principle for operations and intelligence. Pendall: Getting the broader user community to move from PPT or low-information-density static products to a web-based dynamic content delivery and being comfortable with interaction with applications for on the fly/on demand decision aids. This further pushes the GEOINT capability into a service based orientation for commanders and staffs rather than a static product/email/document based delivery of limited use (but relatively high preparation cost in terms of analysts and staff preparation/layers of bureaucracy). If you had a wish list of new geospatial technologies and capabilities, what would be on it? Pendall: Secure architecture for GEOINT delivery to the device (think 4G smartphones) tied to back-end high capacity smart push/PED processes. Everything from fused space to fused terrestrial collection and user defined additional layered data. Wide area surveillance feeds and mobile/airborne datastream with value added processing to the direct user (tactical) to the same data feeds and layers being used at operational HQ for pattern and “big data” analysis. Add in biometrics and forensic data tied to geography and human network analysis displayed on demand in a geo-vis tool. Harper: When you look at the National GeospatialIntelligence Agency’s vision of moving towards an online/ on demand environment, there are a couple of things that jump out. Their vision takes them from providing products to providing data, while at the same time reducing some of their data production capabilities to put a greater emphasis on receiving data collected by the National System of GEOINT [NSG] partners. With all the information being collected across the community, on the surface this strategy seems cost-efficient and effective. However, the success of this vision is truly dependent on each NSG partner, including the Army, having complementary service architecture 8 | GIF 10.4
and structuring their service-generated content in the standards and formats that NGA will be utilizing. To me, the need for a GEOINT content manager to develop a complementary NSG data model for unique features and attributes collected by the services, verification and validation of geospatial-enabled data from disparate service sources, integration into NSG data holdings, and dissemination to NSG and coalition partners is one the most important capabilities required. Essentially, we need a seamless enterprise architecture and a fairly robust system to perform data content management across the NSG. How would you rate the effectiveness of cooperation between the people involved in the engineering and the intelligence aspects of the Army geospatial enterprise? Harper: I think the level of cooperation at the Army and Training and Doctrine Command [TRADOC] levels has probably never been better; the chief of engineers and the Army G-2 co-chair the Army’s Geospatial-Enterprise Governance Board to address geospatial issues at the Army level and along with the Army’s geospatial information officer and staff help move the Army towards an Army geospatial enterprise architecture that will provide a standard and sharable geospatial foundation [SSGF] that supports operations and intelligence convergence in support of mission command. At the TRADOC level, commandants of both the U.S. Army Engineer School and Intelligence School have signed an agreement and are working toward formalizing the GEOINT cell concept that places geospatial engineers and GEOINT analysts under the direction of the G-2/S-2 at each Army echelon. At the tactical level, many of our formations have already merged these capabilities and routinely work together in the same cell under the direction of the G-2/S-2. At some units, our geospatial engineers work directly for the staff engineer or under operations. I think that regardless of who our geospatial engineers may work for, placing them where they have the best access to the intelligence they need to produce relevant tactical decision aids and analysis better serves all of the war fighting functions on the staff. Pendall: Our experience with the entire geoint enterprise has been excellent. We had engineer support from the Army Geospatial Center directly supporting us (Terra Explorer) as well as touchtable engineering support from NRO. AGC and their Army Geospatial Enterprise really maintained a broader capability set that we tapped and integrated other efforts (our seven-layer analytic structure) to meet our needs across the regional command (Geo Globe Architecture—Terra Explorer, Terra Buider and the Terra Gate Servers). We had NGA and NRO people on site, as well as NGA at our subordinate BCTs. AGC was over for site visits and we stayed tied in as we developed additional capability for the regional command through the Terra Explorer application. I would like to add that the Army DCGS program engineers and FSRs were also very supportive in terms of data access and data layering support www.GIF-kmi.com
Special Report: Army GEOINT Profile to the GEOINT team. Bottom line: We effectively pushed GEOINT applications and visualization capability throughout the regional command across three networks—to the desktop/workstation at all echelons. Need to work the delivery to the device (secure mobile/4G) next.
made elements of this (static product or for display) to our Afghan partners. We had several specially developed flythroughs and mission planning products for Afghan Security Forces—either on DVD or hard copy, in addition to screen display in tactical operations centers.
What can be done to improve intelligence/engineering cooperation?
How would you describe your vision of the Army geospatial enterprise in, say, 10 years?
Pendall: Keep embedded support and to the BCT and in some cases below to directly interact with end-users. In the face of declining resources, pressure may exist to cut these support positions first, but that is where the learning and feedback happens first to “stress test” programs and capabilities. Keep organizations flat and integrated.
Pendall: Embedded and part of the command culture as a component of mission command, with less emphasis on static products and more emphasis on immersive visualization and discreet support (user defined) applications (via widgets). With additional sensor technologies and wide area surveillance capabilities, we’ll need to rethink PED and what processing (machine based or human analysts in the loop) makes the collection more valuable across the echelons of the joint force. Again, I think adding biometric collection and forensic data into the geoint architecture is a growth area.
Harper: I think the full fielding of the Distributed Common Ground System-Army [DCGS-A] will enable our soldiers to use the same systems on the same networks operating in a much more collaborative environment than some of them do today operating on separate systems. Each military occupational specialty brings a unique skill set and when you combine them in an all-source fusion environment it’s a tremendous capability. As we formalize the GEOINT cell, we’ll need to look at collective training opportunities both in garrison and in our schools. We’re also looking again at our geospatial engineer force structure to ensure that it’s aligned to provide the best support to the Army. Do you often encounter technological limits on your ability to share needed information? How do those limits compare with the restrictions created by organizational culture, habits, etc.? Harper: Yes, stovepipe systems or “cylinders of excellence” still impede a common operating picture [COP] and full interoperability due to incompatible or proprietary geospatial data formats, data schema/models, viewers and data management processes. In addition, we also have a few quick reaction capabilities that were fielded to fill a critical capability gap, without fully vetting their interoperability with existing systems. The Army Geospatial Center is working to help Army Program executive offices and program managers develop their systems with enterprise standards and concepts in mind so that we can ultimately get to a seamless enterprise architecture. I don’t think that it’s an organizational culture that limits the sharing of information as much as it is the lack of an architecture and tools that enable it. Pendall: We stressed the need to share and support partners—coalition and Afghan. We had a great Foreign Disclosure Office and impressed the need for quick (responsible) turns and distribution. Another great advantage to the Terra Explorer was the base imagery was unclassified and immediately sharable in many modes. We ran this across the Afghan Mission Network for coalition partners and www.GIF-kmi.com
Harper: An Army Geospatial Enterprise with a well developed set of common geospatial data standards, models and formats that enable a SSGF that facilitates a COP to the warfighter at all echelons. DCGS-A is providing the net-centric enterprise services for geospatial data management, dissemination and synchronization from tactical to national. All enabling: • Uniform pre-deployment configuration of mission command systems with standard data • Automated dissemination and ingest of updates from tactical, theater and national authoritative data sources • Horizontal and vertical cross-echelon synchronization of data updates • Lossless transfer of data from one unit to another during reliefs in place/transfers of authority • Coalition partner interoperability and seamless data exchange • Post-deployment retention of collected data. In 10 years, the AGE will be a well-designed and embedded part of Army mission command systems. Mission command systems will have the ability to discover, download, exploit, create and value-add real-time ‘boots on the ground’ information through a standardized and seamless architecture. However, it is important to realize that in 10 years the AGE will still be maturing. New technology and standards will emerge that provide even greater fidelity of information that what is available today. We need to stay vigilant in assessing and integrating new technology, standards and strategies into the AGE to ensure our Army remains the world’s premier fighting force. O For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
GIF 10.4 | 9
Three-dimensional technologies are advancing in the geospatial intelligence sphere, as organizations of all sizes develop applications and create content that allow users to create 3-D visualizations of ocean depths, atmospheric conditions and everything in between. The potential is great. 3-D geospatial applications would allow warfighters, commanders and analysts a deeper understanding of environments such as urban areas and could help them execute their missions better and more efficiently. But these new technologies and applications are not reaching the military fast enough, which is why the Army Geospatial Center (AGC) initiated a multi-agency project, the Op3-D Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD), to facilitate the validation and fielding of 3-D geospatial technologies and to promote standards that would allow for the more rapid development and acceptance of these systems. “In the past, 3-D technology, products and capabilities were too slow to be used for mission planning and execution,” said Heidi Hainsey, the AGC’s Op3-D technical manager. “With the 10 | GIF 10.4
Heidi Hainsey
Gabe Batstone
advent of faster processing, the ability to create 3-D mission data sets enabled creation of 3-D products, but not to produce 3-D capabilities to meet mission needs in an expedited fashion. “3-D products must undergo a lengthy development process in order to be considered valid enhancements in the military decision making process,” Hainsey added. “Areas of improvement have been identified within the collection, processing, exploitation and dissemination process for 3-D production that limit the effectiveness of these products.” “There are tons of geospatial information being collected, whether LiDAR or satellite imagery. Warfighters are overwhelmed with the amount of data,” said Gabe Batstone, chief executive officer of Ngrain, a provider of 3-D technologies. “Too much information can be an inhibitor. It slows them down. The problem that industry needs to solve is to create applications that turn information into knowledge.” Three-dimensional visualizations of geospatial data can help by “consolidating and presenting information in a fashion that is easily usable www.GIF-kmi.com
Technology speeds delivery of three-dimensional imagery for use by warfighters in the field. By Peter Buxbaum, GIF Correspondent
to create a new system or functional capability that would take the place of something already in mainstream usage, but rather to work with existing technologies that currently meet the needs of the warfighter and improve upon them to open some of the more common choke points within the traditional processes.” By improving upon existing technologies, increasing the processing speed, and making 3-D exploitation less cumbersome while enabling Obstacles to Adoption greater access to 3-D data through uncomplicated Paul Collins discovery, Op3-D officials hope to speed up the Op3-D has identified several obstacles to exploitation of 3-D data and allow warfighters to more widespread adoption of 3-D technologies by utilize 3-D products that can be employed in decision making. the military. These include the lack of standards and policies Op3-D brings together several organizations to its joint for sharing enhanced 3-D data; the difficulty in discovering 3-D effort. The combatant command sponsor is U.S. Special data; limited availability of software tools to exploit available Operations Command, which provides executive level direc3-D products; the lack of automation in the processes of coltion, oversight and support. The AGC plays the role of technical lecting, processing and generating 3-D; and the data intensity manager for the program. The operational manager for Op3-D of the products, causing dissemination to be slow. is the branch of USSOCOM responsible for training, exercises, “The main objective of Op3-D is to develop and transimilitary education and doctrine, while the transition manager tion capabilities to quickly discover, acquire, manage, generis the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. ate exploit, disseminate and accurately update 3-D geospatial Op3-D is not in the business of developing new technolointelligence data products from multiple collection systems to gies. “In order to get 3-D data to as many users as possible and the warfighter,” said Hainsey. “The program does not propose by squad commanders,” said Paul Collins, chief executive officer of Skyline Software Systems. “3-D gives individual warfighters a better picture of the terrain and environment they are operating in, particularly at close quarters in urban areas. With a 3-D representation, warfighters can better understand how terrain and the man-made environment affect military operations.”
www.GIF-kmi.com
GIF 10.4 | 11
to adhere to the thought of breaking down stovepipes rather than creating new ones, Op3-D relies on and leverages core technologies,” said Hainsey, including those developed by AGC, NGA and USSOCOM. “The program will update and improve existing technologies across the entire pipeline that the warfighter already has available to enable faster generation and exploitation of 3-D mission planning products.” Op3-D is also working with private sector companies to develop 3-D capabilities that can be pushed out to warfighters. The program is working with SAIC and TerraGo Technologies to create an uncomplicated 3-D GeoPDF composer tool that enables a user to create these easily readable products for warfighter usage in low bandwidth environments within Adobe Reader software. In addition, Op3-D is joining with Overwatch Textron Systems to improve the commercially available and readily used Feature Analyst and LiDAR Analyst software to enable faster production of databases to be used in 3-D mission rehearsal data sets. Op3-D has worked with Intergraph Government Solutions, moreover, to improve the ERDAS Imagine software tool set and have completed the required tests to be certified by the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC). “This enables all geospatial intelligence analysts who use the software, the ability to create controlled image base imagery,” explained Hainsey. “These products can then be included in the NGA repository, enabling them to be used by the wider National System for Geospatial Intelligence community, and reducing the cost and increasing the coverage of controlled image base (CIB).” CIB is unclassified digital imagery, produced to support mission planning and command, control, communications and intelligence systems.
The system has been used for several types of applications in theater, such as convoy route planning and air operations planning. It is particularly useful in urban operations, according to Collins. “It’s one thing to look at a two-dimensional map or image,” he said. “It’s much more relevant to have a complete sense of what structures look like, what the road networks are, and to overlay all that with the human terrain to have a better understanding of the political background of a particular neighborhood.” One challenge that Op3-D is tackling is the cumbersome volumes of data required for 3-D representations. Ngrain has developed and patented a technology that compresses the data and allows it to be deployed to a variety of platforms. “What we do is license a core technology that allows customers to get at the heart of Ngrain technology and develop tools themselves,” said Batstone. “We have a tool kit called Constructor that allows our partners to develop applications to solve specific problems.” The Canadian Department of National Defense has used Ngrain technology to create a 3-D simulation that allows it to model the effect of weapons on particular geographic locations. In the U.S., Lockheed Martin has deployed Ngrain tools in a similar fashion as part of project conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. Another U.S. company, Quantapoint, uses the Ngrain technology to generate 3-D representations of urban areas. It has also been used by United Kingdom forces to study terrain to determine the proper location of deployable medium girder bridges.
3-D and Beyond
Zebra Imaging Inc. takes 3-D to another level by producing holograms of terrain, particularly urban terrain, of interest. A hologram is a 3-D, 360-degree repWeb Access resentation of an object or area that projects an image above the film, thus creating a 3-D effect Skyline has worked with Op3-D to provide a that can be observed from all sides. The holoproduct called Army Geospatial Enterprise (AGE) gram is projected by illuminating Zebra’s propriGeoGlobe. AGE GeoGlobe is based on Skyline etary film. Software’s SkylineGlobe suite of products. This “A hologram is virtually solid but not physisoftware allows users to access AGC’s geospatial cally solid,” explained Rick Black, Zebra’s director data archives and products over the internet. for defense and intelligence programs. “We provide a suite of software products that Zebra’s holograms can be created from a variallow users to create 3-D visualizations, by infusety of data. They have utilized LiDAR data from ing 3-D geospatial information into imagery, and Rick Black AGC’s BuckEye program, as well as commercial to disseminate it,” said Collins. satellite imagery and airborne imagery. AGE GeoGlobe provides users with a web interface to find “The holograms have been used to plan line-of-sight comand view AGC products such as the Water Resources Database, munications in urban areas,” said Black. “A line of sight is not Urban Tactical Planner and BuckEye imagery, as well as easily discernible from a flat representation. They have also Theater Geospatial Database data. These products form part been used for route planning, for mission pre-brief and debriefs, of the GeoGlobe’s data layers and can be viewed in any of the for flight rehearsals, and for virtual reconnaissance.” Unlike GeoGlobe’s three different globe views, world map, NGA map photographs or maps, hologram users don’t need any special and imagery. training to understand the terrain being represented, accord“AGE GeoGlobe has created a huge collection of city data in ing to Black. Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere,” said Collins. “What we have “We have placed thousands of these products into the been able to do is take all that and allow users not trained in Afghanistan and Iraq theaters since 2005,” said Black. “In geographic information systems to look at data and click on and response to customers’ requirements, we have sped up production click off information depending upon what is relevant to their of the holograms from three and half hours down to 93 minutes. mission.” 12 | GIF 10.4
www.GIF-kmi.com
we are delivering will be available to Department Over the next couple of years we will work on getof Defense users in the near future or as soon ting it down to less than half an hour.” as the newest software updates are incorporated If Zebra takes 3-D to another level, a company into DoD systems through upgrades to existing called Makai goes beyond 3-D altogether with licensed software.” representations that go into four and five dimenCollaboration among multiple agencies has sions. “The fourth dimension is time,” explained allowed the participants on Op3-D to tweak their Jose Andres, the company’s president. “With a systems in response to user needs. “Issues with 4-D representation, you can visualize changing discovery of data were made known to NGA, which atmospheric and environmental phenomena over provides the lion’s share of data to users,” said time.” Hainsey. “With that knowledge, changes were The fifth dimension involves integrating speJose Andres made to their web access for more inclusion of cific variables into the representation. “For exam3-D data. Our ongoing discussions have led to improvements ple, a weather guy might be interested in certain ranges of to geospatial intelligence data production centers such as the humidity, temperature and precipitation,” said Andres. “Each Special Operations Forces Planning, Rehearsal and Execution of these properties can be visualized in space and over time.” Preparation [SOFPREP] facility. These improvements have Makai accomplishes these feats with a tool called Voyager. enabled the SOFPREP production team to harness greater Makai Voyager can show large, time-varying 3-D weather simuamounts of data, process it faster and create 3-D scene visuallations and stream live weather layers from the Internet. Many ization databases for their customers” in half the time. terrain data formats can be imported with Makai Voyager’s data In addition, the BuckEye program has been upgraded with import module. Lighting, colors and elevation contours for terfaster processing capabilities to produce imagery and dissemirain and bathymetry—the depth of a body of water—can be nate more recent collections to users in an expedited manner. changed dynamically. “All of these capabilities have already been added to the pro“Voyager has georeferencing capabilities on a global scale,” duction workflows at each of the agencies, and the benefits are said Andres. “Users can view their data from any elevation. already being felt by warfighters,” said Hainsey. Large global features as well as very fine resolution data can be Among capabilities that Op3-D plans to introduce in the visualized. Accurate lighting allows users to set the sunlight for future is an online LiDAR point cloud server that enables users any date and time. 3-D buildings and objects can be imported to access raw LiDAR point cloud data while enabling them to into Makai Voyager, and flooding or tsunami inundation can clip out the area of interest they want, thus greatly reducing the be modeled to better understand flood patterns. GIS imagery amount of data downloaded. “Op3-D has added a line of sight and elevation from multiple sources and more than 18 differand helicopter landing zone tactical decision aid [TDA] tool ent GIS formats in different projections can be imported into that can utilize the point cloud data and create on-the-fly TDAs Makai Voyager.” for the specific areas of interest the user needs,” said Hainsey. In military applications, these dimensions are particularly “With this available to end-users, they are able to create their useful for airborne or water operations, according to Andres. own TDAs using the most up-to-date information, and receive “We are doing some work for NAVAIR that involves identifytheir products well in advance of any disseminated through ing targets in the ocean by taking into account velocity in the commonly used processes to date. We have tested the tool to ocean. We can do this almost in real time.” ensure stability, and it has shown great promise.” The Federal Aviation Administration is investing in developOverall, Op3-D has managed to cut through bureaucratic ing an historical database of atmospheric conditions. “This data silos to provide users with better tools faster. “Op3-D JCTD is can be used to predict when and where atmospheric turbulence meeting the challenge of mission-critical time lines by prowill occur and can be visualized in 4-D,” said Andres. viding data producers with faster tools, reducing 3-D data file sizes, and introducing faster exploitation tool sets,” said Faster to the Field Hainsey. “At the conclusion of Op3-D, transitioned capabilities will have the overall effect of providing the warfighter Op3-D plans are to expedite the placement of new 3-D techreliable, relevant 3-D products more quickly to support their nologies in the hands of warfighters for testing and for further mission planning and decision making process. The ability to development and possible eventual deployment. “One of the reliably provide the warfighter with these 3-D products will benefits of the JCTD process is that it can place new technolonot only increase our effectiveness prosecuting the war on tergies to see if they improve their workflow,” said Hainsey. “The ror, but also save lives by removing the advantage often held by proof of concept is tailored to meet their needs based upon their the enemy, of knowing the terrain where our warfighters are assessment during an operational demonstration.” operating.” O As Op3-D’s transition manager, NGA will then incorporate capabilities into existing programs of record or quick reaction capabilities. “The JCTD process also encourages the transition of capabilities after only one year, unlike programs of record which usually take two or more years to deliver any For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives products,” said Hainsey. “As a result, Op3-D has been able to for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com. speed up the existing processes already in place. All capabilities www.GIF-kmi.com
GIF 10.4 | 13
INDUSTRY RASTER Spacecraft Bus, Imaging Payload Mated for GeoEye-2 Lockheed Martin has successfully mated the spacecraft bus and the imaging payload for GeoEye-2, GeoEye’s next-generation, high-resolution imaging satellite. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is developing GeoEye-2 under a fixed-price contract with GeoEye. Once operational, GeoEye-2 will be the world’s highest resolution commercial satellite, providing highly accurate imagery to intelligence analysts, warfighters and decision makers. Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services will launch GeoEye-2 aboard an Atlas V rocket in 2013. The GeoEye-2 bus is the structural foundation of the satellite, including an integrated propulsion system as well as other critical subsystems for communications, attitude control, thermal control, command and data handling. The imaging payload for GeoEye-2 includes a telescope, sensor subsystem and outer barrel assembly. It has the potential to capture panchromatic ground sample distance imagery of the Earth’s surface at 0.34-meter, or 13.38-inch, ground resolution from an altitude of 681 km. The GeoEye-2 satellite will feature enhanced tasking capabilities, superior image quality and the ability to collect more imagery at a faster rate with a new ITT Exelis imaging system. Michaela Rubala michaela.rubala@lmco.com
Geospatial Data Tool Manages Maps, Imagery and Terrain Boeing has released DataMaster 5.1, an advanced version of its geospatial data tool that offers defense and intelligence community customers improved map, terrain and full-motion video management. DataMaster 5.1 includes features such as enhanced support for maps, imagery and terrain, including National GeospatialIntelligence Agency raster product format and digital terrain elevation data; enhanced video text tagging for improved exploitation, management and retrieval of video; content manager for better control of the situational awareness view, which provides the user with a 3-D geospatial display of the collection; and expanded compatibility with Windows 7, RHEL 5 64-bit and Solaris 64-bit operating systems. DataMaster is a comprehensive suite of commercial-off-the-shelf products and capabilities from the Boeing Intelligence Systems Group that allows users to retrieve, convert and manage image and geospatial information from resources around the world. Lynn Farrow lynn.farrow@boeing.com
14 | GIF 10.4
Photogrammetry System Expands Support for Imagery Sources Intergraph has released LPS 11.0.5, a service pack for LPS 2011. LPS is a powerful photogrammetry system that delivers full analytical triangulation, the generation of digital terrain models, orthophoto production, mosaicking and 3-D feature extraction in a user-friendly environment that guarantees results even for photogrammetry novices. With its tight integration with ERDAS Imagine, LPS is the ideal photogrammetric package for projects involving varied types of data and further processing and analysis of airborne
and satellite imagery. LPS 11.0.5 extends the product’s broad range of support for both orbital and airborne sensors by adding the Pleiades Rational Polynomial Coefficient (RPC) model, the DEIMOS RPC model and the VisionMap A3 Super Large Format model. The ability to use these sensors provides unique advantages and capabilities for customers. LPS 11.0.5 also expands users’ choice of input devices. Stephanie Deemer stephanie.deemer@intergraph.com
Image Analysis Software Offers Streamlined Workflows Exelis Visual Information Solutions has released ENVI 5, the next generation of the company’s image analysis software, which is used across industries by professionals who want to uncover hidden information in geospatial imagery in order to make better, more informed decisions. ENVI 5 introduces imagery consumers to an innovative and streamlined user process for their image analysis workflow, making complex analysis tasks easier. Designed to make image analysis
accessible to users of virtually any experience level, ENVI 5 provides an intuitive, easy-to-navigate interface; highly efficient display for large datasets; new automated processes for several popular analysis tasks; and flexible application programming interface for customizing the software to unique user needs. ENVI 5 was developed to introduce efficiency and speed into the previously complex workflow of converting raw imagery into actionable information.
www.GIF-kmi.com
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Satellite Imagery Giants Wage Acquisition Fight In a battle being waged in the context of anticipated cuts in federal funding for commercial satellite imagery, remote sensing giants GeoEye and DigitalGlobe were at odds as this issue went to press over mutual acquisition/merger proposals. The struggle came to light when GeoEye proposed
Mapping Software Aids Integration of Legacy Geospatial Data Telogis GeoBase 3.8 represents the latest release of geospatial mapping software used by developers for location-based application development. Speed, scalability and ease of use remain the top design goals of the Telogis GeoBase platform as Telogis adds exciting new features and support for the newest programming standards. Version 3.8 includes a new Windows Presentation Foundation map control and improvements to the JavaScript API that take advantage of powerful HTML 5 features. Taking note of an increasing trend among enterprise developers who want to integrate geospatial data stored in legacy databases or in the cloud, the company is providing tools that enable them to leverage that data from within their Telogis GeoBase applications. Examples of this include a way to spatially index and query data in third-party relational databases, such as Oracle, and support for Web Map Service (WMS) map layers. Developers can now add WMS layers to their application from a wide range of providers including NASA, TerraServer and OpenStreetMap.
to acquire DigitalGlobe for $17 a share, in a deal valued at a total of $792 million. The DigitalGlobe board rejected the GeoEye proposal, arguing that it failed to provide the full value of the company. Instead, it repeated a proposal, previously discussed by the two companies, under which DigitalGlobe
would acquire 60 percent of GeoEye stock, with the combined company to be headed by DigitalGlobe executives. GeoEye quickly rejected that plan, and observers predicted that further moves would await a government decision on future funding of commercial satellite imagery.
Software Compares Satellite Imagery, News and Social Media
Geosemble Technologies has released the GeoXray3.0 software suite for automatic visualization and analysis of information about places. The 3.0 release features the capability for filtering and visualizing content both by topic and location, delivering workflow acceleration for government and commercial users and a reduced need for trained staff. A major feature of the new release is the ability to tap public sources of satellite imagery to compare recent news and social media against the latest aerial image collections. New capabilities include Imagery Web Services, integration of
standard WMS/WFS image services to overlay imagery on top of a tile map; an interface for linking to the Department of Defense Distributed Common Ground System; statistical analysis across documents that refer to a location to retrieve unique keywords and phrases that represent that location; ability to filter on documents that contain photos; enhanced time filtering by hour and minute of source availability time; and enhancements to the API to ensure robust capability when viewing. Steve Lutton sm.lutton@geosemble.com
Software Helps Users Access, Update and Share Geospatial Data TerraGo Technologies has released its Publisher for ArcGIS v.6 software to enable Esri users to produce interactive, portable and intelligent TerraGo GeoPDF maps, imagery and geospatial applications with unprecedented collaboration capabilities. TerraGo Publisher for ArcGIS permits Esri users to extend, exchange and exploit their enterprise geospatial assets by producing multi-layer TerraGo GeoPDF maps and imagery. Users without sophisticated GIS tools or training can access, dynamically update and share compact geospatial information from any source and roundtrip it back to the enterprise GIS. The new version of TerraGo Publisher for ArcGIS introduces enhanced collaboration capabilities and functionality that empowers users to: produce GeoPDF applications that
www.GIF-kmi.com
are automatically enabled to allow anyone, anywhere using the no-cost v.6 TerraGo Toolbar with Adobe Reader to update and share maps and imagery with georeferenced audio, video, notes, forms and Web services; support automated GeoPDF map book production using Esri data-driven pages; and export ArcGIS map feature layers and attributes as geoforms into TerraGo GeoPDF maps. This new capability allows users to edit GeoPDF maps in the field with TerraGo Toolbar and Adobe Reader and return the updated geospatial information via Publisher to refresh the ArcGIS database. John Deaver jdeaver@terragotech.com
GIF 10.4 | 15
On-Demand Architect
Q& A
Providing Capabilities to Edge Users Keith L. Barber Director National System for Geospatial-Intelligence Expeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Keith L. Barber currently serves as director, National System for Geospatial-Intelligence (NSG) Expeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), where he coordinates the efforts of acquisition, enterprise services, InnoVision and source operations and management in support of deployed forces and first responders. Previously, he was the agency lead for implementing the NGA goal of achieving “online, on-demand” services. Barber has also served as the technical executive, Source Operations and Management Directorate, where he was responsible for the articulation of requirements and the development of tools, architectures and data sources required to meet current and evolving operational needs of the Source Directorate and the associated community-level requirements of the NSG. During his tenure, he successfully led a study effort on a national capability that resulted in a decision by the secretary of defense and director of national intelligence. Prior to working at NGA, Barber was the imagery functional manager for the Navy under the director of naval intelligence. He was responsible for shaping the Navy’s capability requirements and aligning resources for execution of war fighting capabilities critical to executing the Navy’s mission. His work included serving as the imagery expert for the Navy’s TOMAHAWK Land Attack Cruise Missile (TLAM) program, where he coordinated and managed development activities, testing and evaluations, and assisted in requirements development and resourcing for the TLAM program. Barber was interviewed by GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly. Q: You recently returned to your post as director of the National System for Geospatial Intelligence Expeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office. What is your mission there? A: The mission is to provide capabilities to edge users. We’ve been focused on the war effort, but this is really the extension of the NSG to user environments, defined by the users, not necessarily by people who think they know what the users want. Our goal is to be flexible and agile, and work inside the downrange users’ footprint—in this case, downrange can be anything from a young person working in a BCT to the ISAF Headquarters element or an ISR asset that’s being worked on one of the ramps out there. www.GIF-kmi.com
Q: What issues are you currently focusing on in that position? A: It’s a great job, because it’s the challenge you would expect to have. We have a tremendous opportunity in front of us, in terms of resource issues. I look at it as an opportunity. As Winston Churchill once quipped, ‘The kingdom is out of money, so now we must think.’ We still have enough resources to do what we need to do, but we’re going to have to be creative about the approach we take toward solving the problems. It really is an opportunity to think outside the box and work the processes the way we need them to be worked in order to get us the capabilities we need. That’s in the balance with a tremendous amount of ISR assets and capabilities that are out there working. Everyone refers to all of these ISR assets, and all of the data that we’re being inundated with, as a tsunami. But I disagree, because tsunamis recede. The data levels that we’re working at are not going to recede any time soon. If you look just at the ‘open’ world, there’s a tremendous amount of data that’s not going away. It’s getting bigger and bigger. So the notion that this is a tsunami is wrong, because at some point a tsunami would ebb out, giving you a chance to catch up. But there is no catch-up. We’re just getting smarter, more clever and proactive in the way we anticipate needs and the way we prioritize what we’re doing when we do it. GIF 10.4 | 17
Those two things—resource impacts and the ebb of data— should instantly make us consider that we have to think about the process in those kinds of terms, not the terms we’re used to, such as having time to figure things out and always having the budget with which to execute those things in a linear path. One of the things that we are starting to touch on is the different kinds of processes, and how we anticipate capabilities that we need to build out against. That’s a different cost model and business model than how we traditionally look at problems. Our people are executing incredibly. Every day, I hear that NGA has really stepped up and is really meeting the warfighter’s demands. Right now, we’re delivering capability that they need. What people may not appreciate is that we’re doing that because we anticipated this more than a year ago. Then, we were working toward what was going to be needed today. As I sit and look at what we’ll need next, I’m looking out past what we’re delivering today. I’m anticipating the next wave of what we’re going to need downrange. Q: Previously, you served as agency lead for implementing the NGA goal of achieving “online, on-demand” services. To start, can you give readers an overview of your role and accomplishments there? A: That was a great opportunity as well, because there wasn’t a lot of definition about what that meant. The thing I got to do, along with a team of people, was to define a new service model and methodology at the front end. It was the three-tiered model that said if I am going to have an online service, I need to be fully empowered, with a self-service capability that allows all users to discover, visualize and access content and capabilities. We also need to have an assisted-service methodology that lets us customize products and analysis based on some specific user needs, when users weren’t able to satisfy themselves with the capabilities. Then we will still have an extension of the full-service model, because there will always be an element out there that needs a person full time integrating into the footprint until a mission was complete. We also worked hard to make sure everyone knew the difference between content management services and how to build the framework out in a different way. We touched on some of the early definitions for what cloud could do for the agency. I was really proud of the strategic initiatives. I was on some of the working groups early on, where we defined the strategic initiatives that have been incorporated in the agency and are fundamentally changing the way the agency does its business on a daily basis. Q: How would you define the overall strategy and timetable for achieving that goal? A: Right now, we’re reorganizing to unify our information technologies, under the new T Directorate in the agency, which is being led by Dave Bottom and Dave Burns. It’s a shift to unify the technology aspects of the framework. When you talk about online, ondemand services, there are a couple of pieces in addition to the business model I articulated. There is the separation of an online geospatial service unit, which is being stood up within the agency and led initially by Barry Barlow. There was also the unifying of the information technology, because we had a couple of different groups within the agency doing that. With both of those efforts, 18 | GIF 10.4
put together with an underpinning that we focused on virtualization of hardware and frameworks, we manage our content as a service, which leads us toward looking at new ways of how we design, build, buy and operate our information technology. That’s a huge step forward. The agency is right at the front edge of doing that. We’ve already started the reorganization of the T Directorate. There’s a time horizon associated with that, with periods of reflection built into the schedule to enable us to go back and look at whether we need to make an adjustment, not knowing precisely what the answer is at the outset. For a guy like me, it’s refreshing to hear at the outset that we might not know everything. We’re going to learn as we go, and get it right, and it’s going to fundamentally shift the way we do business. Q: What do you see as the key challenges or obstacles, in terms of technology and policy, to implementing this vision? On the other hand, what trends are working in its favor? A: I would say that most of our issues are not going to be the technology hurdles. It will be culture based, and about policy being able to keep pace with technology. It’s also having the right mindset, which I would say depends on whether we’re going to be risk averse, or measured in the risks that we take. If you go back and consider the original briefing that Director Long gave at the GEOINT 2010 Symposium, as well as what was articulated last year, we continue to strive toward reaching that vision. There is a shift in culture and how we approach problems mentally, in that we’re going to accept risk, and we’re not going to presuppose the answers or that we know everything upfront. To the extent we can understand our assumptions and what we’re doing, we’re going to do that. Technology will change rapidly around us, so we’ve got to keep pace. That means we have to know when we’re taking a smart, measured risk or when we’re taking a dumb risk, and know that difference and make sure we’re protecting ourselves and the nation. That fits into what I said earlier, because when you’re going to anticipate needs, you are really anticipating what people will need a year from now, not having a requirements discussion about what they need today. If I talk to someone about what they need today, if it’s not something I can pull off the shelf, but will need six months or a year to build, there’s no way I’m going to satisfy their needs. They need it today—not a year or more from now. If I deliver it a year and a half later, they’re going to say that was what I needed back then—now give me what I need today, which is different. Q: During your remarks at the GEOINT 2011 Symposium last fall, you referred to the need to shift the agency’s long-standing business model to an activity-based approach. Why, given the success of the existing model in meeting many users’ needs? A: There are two pieces to the answer to that. The activitiesbased approach fundamentally helps change the way we do analysis. We’re continually striving toward meeting all the milestones and achieving the goals to get us to the vision, but in order to do that you have to make sure that you focus on the problem in a different way. The activities-based model gives us a different way of looking at intelligence problems. Instead of just looking into stovepipes of target sets or places, pulling relationships in and www.GIF-kmi.com
establishing activities gives a broader and different way of looking at the problem. We didn’t have one model before starting to implement the vision—we had hundreds of models. None of them were alike, and there was no unification of effort between any of them, which means there was reuse and linkage of those pieces. For example, I could have had geospatial people out there building MIL-standard charts for a certain region of the world, and another group looking at what was going on in terms of humanitarian support in the same part of the world. Those people were working independently of each other, serving different customer sets, and none of that data was ever re-utilized or shared across those boundaries. We had hundreds of models like that, where there were two or three guys inside NGA serving six to 10 folks outside of NGA and none of the data was ever reused in any other way than between those two groups. Often, the delivery mechanism was an email. But when you start scaling that out, you find out quickly that those are not very sustainable multiple business models. The idea was that we could unify those activities and get them more supported. In the old days, I might report on a drought, for example, or the impact of the drought on farming. Someone else would report separately on population densities in the major cities of an Arab nation. Those would be separate, independently reportable activities. What we could do is to ask if there a relationship between the drought, reduction of farm output and the migration of men 16-22 moving to major industrial centers, where unemployment was already 30 percent, and does that make them more or less susceptible to radicalization? You can start to pull together problem sets like that instead of looking at them as separate reportables because someone at the State Department wanted to know about migration patterns, or someone at USAID was working on water issues. We’re pulling those together to get a better picture of what’s going on. Q: What do you see as the future for the three-tier service model being adopted by the agency, and how will that be affected by changing budget conditions and changing missions abroad? A: Going back to my earlier comments on the challenges, I actually like the challenges, because they are not mutually exclusive. If we do the three tier model right, we can gain efficiencies and reinvest in mission. If we re-invest in mission, we’re going to be more successful in keeping a broader market share—people who need GEOINT but aren’t getting it today, but could get it in the future without a huge increase in expenditures. It’s not so much that we would do less with less money, but we could reach more people with the resources we already have, which is powerful. In industry, they would say that’s increasing market share without a major capital investment. We could do that and be very powerful using that model and the shift of focus to a broader sense. Q: How can you protect information security and the need to know principle while expanding direct access to information? A: There’s no question we need to secure the networks and data, at the appropriate level and the risks associated with the network or the data. If it’s unclassified data with very little risk of impacting the U.S., we need to unclassify and keep it unclassified, and take the right, measured approach toward securing it. That said, I think it’s incumbent on the intelligence community, and the linkage 20 | GIF 10.4
between intelligence communicators and operators, to make sure that the discovery that information exists is not confused with the exposure of the data itself. By that, what I mean is that I should be able to find out you are writing a certain report. Although you may have it in a raw format that you don’t want to share with me, if I did the query, and we knew each other and we were working on the same problem, I should at least know that I should contact you to see if there is something you might know that I need to know. The exposure of the fact that you are writing a report, or that someone else is working on a project you are working on, should not be something that is limited. We should know to reach out to one another. Today, data sharing is looked at as the actual files that expose sources. Our methodology is to get to a point where we’re keeping records in a way that allows us to know who else is working on a project without exposing the data. Usually the sensitive nature of the issue is the exposure of the data itself, although sometimes it can be just the knowledge of a report. I don’t think there is adequate balance on that now. We need to be exposing more information that issues are being worked on, without exposing the content itself. Simply put—it’s exposing a dot that there could be a bad guy around the corner, versus giving extensive details of who he is and how I know. Just tell me there is a bad guy around the corner. Q: Amid the huge volumes of data being collected, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff, especially since, as you observed at GEOINT, there is “a lot of wheat in the chaff”? A: I don’t think we’re making the connections. In my personal experience, we have a huge number of ‘digital hoarders.’ They say that to absolutely everything, for who knows why. But if we could find the algorithms that could find relationships between pieces of information, we could surprise ourselves. It’s how we sift or refine the wheat, because today’s wheat might be something we really want, but tomorrow we might decide that what we really want is a relationship with all of the chaff. How do I find a needle in a pile of needles, or how do I find all the right needles in the pile. When you start looking at big data, people like to talk about huge volumes of data being collected. But I like to talk about in terms of how we index the data in a way that I can find the relationship between like elements, and then go to the next level of discovery beyond that. Q: Is there anything else you would like to add? A: One of my focuses, which I keep trying to push, is anticipatory acquisition. It’s anticipating user needs without waiting for someone to tell me what they want, and linking that into OSD and some of the processes that are out there. We’re working really well now with the DI2E framework people on how they define the future of some of these enterprises, which we are working to make sure that people even at the engineering level understand what we’re doing so that we can help drive some of those definitions out. It’s not that they have to buy or build what we are doing, but that as we define it and build a plan, we share that plan with everyone else so we can all see what we’re doing. That’s going to be huge in moving forward—getting the terms of reference right so that we all saying words that we mean and all understanding the same definitions. O www.GIF-kmi.com
INTEL UPDATE As of early May, 9,222 bills and resolutions have been introduced in the 112th Congress. Of those, 106 bills have been signed into law, 501 resolutions have been passed, and 16 bills are awaiting the president’s signature or to be resolved by a conference committee. There are more than 40 pending intelligencerelated bills, many of which revolve around intelligence sharing and evolving methods of intelligence gathering. In addition, there is still much attention on cybersecurity. Much of the current intelligence-related
By George Meyers
issues pertain to the sharing of intelligence rather than its collection. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act passed the House in April. But it faces an uncertain future in the Senate, and President Obama has threatened to veto the bill if it reaches his desk. The bill would create a broad system of information sharing between the public and private sector, including the clarification of jurisdictional boundaries. The budgets for 2013 are currently being decided. Now is a great time to educate people and agencies about your programs. O
George Meyers
gmeyers@cassidy.com
Bill #
Sponsor
Committee
Summary
H.R.4251
Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.)
House Homeland Security
Securing Maritime Activities through Risk-based Targeting for Port Security Act Authorize, enhance and reform certain port security programs through increased efficiency and risk-based coordination within the Department of Homeland Security.
H.R.2764
Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.)
House Homeland Security
WMD Intelligence and Information Sharing Act Establish weapons of mass destruction intelligence and information sharing functions and require dissemination of information.
H.R.3674
Rep. Daniel Lungren (R-Calif.)
House Homeland Security
PRECISE Act of 2011 Direct the Department of Homeland Security to protect federal information systems and critical infrastructure information systems by fostering the development of essential information security technologies and capabilities for protecting systems and facilitating the adoption of new cybersecurity technologies and practices.
H.R.4310
Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.)
House Armed Services
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 Authorize appropriations for FY13 for military activities of the Department of Defense and prescribe military personnel strengths.
Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas)
House Science, Space, and Technology
Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2012 Amend the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 to authorize activities for support of networking and information technology research.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas)
House Science, Space, and Technology
Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2011 Direct agencies participating in the National High-Performance Computing Program to prepare a cybersecurity strategic research and development plan. Also provide for the award of computer and network security research grants by the National Science Foundation.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)
House Oversight and Government Reform
Federal Information Security Amendments Act of 2012 Reestablish the oversight authority of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget with respect to agency information and security policies, including complying with computer standards and ensuring uniform standards for information systems and national security systems. Also ensure that information security management processes are integrated with budget processes.
H.R.3140
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.)
House Homeland Security
Mass Transit Intelligence Prioritization Act Direct the Department of Homeland Security to make it a priority to create mass transit intelligence products that assist law enforcement agencies and promote more consistent and timely dissemination of mass transit security-relevant information.
H.R.3523
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.)
House Intelligence
Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act Add provisions to protect intelligence and information sharing from cyber-threats and allow the intelligence community to share cyber-threat intelligence with the private sector.
H.R.3834
H.R.2096
H.R.4257
www.GIF-kmi.com
GIF 10.4 | 21
Change-Driven Mapping Persistent change monitoring removes most false change data by using multiple dates to filter out seasonal false indicators. The GEOINT community is experiencing an efficiency challenge caused by flat budgets, fewer analysts and an exponential growth of data. One solution is improving efficiency with better tipping and cueing technology that directs image analysts only to areas of change instead of scanning the entire image. Persistent change monitoring (PCM) is a method that efficiently detects where cultural change has occurred and targets the analyst accordingly. It has been proven to drastically increase analyst productivity, enabling coverage of 10 times the area in the same amount of labor time. PCM, formerly known as correlated land change, uses medium resolution multispectral satellite imagery such as Landsat and RapidEye to locate indications of land change at low cost. Most other change detection algorithms detect so much seasonal vegetation and crop change that the real feature change is obscured. PCM removes most false change data by using multiple dates to filter out seasonal false indicators. The transient vegetation keeps changing, but features such as a new road or housing development persist. The size of the detectable features depends on the size of the source image pixel. Most feature changes at 1:50,000 scale are detected by 30-meter Landsat imagery. Smaller features can be detected with higher resolution 5-meter multi-spectral imagery such as RapidEye, shown in Example A. In a continuously changing environment, as soon as a mapping dataset is assembled, it begins to age. For years, mapping organizations have struggled to maintain current maps due to the expense associated with the labor-intensive process of extracting features such as roads and buildings from imagery. Consequently, map products tend to be updated infrequently, often measured in decades, and end-users are sometimes forced to use outdated maps for their operations. The challenging budget environment facing most governments means that most mapping agencies manage to update 22 | GIF 10.4
By Roger Mitchell
only the most urgent areas. It is not unusual for an agency to update less than 5 percent of its area of responsibility on an annual basis. That means most feature datasets can be nearly 20 years old. In today’s rapidly changing world, information this old is of significantly diminished value. Using PCM, analysts now have the ability to target only the areas where cultural change has occurred, and features such as new roads and highways can be added to existing datasets in a much timelier manner. A targeted approach to feature maintenance has been shown to increase efficiency up to 10 times compared to a complete re-extraction. Example B shows a suburban area of Esfahan, Iran. The change indicators are colored by year. The yellow-orange-red indicators show changes from 2008 to 2011. Where recent change is indicated, the analyst can use high resolution imagery to validate that this area changed from a largely empty field in 2008 to a nearly completed building complex in 2010, as shown in Example C. The analyst can then quickly add the new roads to the existing feature data, and then move on to the next indicator. With ready access to high resolution imagery for feature extraction, an analyst can update a feature map with labor savings of about 90 percent. Almost as important to a user as what has changed on a map is what hasn’t changed. The Washington, D.C. region, for example, has averaged less than 0.5 percent change per year over the last 20 years, and just over 5 percent change in the last 10 years. The remaining 95 percent is unchanged. But by draping PCM on top of the map, the unchanged 95 percent is effectively made up to date without any further extraction, thereby increasing the value of the old map. Without change detection, the 10-year-old product is just a 10-year-old map. A mapping agency with thousands of geospatial map products that have not been updated in five, 10, or even 20 years can realize new utility immediately by identifying the 95 percent of the area that has not changed. www.GIF-kmi.com
A
B
C
D
All images courtesy of MDA Information Systems Inc. Example A: 5-meter RapidEye imagery is used with PCM technology to detect where a new bridge has been built. Example B: PCM color coded indicators identify change over a 15-year period in a suburban area of Esfahan, Iran. The red-orange colors detect change that occurred in 2010. Example C shows how analysts are able to zoom to the area of interest and add in the new road features. Example C: Esfahan, Iran. These images zoom into the area of interest shown in Example B. The 2008 image indicates an empty field. The 2010 image indicates new developments. The 2010 feature extraction image shows how analysts are able to quickly extract features and digitize the new road features. Example D: 1986-2006 PCM over Enshi, China, indicates important feature developments. Analysts can then use high resolution imagery to further indicate what the new features are.
Change detection also has the ability to transform the way in which intelligence is gathered and analyzed. PCM can also be a cueing tool for intelligence analysis. For example, it can identify unknown construction of terrestrial and underground facilities, monitor changes in known facilities, or monitor other infrastructure indicators such as roads, bridges, communications or airports. Example D shows change indicators from 1986 to 2006 over Enshi, China. One might expect to see recent change in an area with more infrastructure, such as the airport and surrounding structures on the right of the image. However, one might not have expected to see a structure in the more rural part of the image (left), which, when validated with high resolution imagery, identifies an underground facility built in the 2006 time period. More efficient identification of such interests means analysts can monitor exponentially more areas than before within their stringent budgets. It also means other analysis activities—such as change characterization, automatic change www.GIF-kmi.com
alerts and even near real-time monitoring—can be advanced in an efficient manner. Government agencies have only scratched the surface of the mapping and intelligence applications that can be advanced using change-detection-driven efficiencies. Mapping organizations will see dramatic improvements in their ability to deliver the most current geospatial information to the warfighter and other end-users on a limited budget by using change detection combined with a targeted feature maintenance approach. Intelligence analysts will be equipped with more relevant, timely and accurate intelligence information on which to advance their strategic analyses. O Roger Mitchell is the senior vice president of program development at MDA Information Systems Inc. For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
GIF 10.4 | 23
Tools for Geospatial Collaboration Industry develops software that sheds legacy formats and offers capabilities for effective collaboration. Collaborative success among military and intelligence agencies depends on their ability to rapidly collect, analyze, synthesize and fuse information to derive a comprehensive picture of the specific area of operation. When different organizations use proprietary geospatial software and data formats, however, disconnected and fragmented data silos emerge that form obstacles to effective collaboration within the enterprise. Working around these data silos, or spending too much time gathering and interpreting intelligence from disparate sources, slows and impedes the decision-making process. This issue becomes even more problematic when trying to share data with outside users and organizations. With demand increasing for shared geospatial information, particularly across organizations, industry is developing tools that shed legacy geospatial software and data formats and offer capabilities designed for effective collaboration. “The fact is, knowledge about the Earth and the activities on it rarely comes from one source. And it’s constantly changing,” said Jeff Harrison, chief executive officer of The Carbon Project. For example, Army units may transfer in and out of areas, and military personnel need to work in collaboration with coalition partners and non-governmental organizations. “In this environment a new generation of geospatial interoperability and collaboration is vital,” Harrison said. “Organizations, particularly government agencies, must now defend their geospatial investment and maximize the return on their investment in geospatial software, assets and personnel,” said George Demmy, chief technology officer for TerraGo Technologies.
Open Standards
By Karen E. Thuermer GIF Correspondent extraction of entities; association of activities; correlation with locations of interest; and access for remote viewing of massive wide area motion imagery, full motion imagery, LiDAR, hyperspectral and multispectral data sets. Additionally, Mott pointed out, organizations that are working to establish geospatial cloud services rely heavily on open standard geospatial products to efficiently set up vendor-neutral solutions for disseminating imagery and features via formats such as Web Mapping Services (WMS) and Web Feature Services (WFS). By comparison, systems that only disseminate data in vendor-specific formats force consumers of that information to purchase compatible products in order to consume that data. “This increases costs associated with software purchases and labor for implementing, supporting and providing training on those closed systems,” Mott added. Additionally, open standards-based solutions readily support establishing system architectures with their rich mix of technologies coming from vendors, academic institutions and government organizations. “These robust architectures support a model where technology refreshes happen frequently and reliably, essentially enabling an organization to innovate and evolve at a rapid pace,” Mott said. “Comparatively speaking, implementing a proprietary solution that is not based on open standards constrains future growth by limiting flexibility in refreshing technology.”
Vendor Neutral
Standards such as INSPIRE set forth by organizations such as the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Today, a wide range of open-standard tools are and International Organization for Standardization available that provide organizations with great flexGeorge Demmy (ISO) play a vital role in spawning open geospatial colibility to integrate geospatial data feeds into their laboration and growing tools. architectures in an efficient, cost-effective manner. “INSPIRE requirements to make government geospatial infor“These open-standard tools that support geospatial collaboramation harmonized and accessible by everyone only help fuel the tion are absolutely essential to many U.S. government organizations, demand for geospatial collaboration products that can operate especially in today’s budget-constrained environment, where there between disparate systems and be used by non-GIS users,” explained is increased demand for sharing of information between organizaDemmy. tions,” commented Rob Mott, vice president, geospatial, Intergraph OGC and ISO are particularly important in that they establish Government Solutions. vendor-neutral formats that do not favor one company over another. When used together as a suite of capabilities, geospatial and data They even the playing field so that both big and small companies, management tools, such as those that cover specific search criteria, academic institutions and government agencies can all participate. content management, sensor management, fusion and data integraThey provide organizations with a framework around which to build tion, can enhance a user’s analytic environment, said Douglas Miller, tools and applications, and eliminate stovepipe data formats that SAIC vice president and program manager. This is done by simplirestrict data flow, information sharing, and thus, collaboration. fying and automating the fusion of relevant source data; automated 24 | GIF 10.4
www.GIF-kmi.com
“They also sponsor testbeds and other experimental collaborations that allow participants to bring their solutions to an integrated environment and learn valuable lessons by working directly with other participants,” commented Mott. Intergraph provides a wide range of open standards-based tools that enable geospatial collaboration. These include products such as GeoMedia desktop applications, GeoMedia Web Map and GeoMedia Smart Client, as well as the ERDAS family of products, such as ERDAS Apollo and ERDAS Imagine. “Our product lines were developed with open standards-based sharing in mind. This is essentially embedded within the product’s DNA, rather than included as an afterthought,” Mott remarked. What makes Intergraph and ERDAS products unique is that they can be used to manage and disseminate open standards-based geospatial information as well be deployed as a consumer of that open standard data, whether it originated from an Intergraph or ERDAS server, or another company’s product. “These products break down data silos by allowing data to be disseminated in a live-stream manner as an OGC WMS, WFS or Web Coverage Service, depending on the format of the original data and the requirements of the consuming applications,” Mott explained. “These open standards-based interfaces essentially transform data in the repository to a format that can be easily ingested and interpreted by a variety of clients that do not need to be concerned with the original storage formats.”
Software for Sharing One company that has emphasized collaboration capabilities in its offerings is TerraGo Technology, provider of the popular GeoPDF software. TerraGo solutions work together as a suite of software that enables organizations to publish map files, compose unique geospatial applications that include business-specific data and context, and collaborate on that information via the web, desktop or handheld mobile device. Equipped with TerraGo Mobile and GeoPDF files of the relevant data, field personnel can collect spatially aware data that is packaged into an XML-based payload called the TerraGo Collaboration Payload. This information can be easily sent to virtually any system in the enterprise, including the GIS system of record. System experts can then analyze and consume the data for better decision-making, faster response times and greater productivity of field operations. TerraGo pioneered methods and systems for encoding geographic coordinates and features in a PDF file. Since 2005, the privately held In-Q-Tel company has continued to develop its GeoPDF technology with a complete suite of solutions that enable users to produce, access, update and share geospatial information with anyone, anywhere. “Because TerraGo GeoPDF maps and imagery are interactive, portable and intelligent, and do not require users to have specialized GIS training, they enable geospatial information to be readily shared within the enterprise and between organizations with disparate systems,” Demmy explained. TerraGo further provides a variety of tools to create these GeoPDF products, including Publisher for ArcGIS and Publisher for ArcGIS Server, TerraGo Composer and TerraGo SDK. “As a gold partner of both Esri and Adobe, TerraGo is uniquely positioned to bridge the GIS-oriented domain of Esri and other GIS users to the day-to-day business workflows addressed by Adobe www.GIF-kmi.com
Acrobat, Adobe Reader and PDF,” Demmy added. “In addition, TerraGo is a development and IP exchange agreement partner of Adobe. TerraGo’s close partnership with both companies facilitates its ability to continue to make innovations to its TerraGo GeoPDF technology and offer superior workflow, performance and collaboration capabilities.” The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) exemplifies the benefits of GeoPDF. Prior to implementing GeoPDF, USGS was experiencing about 4,000 downloads per month of its Digital Raster Graphic quad maps. Today the organization is seeing an average 150,000 downloads each month. Another example of its benefits is the Army Geospatial Center, which publishes user-friendly GeoPDF maps to distribute actionable geospatial intelligence data to end users who lack advanced training. GeoPDF provides GIS users the ability to share geo-referenced maps and data with soldiers and others who may not be GIS application-savvy. GeoPDF can be sent to field personnel from engineers on the scene of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, or to soldiers in the field who can use Adobe Reader to manipulate maps. One of the most widely deployed geospatial solutions today is the combination of GeoPDF maps and imagery products and the TerraGo Toolbar. With TerraGo Toolbar v.6, essential TerraGo functionality (the ability to view coordinates with up to three simultaneous coordinate systems; measurement of length, distance, area, bearing and azimuth; and interactive location of any point on a map) can be used with any conventional geospatial PDF. In addition, Toolbar v.6 enables advanced field data collection and collaboration with geoforms permitting attachment of unstructured georeferenced data, including audio, photos and video to specific locations or objects, for later distribution and consolidation.
Simplifying Workflows SAIC has developed the GeoRover software products, which are developed from the perspective of an end-user with a focus on simplifying workflows. “This approach allows users who are not well-versed in GIS technology to begin using the software, enabling enhanced data production and sharing,” Miller remarked. GeoRover commercial applications are third-party extensions to Esri ArcGIS Desktop. They enable geospatial data creation, editing and sharing by simplifying workflows. “GeoRover products, through the framework of Esri ArcGIS, create data layers that meet industry standards,” said Miller. “They include data types such as Shapefiles, which can easily be shared with other geospatially enabled applications.” Another product developed by SAIC is the WebCentric Geospatial Collaboration tool, which is used primarily by the Department of Defense. This geospatial presentation tool provides shared geospatial awareness—maps, imagery, video and data—for different users across multiple domains. “It employs industry-standard Web services technologies and allows decision-makers to simultaneously view what other team members are seeing and join their session. This helps overcome the data silo issue,” Miller explained. SAIC became one of the first companies to provide geospatial collaboration solutions to customers when it acquired GeoViz.com in 2007. At that time, the GeoViz product was the only true geospatial collaboration product available. It was being used by many GIF 10.4 | 25
government customers to support command and control, intelligence collection and dissemination, as well as test and evaluation. “It was being operationally utilized by military decision-makers that were geographically dispersed to simultaneously view critical data and to immediately determine appropriate courses of action,” Miller said. By using GeoViz, the users can coordinate routes and restricted areas, no-fly zones, time of arrival, use of precision and non-precision weapon systems, replenishing routes, enemy location and friendly locations. Another unique tool is the Commanders Station, which enables one or more individuals to see multiple GeoViz collaboration sessions of participants/users. “When they are doing or looking at something of interest, they can join their collaboration session,” Miller explained. The GeoViz product also included the Data Source Framework, which enabled the rapid integration of all source imagery, and realtime video along with any data sources, to provide data fusion that assisted real-time decision making. “When the plan is implemented, geospatial collaboration ensures that all elements of the plan are synchronized and all participants are fully aware of their roles and responsibilities,” Miller explained. What made GeoViz unique was that any member of the participating collaboration session could draw on the map, or drag and drop an item onto a location on the map, then select the “collaborate” button, and the geospatial view for all members would move to that location where all the same content on the map was shared. Additionally, GeoViz integrated Voice over IP and instant messaging technologies, as well as 3-D rendering of data to further enable geospatial collaboration. Of particular note, SAIC found that geospatial collaboration saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in course of action development, cut weeks of time in preparation, improved operational effectiveness, and assisted in saving lives by lowering friendly fire incidents. The Carbon Project has developed a new standards-based geospatial collaboration platform called CarbonCloud Sync. CarbonCloud Sync’s mobile and web apps help collaboration by allowing enterprises to receive geospatial updates from many sources, including people not trained in GIS. Enterprises can then validate them if needed, and instantly share them with the people and systems that need them. “With this new capability, enterprises can gain the power of geospatial collaboration and interoperability, as well as insight about our rapidly changing world,” Harrison remarked, adding that the company’s geospatial collaboration systems are unique because they are entirely built on open standards and very easy to use. “This means people can benefit from interoperability and data sharing without a lot of training, setup time or complicated applications,” he said.
Future Directions Many great opportunities exist today for geospatial collaboration. But, as Mott pointed out, even though the technologies are available, timely adoption of these solutions is often hampered by political or cultural biases. “Some stewards of geospatial information may be reluctant to share their data to a broader audience,” he said. There is also a paradigm shift occurring in the geospatial community to move away from organizations providing specific pre-built end products to users, and toward empowering those end-users to 26 | GIF 10.4
build their own products as needed. Mott predicted that this “on demand” geospatial model will support the development of more timely and mission-specific products that are more valuable in the long run. “These end-users require direct access to a broader set of geospatial information so they can choose data that they deem to be relevant and decide how they want to integrate, process and portray end results,” Mott said. Standards are critical to that, but Mott warned that lack of enforcement of standards in the technology acquisition process could also present a barrier to rapid adoption of open standard-based geospatial collaboration tools. “Government agencies need to more consistently and completely require that open standards-based technologies are developed and delivered in order to meet contractual requirements,” he emphasized. While it is difficult to predict what the future holds for geospatial collaboration tools, observers predict they will target mobile devices such as phones and tablets. “They will be modifying their interfaces to use voice commands and simpler user interfaces that are needed on smaller devices,” Miller said. This would provide instant localization that would improve coordination between groups of people and also provide assistance to first responders and law enforcement by the integration of commercially provided unmanned sensors into portable geospatial displays. One immediate trend will be toward a variety of mobile apps that built on shared geospatial services. “These apps are going to be realtime, meaning they will able to connect instantly to many information sources,” Harrison said. “They will then use that information to collaborate when online and even offline.” Another trend will be the broader integration with social media and data mining operations such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr. “Geospatial applications can provide powerful analysis of trends based on the vast amount of information being shared via social media sites, and some social media tools, such as Foursquare, are based on integrated location-based services,” commented Mott. “You’ll see more transformation of some of this data into geosocial services that can be used to ‘scan’ for events and connections in real time,” Harrison predicted. Sensor capabilities will also continue to increase as they become integrated in a unified interface on mobile devices. “What used to be data will be much more richly contextualized at point of capture,” predicted Demmy. “Photos won’t just be ready to be uploaded to a photo sharing site; they will be automatically incorporated into an after action incident report, routed into a secure server-side photo archive, and shared peer-to-peer, or whatever the workflows might be.” Finally, Harrison expects there will be the emergence of more peer-to-peer (P2P) collaboration. “As more and more data gets collected by crowdsourcing, you’ll see the ‘middle man’ start to fade a bit as P2P collaboration rises,” Harrison said. “That’s when things will get very interesting—when people start collaborating directly.” O
For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
www.GIF-kmi.com
The advertisers index is provided as a service to our readers. KMI cannot be held responsible for discrepancies due to last-minute changes or alterations.
GIF CALENDAR & DIRECTORY
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Advertisers Index BAE Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C3 www.baesystems.com/gxp Cubic Corporation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 www.xd-solutions.com Deloitte. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 www.deloitte.com/us/federal Exelis Visual Information Solutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C2 www.exelisvis.com
Fugro Earthdata Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 www.fugrofederal.com General Dynamics Information Technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 www.gdit.com Google . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 www.google.com/federal Pixia Corporation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 www.pixia.com
Calendar June 4-7, 2012 Hexagon 2012 Las Vegas, Nev. www.hexagonconference.com
July 23-27, 2012 Esri International User Conference San Diego, Calif. www.esri.com
September 25-27, 2012 Modern Day Marine Quantico, Va. www.marinemilitaryexpos.com
June 4-8, 2012 GEOINT Community Week Washington, D.C. area www.usgif.org
September 17-19, 2012 Air and Space Conference and Technology Exhibition National Harbor, Md. www.afa.org
October 8-11, 2012 GEOINT Symposium 2012 Orlando, Fla. http://geoint2011.com
NEXTISSUE
Volume 10, Issue 5 July/August 2012
Cover and In-Depth Interview with:
Robert Cardillo
Deputy Director of National Intelligence For Intelligence Integration
Special Report: USMC Intelligence Command profile
Features: Wide Area Transmission Video Services Remote Sensing Future
Insertion Order Deadline: June 29, 2012 • Ad Materials Deadline: July 6, 2012
www.GIF-kmi.com
GIF 10.4 | 27
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
Geospatial Intelligence Forum
Major General John M. Custer (Ret.) Director Federal Strategic Missions and Programs EMC
Q: You just gave a presentation at EMC World, you company’s annual conference. What are you learning there? A: I’m at EMC World, where this year there are more than 15,000 customers and partners. It’s an incredible venue, with hundreds of seminars, of which ours was just one. We talked about how you bring value to the huge amount of data being collected. In the past, we always said that collection was the key and the hardest part. Now, we’re platform- and sensor-centric, and the issue is how we take all of that data collected—whether full motion video, signals intelligence or anything else—and analyze it and make it have value. Whether you want to define it as big data or large data, it’s the ability to ingest information into an analytical platform or tool set that allows you to make sense of it. Yesterday at EMC World, we introduced 42 new programs and products. It’s amazing the synergy you get when you have 15,000 interested technicians, and a company that puts so much value not just into acquisitions, but also research and development. I’ve been at EMC for about a year, and the reason I came was because, in my interviews with more than 30 companies, I realized that EMC has the technologies that are relevant to the future—whether big data, data center consolidation, virtualization, network area storage or security. We’re really moving to a new paradigm. I don’t talk about the cloud anymore, but about IT as a service. I used to say that EMC was a storage company or a software company. But what we really are is a seller of disruption. Over recent decades, we have moved from the industrial age to the information age, and now with the technologies that are available today, we are in the age 28 | GIF 10.4
of disruption. Throughout the intelligence and commercial communities, this is the age of disruption, and the technologies that this company has are truly disruptive. Q: What does your company have to offer for the needs of the military and intelligence markets? A: In the unclassified world, we are working with every single combat support agency. Everyone virtualizes their architecture on VMware, and every company proposes itself as a strategic partner of VMware. But when you get down to it, only EMC has 73 points of engineering integration between VMware and our product line. Everything runs better on EMC. Every combat support agency has come to realize that we are in the age of big data, and the old ways won’t work. Because of our capabilities in collection, we require big data ingestion and a whole new world of metadata. That leads us to the age of big data analytics. For the past two years, this company has looked at every big data analytics company—who were we going to acquire to get into that field? We looked at a number of companies, and decided that Greenplum was
the future of Hadoop and big data analytics. Now we’re building those technologies into our product line and integrating them. No matter where you work in the intelligence community, the network is the limiting factor—how do you move this huge amount of data from collection to computing, storage and analytics? The way of the future is converged infrastructure. Don’t move the data over a network, but unify compute with storage and analytics in a virtualized environment. That’s exactly what EMC is doing, in a joint venture company with VMware, Cisco and Intel called Virtual Computing Environment. It builds a product called a VBlock, which is basically IT as a service. Q: What are some of the key developments you are seeing in the federal environment? A: I think NGA Director Letitia Long has provided a vision that in many cases has been absent in the past. She is moving the geospatial intelligence community toward the vision of providing a predictive analytic picture to the lowest echelon and to combat forces. But just as important is the acquisition piece. You won’t find anyone in government or industry who feels that the acquisition process is either responsive or as capable as it should be. One person at NGA I’d like to mention is Keith Barber, director of the National System for Geospatial-Intelligence Expeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office. He has acquired things in a whole new way. I don’t use the word transformational very often, but what he has done is to change the way NGA does acquisition. Keith Barber has led the charge to acquire what is needed, when it’s needed, within the rules. O www.GIF-kmi.com
In a sea of big data, where matters Geospatial Analytics are powerful, but only if they are put to use well. At Deloitte, we have the experience and cross discipline teams to make the “where” in your data matter, using it to help you root out fraud and waste, make sense of social media, deploy funds efficiently, and more. It’s another way we help government help America. To learn more about our geospatial team and services, visit www.deloitte.com/us/federal.
Official Professional Services Sponsor
Professional Services means audit, tax, consulting and financial advisory services. As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte & Touche LLP, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP, and Deloitte Tax LLP, which are separate subsidiaries of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Copyright © 2012 Deloitte Development LLC. All rights reserved. Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited 36 USC 220506