GIF 10-2 (March 2012)

The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community

March 2012 Volume 10, Issue 2

www.GIF-kmi.com

Intel Strategist

Michael G. Vickers

Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence

Human Geography O Video Searching O Hyperspectral ImagingWeb Apps O Collaborative Enterprise Environment West

Create Situational Awareness.Deliver Mission Critical Imagery.Customize GEOINT Applications.

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 create custom tools to support image analysts in theater, Exelis Visual Information Solutions has a solution to support your specific mission needs. Learn more about our products and services at www.exelisvis.com.

All rights reserved. E3De, ENVI and IDL are trademarks of Exelis, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. ©2012, Exelis Visual Information Solutions, Inc.

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Geospatial intelliGence Forum march 2012 Volume 10 • issue 2

Features coVer / Q&a

17

Departments

2

4

14

27

Editor’s Perspective

Program Notes/People

Industry Raster

Calendar, Directory

inDustry interView

Al PisaniSenior Vice President, Intelligence Group

TASC

28

Michael G. VickersUnder Secretary of Defense

for Intelligence

Scanning the Spectrum with Hyperspectral ImagingAdvances spur military and intelligence use of technology that can define, distinguish distant objects precisely.By Cheryl Gerber

5

Virtual Lab for the ISR EnterpriseA facility called the Collaborative Enterprise Environment West helps verify interoperability and reusable solutions across the Distributed Common Ground System community.By Erik Visnyak and Kim Holladay

10

Video SearchingNew technologies help analysts cull through massive quantities of video data to find the nuggets of intelligence they need.By Peter Buxbaum

11

Human Geography: An Evolving DisciplineNew technology is proving to be a powerful force, driving significant changes in the community of online mapping.By Abe Usher and Julia Bowers

22

Portable GEOINT PowerU.S. government agencies have come up with their own mobile apps, including one that gives customers access to unclassified, commercially available satellite imagery.By Karen E. Thuermer

25

www.GiF-kmi.com

A report expected this spring from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) could mark a key turning point in the debate over funding levels for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s EnhancedView commercial satellite imagery program.

The program, which works with imagery providers DigitalGlobe and GeoEye to support a new generation of extremely high resolu-tion satellites, is already slated for a $50 million reduction in fiscal 2012, and appears targeted for substantial cuts in subsequent years. The proposed cuts, which analysts project could reduce planned spending by up to 40 percent, have already stirred opposition in Congress and elsewhere.

The controversy over EnhancedView, which we’ll cover at greater length in the next issue of GIF, comprises a number of different issues, including not only cost but also the quality of the imagery and the need to share information with coalition partners. There is also a difference in perspective between those who put the greatest emphasis on the government role in this area and those focusing on maintaining a U.S. space-based imagery industry.

One sign of the intensity of the battle ahead may come from the criticisms already being made of the ODNI study itself. According to David Turner of Gibraltar Associates, a public relations firm that works with GeoEye, the ODNI study has an “inherent bias against the program.”

As voiced by Turner, the industry critique of the spending proposals begins with the fact that budget priority documents declared commercial imagery “excess to requirements.” “No one in the industry or NGA for that matter has been informed of any change in the requirements that underpin EnhancedView. What requirements have changed in the past 18 months since EnhancedView was launched, and how were those changes documents and validated?” he asked.

Wherever you stand on these issues, I’ll bet that the release of the study will touch off some fireworks.

The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community

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EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE

© 2

012

Geo

Eye.

All

Righ

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eser

ved. Commercial geospatial imagery is an integral part of the modern warfi ghter’s arsenal.

GeoEye® provides rapid access to critical intelligence that enables our warfi ghters to see, understand and respond to change. And it’s 100% unclassifi ed, so it’s easily shared with coalition partners. Our public-private partnership with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) means we provide this capability at a great value for taxpayers.

GeoEye. Protecting our men and women in combat. Protecting taxpayer dollars.

Visit www.geoeye.com/NationalSecurity to learn more about GeoEye.

GeoEye- 1 — 03 . 1 3 . 1 1 Unclass ifiedKabul , Afghan i stan

Put eyes on the groundbefore boots hit the ground.

2012GeoIntForum_warfighter.indd 1 2/28/2012 1:19:28 PM

Army Major General Raymond P. Palumbo has been nominated for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and for assignment as deputy under secretary of defense (intelli-gence) for joint and coalition warfighter support.

TASC has named Lisa Donnan vice president and customer executive for strategic capabilities and technology, a new position in the company’s Growth Office. Donnan will work to further strengthen TASC’s existing client relationships and develop and execute new market growth strategies.

Stu Shea, president of SAIC’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Group, has been named chief operating officer of SAIC. Shea currently leads nearly 13,000 scientists and engineers providing support for customers across the full spectrum of national security

programs. His numerous leadership positions in industry and intelligence community organizations include service as chairman and chief executive officer of the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.

AeroMetric has hired Stephen Ellis as vice president of business develop-ment, leading the expansion of AeroMetric’s enterprise geographic information systems team.

Jacques S. Gansler, who served as under secretary of defense for acquisition,

technology and logistics from 1997 to 2001, has been elected to the board of direc-tors of TASC.

TerraGo Technologies has expanded its technical and sales team to provide greater support for its growing roster of federal customers. Recent hires or promotions include John Saling, account manager; Dan VanBrunt, account manager; Jessica Sonday, technical account manager for customers in the intelligence commu-nity and Department of Defense; and Sherman VanDermark, technical account manager.

ITT Exelis has appointed Army Brigadier General Christopher Tucker (Ret.) as vice president, interna-tional government relations.

GeoDecisions has named Brendan J. Wesdock as president. His previous experience at the company includes serving as program manager for the IRRIS geospatial decision support system, which is used by mili-tary and homeland security clients to track infrastructure data and mobile assets worldwide.

Compiled by KMi Media Group staffPROGRAM NOTES

Compiled by KMi Media Group staffPEOPLE

Catalyst for Mobile Apps Development A recent conference sponsored by the National

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s InnoVision Directorate has highlighted the agency’s role as a catalyst and clearinghouse for the development of mobile applications to meet a wide range of defense, intelligence and other government missions.

The February meeting brought together more than 200 government and government contractor personnel who have been working on a variety of location-related mobile apps for smartphones and other portable devices. The event, the second of a projected series, represents one of several initiatives launched by NGA to implement Director Letitia A. Long’s vision of putting “GEOINT power in the hands of users.”

The booming level of interest in mobile apps development was evident in the rise in attendance since the previous event, which drew 85 people just eight months before, noted conference organizer Ben Tuttle, who leads a team from NGA’s Geospatial Intelligence Advancement Testbed that has been working on developing applications and an appli-cation storefront.

“In just that short window, there has been a lot going on,” Tuttle said. “Things are developing

quickly, and a lot of applications are maturing. More people are getting interested. One of the key things we’re trying to do is build this community of people who are interested, so that we’re all talking and learning from one another. We’re trying to find synergies between different agencies, to leverage off what one another are doing.

“This is starting to reach out across different communities. The first summit was just NGA people, but now we’ve found these other groups that are also working in this area,” he said, noting that talks and demonstrations were presented by officials of the National Reconnaissance Office, Army Geospatial Center, Naval Research Lab, National Security Agency and other offices.

Demonstrations also included Exelis VIS and Intergraph, which are working with NGA under cooperative research and development agree-ments.

“We’ve started initiatives across agencies to get things moving. We’re hoping that this will be a launching point for even more of that, to get us all working together instead of having all these stovepipes of separate developments that may duplicate each other, or be able to share valuable lessons,” Tuttle said.

Standards for mobile devices are one such common issue, he explained. “We need a way to make sure we don’t have NGA coming with one data standard for mobile devices, and the Army and Navy having their own as well, so that when you’re in the field, you have to download the same data from three different sources to make all you apps work. We want to be able to download the data once and have all the apps work with that.” Other major topics included licensing, security and development paradigms.

Projects being demonstrated at the meeting included:

• Maritime applications such as a nautical calculator and an updated database of piracy incidents worldwide.

• The GEOINT App Store, or GAS Station, a Web-based mobile apps store designed to get applications directly out to users.

• An updated electronic version of the bulky aeronautical charts and other navigational information carried by aviators.

• A situational awareness app designed to enable teams of agents in the field, for example while protecting an event, to share geo-located imagery.

Stu Shea

www.GIF-kmi.com4 | GIF 1 0 . 2

Bolstered by developments in software and computing power, with its unmatched ability to capture key fine details invisible to the human eye, hyperspectral imaging is gaining value in mili-tary and intelligence operations.

The high cost and expert scientific knowledge required to create and use hyperspectral technology had been barriers to its broader use until recent years.

Today, automated hyperspectral workflows, fast, multi-core processors and lower-priced, tactical, hyperspectral sensors and cameras all work to bring actionable intelligence to troops on the ground.

“This is under the category of ‘complicated stuff that’s been automated,’” noted Derrold Holcomb, technical director, product development, Intergraph Corp., ERDAS geospatial product line.

Hyperspectral imaging is one of the most complex yet crucial geospatial technologies to traverse from scientific labs into the-aters of operation. It captures many narrow, contiguous bands of the electromagnetic spectrum with separations of color so fine that the human eye cannot see them. Yet once the data has been post-processed or analyzed in near real time, hyperspectral sensors can define the chemical composition of distant objects precisely.

Ranging from subatomic to universal radiation with light waves from nanometers to meters in length, the electromag-netic spectrum is immense. Hence, there are many different spectral regions and associated wavelengths (speed of light divided by frequency), such as infrared, ultraviolet and X-rays, most of which are invisible to the human eye. Regardless of

wavelength, radiation energy quantity in the spectrum boils down to photons.

Sunlight reaches across the entire spectrum, but humans can see only a minuscule segment, called visible light, with a wavelength range of only 400-700 nanometers, and a color range of violet through red. Infrared, for example, has a longer wave-length than red light and is outside the humanly visible portion of the spectrum.

To detect and analyze a wider range of the electromagnetic spectrum than is humanly visible, astrophysicists use spectro-scopes to view and record hyperspectral images, that is, the detailed chemical characteristics of objects, gases and stars. Spectrometers measure what is viewed.

Scientists refer to spectral signatures or chemical finger-prints to describe the characteristics of objects based on how they absorb or reflect light in different electromagnetic bands and wavelengths. Hyperspectral imaging captures and measures these signatures by taking hundreds of simultaneous pictures at nanometer intervals from hundreds of electromagnetic bands—scanning wavelength bands similar to how a pushbroom sweeps a wide area of a floor. The result is a large data cube with pixel-level accuracy—and complexity—unparalleled by other modali-ties. Libraries of established spectral signatures provide a basis for comparison and identification.

“The real value of hyperspectral imaging is in detailed spectral signatures and material distinctions. Our users often require specific information with unique signatures only hyper-spectral imaging can see. You can extract evidence of materials

By Cheryl GerBer, GIF Correspondent

Scanning the Spectrum with Hyperspectral ImagingAdvAnCes spur mIlItAry And IntellIGenCe use oF teChnoloGy thAt CAn deFIne, dIstInGuIsh dIstAnt oBjeCts preCIsely.

www.GIF-kmi.com GIF 1 0 . 2 | 5

that you can’t with any other modality, so it becomes impor-tant in solving well-defined problems. But it’s expensive and the data sets are bulky,” said Gerald Kinn, Esri imagery architect, national imaging accounts.

Often the questions asked of hyperspectral imaging have been derived from the results of other sensors used with hyper-spectral sensors. “The question has to be well defined with hyperspectral imaging. It’s like fingerprint matching. If you’ve got the fingerprint, you’ve got the person,” said Holcomb.

surveIllAnCe BreAkthrouGh

Hyperspectral sensors and cameras have been on aircraft and in satellites for 30 years. But they are now small enough to fit in the hand and thus, are being deployed tactically as ground-based handheld instruments within DoD. With a heritage in astrophysics and geology, hyperspectral imaging typically car-ries terabytes of data, requiring time-consuming computations. Slow processors once were an obstacle to practical use, but that is no longer the case.

A breakthrough in the practical use of hyperspectral sen-sors by the Department of Defense came in May 2009, when the Air Force Research Laboratory launched Raytheon’s Advanced Responsive Tactically Effective Military Imaging Spectrometer (ARTEMIS) aboard the TacSat-3 satellite to demonstrate the sen-sor’s tactical ability to download actionable information directly to troops. ARTEMIS showed it could collect, process and down-load imagery during a single 10-minute pass—bringing hyper-spectral space surveillance to combatant commanders.

The Air Force Space Command took control of TacSat-3 for operational use in 2010. ARTEMIS now produces about 100 hyperspectral imagery products per month, delivering key intel-ligence within hours after sensor tasking.

Last year the Air Force deployed the Raytheon Airborne Cueing and Exploitation System-Hyperspectral (ACES-HY) in the aft of its MQ-1 Predator UAVs, along with multispectral sen-sors. The ACES-HY provides the Predators real-time detection and geolocation of tactically significant targets for cueing the onboard multispectral targeting system. Operating in the short-wave infrared section of the spectrum, the hyperspectral sen-sors can distinguish between natural terrain and camouflage (indicating hidden objects) and identify areas of disturbed earth (indicating possible IEDs).

Hyperspectral sensors are used most often with other sen-sors or cameras such as multispectral, light detection and rang-ing (LiDAR) and panchromatic cameras. Multispectral imagery is produced by sensors that measure light in broader, fewer bands than hyperspectral. LiDAR illuminates a target with light, often using laser pulses. Panchromatic remote sensing cameras are the most widely used in satellite imaging applications.

“Rarely do we use hyperspectral sensors independent of any other sensor. We use multiple sensors to achieve our goals,” said Trey Howell, Merrick and Co. defense solutions manager.

“The more sensors you use, the more you weed out false posi-tives,” added Matt Bethal, Merrick manager, system engineering.

Other geospatial experts agree. “A combination of differ-ent sensors and cameras provides the most robust actionable result,” said David Bannon, chief executive officer of Headwall Photonics.

Multispectral sensors seem to be the workhorses for building general maps of terrain or oceans while hyperspectral sensors are used to find specifics. “It’s ironic. For the sensor with the most amount of information—hyperspectral—you seek specific infor-mation, whereas the sensors with less information—multispec-tral—you seek general information,” noted Kinn.

Kinn has observed progress in recent years in the use of hyperspectral imaging. “It’s now affordable to answer one spe-cific question out of many possible questions using new sensors and algorithms that are emerging for hyperspectral,” he said.

Ground-based, handheld tactical instruments represent another major advance in the use of hyperspectral imaging. Current field requirements and the reality of constrained bud-gets have mandated the deployment of hyperspectral sensors for enhanced ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) missions. The small, less costly hyperspectral sensors operate like cameras and are packaged for imaging in harsh environ-ments such as unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles.

“The goal is to enable tactical CONOPS to bring the sensor to the warfighter to enable a rapid flow of actionable reconnais-sance,” said Bannon. “Coupled with fast processors for real-time target detection, this represents a significant shift in deployment strategy from previous generations of large, expensive hyperspec-tral platforms requiring teams of imagery analysts evaluating terabytes of data,” he said.

AnAlysIs soFtwAre

The advances gave geospatial image processing companies such as BAE Systems, Exelis Visual Information Solutions (VIS) and Intergraph ERDAS opportunities to upgrade their hyper-spectral data analysis software. “We routinely make sure we can properly read the data, including the metadata, of any new format coming from a new sensor. When Raytheon launched ARTEMIS, it created a resurgence of interest in the use of hyper-spectral data,” said Cherie Darnel, Exelis VIS senior solutions engineer. “Now we have a wide variety of users who take advan-tage of this.”

In the past, hyperspectral data was reserved for highly trained image analysts and considered too complex for most users. However, in recent years, Exelis has worked with DoD to provide easier to use, faster exploitation and analysis of hyper-spectral imagery. The work resulted in the Exelis ENVI tools known as Tactical Hyperspectral Operational Resource (THOR), a set of automated hyperspectral workflows, including for ARTEMIS imagery.

“The THOR tools provide different types of workflow-based analysis, each with wizards that guide users through process-ing,” said Darnel.

THOR, which provides target detection, material identifica-tion, stress vegetation, change detection, anomaly detection and other workflows, was released in 2010 in ENVI 4.7 Service Pack 1.

“These types of automated THOR workflows did not exist before 2010, so it marked an advancement in hyperspectral image analysis capability,” she said. THOR also provides a Spectral Library Viewer and Builder within its software to match a query about incoming hyperspectral images with established signa-tures in the libraries.


“ENVI comes with a handful of spectral libraries, but users have access to other libraries which they can import into ENVI using the THOR spectral library builder,” noted Darnel.

The THOR tools support data written in National Imagery Transmission Format (NITF), including metadata from ARTEMIS NITF data. Used in the defense and intelligence communities, NITF data storage allows for the combination of images, graph-ics and metadata in a single file.

There are no file size limitations in ENVI, which works with multiple processing cores. “Even to display these large data sets takes a lot of processing power but hardware advancements have made it easier. The more cores you have, the faster the data can be processed and produce results. More memory, faster process-ing and more processing cores available on the machines have all helped to advance hyperspectral in recent years,” said Darnel.

THOR can be used on a laptop in theater, and since ENVI can exist on an enterprise cloud, a rugged tablet user can access it as well. THOR tools also work with Esri’s ArcGIS. “ENVI has hyper-spectral algorithms that we are able to call in ArcGIS. The model builder can directly call routines in ENVI that have these algo-rithms for hyperspectral data,” said Kinn.

Various algorithm improvements have expedited the process-ing of massive hyperspectral data. As an example, Intergraph ERDAS added improved signature handling algorithms to speed up the process of comparing new hyperspectral image data with existing signatures in libraries.

“In the latest ERDAS Imagine software, the signature-han-dling library capability is more organized and user friendly. Improved signature handling is the result of improved algo-rithms that are more computationally efficient,” said Holcomb.

“Matrix math applied to algorithm writing has sped the pro-cess of matching signatures. Searching one million pixels is a lot of comparing to do. But matrix computations can handle massive hyperspectral data. By interfacing two matrixes looking for commonalities, you can process the massive data sets faster now,” he explained.

mAtrIx mAth

Matrix mathematics is based on a rectangular array of num-bers, symbols or expressions. When the arrays are matched in certain ways, they can be added, subtracted or multiplied to sim-plify or expedite computations.

“Faster computers combined with advanced algorithms, particularly the application of matrix algebra to the analysis of hyperspectral data sets, have made high speed analysis pos-sible,” Holcomb said. “In addition, sophisticated algorithms have improved atmospheric correction in Intergraph’s ERDAs Imagine software.” Atmospheric correction eliminates the atmo-spheric effects that distort hyperspectral images.

ERDAS Imagine provides remote sensing analysis and spa-tial modeling with the ability to view 2-D, 3-D, movies and

June 5-8Ground Warfighter Geospatial Intelligence Conference (formerly AGIC)

TASC Heritage Conference Center, Chantilly, VA

June 8USGIF Invitational1757 Golf Club, Dulles, VA

June 7USGIF Technology DayHyatt Regency Reston, Reston, VA

June 5GEOINTeraction TuesdaySpringfield, VA

June 4USGIF Workshop SeriesHyatt Regency Reston, Reston, VA

June 6NGA Tech Showcase East (TS//SI/TK)

NGA Campus East, Springfield, VA

2 0 1 2 G E O I N T C O M M U N I T Y W E E K

Held annually in the Northern Virginia area, GEOINT Community Week brings together members from the geospatial-user community, including defense, intelligence and homeland security, for a week of networking, classified briefings, technology exhibits and learning workshops.


cartographic quality map compositions. It scales from Imagine Essentials to Advantage up to Professional, with authoring of geospatial content in more than 100 different formats. Each tier of the software can be expanded with add-on modules.

Ortho-rectification provides sensor adjustment and image orientation to render geo-location as accurate as possible. The Imagine Image Interpreter provides a list of imagery enhance-ment tools for spectral imaging, filtering, resolution merge and others.

The Advantage level provides batch and parallel processing, change detections and GIS analysis of remote sensors for deci-sion support. Professional offers mosaic terabytes of imagery with ERDAS ER Mapper and spectral classification tools. Imagine Model Maker builds upon a Spatial Modeling capability with the ability to blend remote sensing and GIS data. Radar Interpreter provides radar analysis. The spectral analysis tools enable hyper-spectral image processing to extract material mapping informa-tion with minimal user interaction and without the need to learn hyperspectral image processing theory.

ERDAS Apollo is an enterprise level data management deliv-ery and collaboration suite that scales through clustering to han-dle large data archives.

proCessInG speed

The enormity of the hyperspectral data package has led indus-try to focus on improving the speed of processing. “In the 2012 version of ERDAS Imagine we are changing the way we read and

handle image data, changing core pieces that will speed up the processing of hyperspectral data yet again,” Holcomb said.

“To determine if your targets are accurate, you need very fast processors and high speed data links,” said Bannon.

Headwall Photonics has provided hyperspectral sensors to the military for years, starting when its predecessor, American Holographic, provided defractive optics, a key optical component of hyperspectral sensors, to the Navy.

Headwall offers space-qualified satellite sensors for small sat-ellite payloads, airborne and ground-based sensors, which are handheld or unattended reconnaissance sensors for checkpoint control or unmanned ground vehicles for enhanced ISR.

“The complexity is being engineered out of the technology,” said Bannon. “Hyperspectral sensors now can be exploited cost-effectively for the boots on the ground.”

The top two hyperspectral sensors Headwall provides to the military are the High Efficiency Hyperspec airborne sensor and the MicroHyperspec sensor. “The High Efficiency Hyperspec sen-sor offers extremely high signal-to-noise target detection and imaging capability that allows for scanning a wide field of view without image aberrations. The product has been widely adopted for high-end airborne deployment just as it has been ruggedized and light-weighted at a unique price/performance for DoD appli-cations,” Bannon said.

“Previously the cost of a high-performance hyperspectral airborne sensor had been a budget-buster, at more than $6 mil-lion, inhibiting the adoption of the technology. Headwall has been successful supplying high performance hyperspectral sensors at

Hyperspectral sensors have lost weight and size as they have gained accu-racy and resolution during the past 10 years. “The 300-pound, refrigerator-sized hyperspectral sensors of yesteryear now weigh only 20 to 30 pounds. And they perform better,” said Sean Anklam, chief technology officer for the SGS division of SpecTIR, a hyperspectral solutions company.

A decade ago, hyper-spectral sensors primarily were flown on large air-craft. Today, they can be integrated into the small-est unmanned aerial vehicles or ground vehicles. “The newest generation of sen-sors requires significantly less power and maintenance as the manufacturing mate-rials and techniques have grown more sophisticated,” he said.

SpecTIR created processing and anal-ysis algorithms specifically for ground-based sensing. “We built prototype

hyperspectrals in mobile, ruggedized containers. They are turnkey plug-and-play systems that take a hyperspectral picture, process the image and prepare it

for immediate use as tacti-cal, actionable intelligence,” Anklam said. “We built some of the first ground-based hyperspectral imag-ers that will be deployed in Afghanistan within the next couple of months.”

The systems are imag-ing in the humanly visible as well as the invisible, near-infrared and short-wave infrared portions of the elec-

tromagnetic spectrum, which are valu-able for tactical applications. “It increases your accuracy to have information from that expanded portion of the spectrum when looking for key chemical signatures associated with insurgent activities,” he said.

To overcome the complexity, the com-pany provides training and education in

spectral analysis and remote sensing on-site and off-site, including specialized concept of operations) and tailored mis-sion development.

Another leap forward in hyperspectral image analysis is the ability to integrate the information into other intelligence formats and GIS, such as Esri geo-data-bases and shape files, Google Earth KMLs, LiDAR or thermal imagery with HUMINT or SIGINT. SpecTIR’s own GAIA database integrates these formats and is both tem-porally and spatially enabled in a 3-D environment for a common operating intelligence picture.

As a result of these developments, the actionable intelligence derived from hyperspectral imaging is more valuable today. “The detailed information you can discern about a material or an object’s chemical composition in hyperspectral imagery can now be explicitly linked to a significant event, a thermal emission or even the location of a cell phone call—all within a common operational or common intelligence picture,” said Anklam.

Hyperspectral Sensing Offers Actionable Intelligence

Sean Anklam


much lower cost—$200,000—so the technology can be deployed in volume,” he said.

Headwall’s Micro-Hyperspec sensor is a reduced size and weight to fit onto a wider range of operational vehicles such as small UAVs and robotic platforms. Designed for harsh environ-ments, the Hyperspec RECON handheld sensor allows DoD users to load mission-specific target sets onto an SD-card (Secure Digital memory card, like a camera), and scan and view identified targets on the sensor’s LCD screen at distances of 1.5 kilometers.

“You just load your algorithms and your particular target sig-natures onto a neutral SD card and plug it into the sensor and now you’ve got a mission specific hyperspectral sensor. It’s used for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes and doesn’t require training. The soldier simply points it and takes a picture,” said Bannon.

“It can detect a six-inch-by-six-inch target (a human face) at a distance of a mile in one to three seconds. The idea is to collect a large data set and process it quickly to take action on it,” he said.

The Army Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD) at Fort Belvoir, Va., is evaluating the Hyperspec RECON handheld sensor/camera for missions such as camouflaged sniper detection and to spot explosives concealed on approaching people. NVESD is developing mounted hyperspectral imaging sensors for vehicles that can detect explosives and related chemicals at speeds as fast as 12 miles per hour from four to 330 feet away during the day, at night and in bad weather.

updAted AlGorIthms

BAE Systems SOCET GXP geospatial intelligence software also contains many updated algorithms for hyperspectral image processing that allow analysts to extract information quickly in multiple bands. “Analysts match pixels in an image to known materials in real time with a single button click, define signatures of interest, adjust the thresholds for determining matches and snapshot to Powerpoint in a matter of minutes now, as opposed to legacy systems that could take hours,” said Nick Rosengarten, product manager, BAE Geospatial eXploitation products.

In addition, the SOCET GXP software now is easier to use by a wider variety of users. “Previously this data analysis was consid-ered a specialized field using niche applications that required pro-cessing by spectral scientists using complex stovepipe systems,” he noted.

SOCET GXP can process multiple data types including hyper-spectral imaging, multispectral, synthetic aperture radar and LiDAR. SOCET GXP version 3.2 added more new algorithms and increased flexibility to let users add and remove spectral signa-tures in real time using in-scene spectra, adjust thresholds and switch algorithms. The U.S. Geological Survey spectral library is included in the software.

Hyperspectral imaging is used to detect chemical warfare, uranium processing, smelting radioactive materials, roasting ores and exhaust gases. “It looks at molecules in exhaust plumes to understand what’s going on in that facility,” Holcomb said.

The technology also helps to locate IED manufacturing sites. “There are very specific chemicals and minerals used to con-truct the explosive portion of the IED. Hyperspectral sensors are extremely successful in detecting the chemicals used to create IEDs and to locate IED manufacturing sites. These chemicals—or

any chemical for that matter—emit a specific signature within a certain band that you can’t find with other sensors,” said Merrick’s Howell.

Data fusion is a growing area of interest. “We are looking at data fusion to take advantage of the many different types of data. Within ENVI’s feature extraction tool, for example, we can com-bine hyperspectral and LIDAR data for that type of analysis,” said Darnel.

“The concept of data fusion is discussed a great deal in the intelligence community and SOCET GXP has taken a significant step towards making this a reality,” said Ronsengarten.

Many hyperspectral experts are eagerly awaiting the place-ment of more hyperspectral sensors into space orbit. “There are still not enough airborne and space-borne hyperspectral sensors available. It’s expensive to launch satellites. There are no commer-cially available satellite-borne hyperspectral sensors and data, so there is there’s still no big commercial market for this yet,” noted Holcomb.

However, further development of hyperspectral imaging is expected. “Within the next few years, hyperspectral will be critical for solving specific problems that our users face on a daily basis, so it will be more widely applied,” said Kinn. O

For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at [email protected] or search our online archives

for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.

The proliferation of electronic devices, from laptops to smartphones, as well as the influx of sensor data across the ISR enter-prise, has improved warfighters’ communi-cation and situational awareness. As these tools become increasingly available, there will be a greater need for enterprise stan-dards that promote capability agility, mod-ularity and reuse to support information sharing, data collaboration and scalabil-ity across the Department of Defense and intelligence community.

The Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) provides the networked ISR capability needed to address this upsurge in information. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, special operations forces and IC have each developed their own variants of DCGS to meet the intel-ligence needs of their respective missions. These systems deliver valuable capabilities to their target community. However, the differences in data storage and transmis-sion formats make interoperability across the various DCGS programs of record (PoRs) increasingly complex, especially when new data types, such as biometrics, are introduced.

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (OUSD(I)) is work-ing to increase interoperability across all DCGS programs of record, and ultimately the Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise, through a standards-based architecture. The standards for the capa-bility description package (CDP) are being developed by the Defense Intelligence Agency-led DCGS Enterprise Focus Team (EFT) as the basis for DCGS Enterprise adoption requirements. Streamlined com-pliance of these standards will enhance mission effectiveness and efficiency for the warfighter.

To support OUSD(I) in realizing their vision and further the efforts of the EFT, the Collaborative Enterprise Environment West (CEE-West), has been established as a virtualized laboratory environment for DCGS capability providers to verify interop-erability and reusable solutions across the DCGS community within a secure, multi-tenant and shareable infrastructure.

Government and industry can develop and integrate capabilities, such as Web ser-vices and applications, within the DCGS Enterprise architecture to ensure their ISR applications and infrastructure services align with enterprise standards. A common, shared infrastructure environment allows solution providers to reduce or even elimi-nate costs associated with developing and integrating their own DCGS Enterprise test and integration environment.

The CEE-West team creates tailored environments to meet their customers’ specific needs, providing them access to various software-as-a-service (SaaS), plat-form-as-a-service or infrastructure-as-a-ser-vice capabilities that align industry solutions to standard specifications. Members simply log in through a secure virtual, private-net-work connection, and the DCGS Enterprise-compliant cloud environment allows virtual machines, such as Linux and Windows, to be requested by users to host their services.

Consumers have access to an open source, foundational service-oriented archi-tecture environment for integration and test-ing of individual components across the full spectrum of DCGS PoRs. Complex ISR appli-cations, such as Common Geopositioning Services Enterprise (CGS-E), can be inte-grated to validate the use of standards when conducting a relevant mission scenario. Users can also use CEE-West’s capabilities within their infrastructure environment to evaluate capabilities against specific mission-relevant data.

Consumers have full ownership of their resources and can interface with DCGS Enterprise services to verify compliance to the relevant CDP standards, helping elimi-nate stove pipes across the defense and intel-ligence communities. Capability reuse can be promoted and demonstrated to a larger mar-ket via component storefront environments, such as the Defense Information Systems Agency’s forge.mil website.

leverAGInG sAAs

Once their environment is established, CEE-West participants can leverage SaaS capabilities, such as the DCGS Enterprise

open source service-oriented architecture stack, and initiate trust relationships to col-laborate with other entities. Secure multi-tenancy ensures confidentiality of software and data. Consumers can modify existing or publish their own capabilities to further expose their services to the various tenants within CEE-West.

Procedure and development guides are available to support account setup, establish trust relationships and promote interaction with local SaaS capabilities to ensure the necessary security requirements are met. Discovery services allow developers to find and reuse services within the environment. Through this framework, consumers can leverage Web service security capabilities and provide links between user identities and service attributes, offering attribute-based access controls.

These capabilities ensure that services adhere to established policies, while also providing auditing capabilities to further reduce risks with certification and accred-itation of service architecture solutions within the defense and intelligence com-munities. CEE-West also provides quality of service to consumers to help solution devel-opers ensure that performance require-ments are met before delivery to operational DoD and IC environments.

Enterprise messaging services offer reli-able communications to ISR applications, even in forward-deployed, limited-con-nectivity environments. Aligning CGS-E with the DCGS Enterprise service architec-ture via enterprise messaging can enhance information sharing, situational aware-ness and mission response through mobile, Web-based technologies and services. These practices can be leveraged to mature capa-bilities and expand their footprint across the DoD and IC.

Whether it’s a complex application or an emerging service, CEE-West provides con-sumers with the services that validate enter-prise interoperability. O

Kim Holladay and Erik Visnyak are BAE Systems’ CEE-West program managers.

[email protected]@baesystems.com

Virtual Lab for the ISR EnterpriseCollABorAtIve enterprIse envIronment west helps verIFy InteroperABIlIty And reusABle solutIons ACross the dIstrIButed Common Ground system CommunIty.By erIk vIsnyAk And kIm hollAdAy


new teChnoloGIes help AnAlysts Cull throuGh mAssIve quAntItIes oF vIdeo dAtA to FInd the nuGGets oF IntellIGenCe they need.

Video SearchingBy peter BuxBAum

GIF Correspondent

Three decades after the first military use of full motion video—by Israeli forces deploying video cameras on early-generation unmanned aerial systems over Lebanon—FMV has become ubiquitous in modern warfare and, to a certain extent, a victim of its own suc-cess. But now, new technologies for searching video are emerging to help analysts cope with the widely known phenomenon of “drowning in data.”

Video brings key added value over still imagery intelligence in its ability to observe targets over time. FMV provides the capability to understand human activity over and above the insights to be derived from still imagery.

But one of the capabilities required to make video useful is the ability to search through the many hours of accumulated footage to find the few minutes—or seconds—of relevant information, which is expen-sive and inefficient. This has led to the need for a search capability, which relies on two technology pillars: embedding standard metadata with the video and cata-loging that data. Metadata labels key attributes such as place and time, thus enabling a search within the video.

Experts say the increased demand in the military and intelligence communities for access to, analysis and exploitation of full motion video has been driven by the explosion in the number of available sensors and platforms that provide FMV. The few dozen assets that existed 10 years ago have grown to thousands today. The volume of video taken in Afghanistan in any given year can be measured in decades.

“The proliferation of video sensors is driving the need for a video search capability,” said John Delay, director of strategic management and networking solu-tions at Harris. “The number of video sources has grown in the last five years from hundreds to thousands to millions, if you include the public safety sector.”

“The number one problem we have seen in the-ater today is that with all the new platforms and sen-sors, there is just too much data,” said Charlie Morrison, director of geospatial solutions at Lockheed Martin. “Analysts don’t have time to search through it all to find information that allows commanders to make decisions.”

FIlterInG the hours

Video search capabilities provide tools that allow tactical opera-tors and analysts to get data they need in a reasonable amount of time.

“Search needs to be flexible and have a wide range of capabilities to fil-ter down thousands of hours of videos to the 17 minutes that an ana-lyst or a commander needs,” said Michael Ehrlich, product manager,

GEOINT, ITT Exelis Geospatial Systems.“There are really two components to search,” noted

Morrison. “There is the post-fact forensic capability and there is an emerging real-time aspect that is able to recognize and tag objects of interest and send those to decision-makers.”

The video that the Israelis deployed in 1982 included telemetry data burned into the video itself. “Since that time, standards have been formulated to capture telemetry and metadata in a separate stream from the video,” said Elaine Woodling, a product man-ager at Intergraph. “Metadata is key to searching for relevant video data in a database.”

In 2005, the Motion Imagery Standards Board (MISB), an entity set up by the Department of Defense, completed a set of standards for full motion video. NATO completed a similar set of standards in 2007. In the United States, the motion imagery standards pro-file (MISP) outlines how data is to be formatted and handled and what metadata is to be included with video. To be compliant, a motion imagery system must, among other things, produce non-destructive meta-data in a prescribed format.

The metadata associated with imagery must describe the platform and sensor of the imaging col-lection, the geospatial environment of the imagery and the security level of the imagery. Further elabora-tions of the MISP could include standards that allow for a description of objects found in the video within the metadata.

Applying and cataloging metadata allows operators to search through video to find relevant clips. These are not new technologies in themselves, but they have been applied only recently to video.

“Having this information available separately is relatively new,” said Woodling. “As an industry, we still have not figured out how to make full use of it. But this ability to store information in a catalog system so that

it is retrievable opens a whole new way of using FMV data.”

reAl tIme tAGGInG

The ability to tag and catalog video data has led companies to investigate the idea of identifying video clips of interest in real time

Elaine Woodling

John Delay

Charlie Morrison


and sending them to commanders and analysts who may be inter-ested in them.

“Now we can begin to look at the process of creating an activity-based architecture to support the ability to automatically capture, identify and then tag moving objects within the motion imagery,” said Ehrlich. “As an example, this type of capability would allow the sys-tem to pre-process the video and dynamically notify analysts in near-real time about activity that has been defined as either suspicious or previously defined as an action of interest, such as roadside digging or possibly certain traffic patterns. Developing this type of capability is something that we believe is going to be a requirement by the com-munity as we move forward.”

Harris has a long history of providing video management tech-nologies to the television and entertainment industries. The company has adapted those technologies to give military and law enforcement organizations the capability, among other things, to search and dis-cover video relevant to the missions of analysts and commanders.

“About five years ago, we saw this problem coming to the DoD space,” said Delay. “So we started looking to adapt our core technolo-gies that we developed for broadcasting to military applications.”

The result was a system called the Full Motion Video Asset Management Engine (FAME), which is used for acquiring, manag-ing and distributing FMV to organizations for tactical and forensic video, imagery and data management. FAME ingests video streams and stores the metadata in a database for searching and cataloging. FAME searches may be conducted across the entire enterprise, deliv-ering results regardless of where the motion imagery was originally ingested.

“Once the data is ingested into the system, users have the abil-ity to search based on any number of criteria,” said Delay. “DoD searches usually involve dates, times and places. DoD users some-times also search based on the platform that collected the data, such as the Predator. All of that metadata allows for deep searches across an entire archive.”

In addition to the three required elements under MISP, FAME allows users to create associative tags, conduct chats and run ana-lytics against the data. Users can also create rules-driven searches that automatically identify objects and events of interest within the video. The same kinds of searches can pull similar material of other intelligence sources and provide a multifaceted view of the same or similar targets and features.

DoD has deployed FAME both in theater and stateside over the last year and a half.

Another company that is active in this area is Overwatch, which has integrated three tools to maximize the efficiency by which an individual intelligence analyst can search, review and report on FMV data: GeoCatalog for data cataloging, V-TRAC for video exploitation and RemoteView for imagery analysis. This improves tactical operations by making it easier to conduct the full spectrum of analysis on a laptop computer, divorcing the search and review process from the expensive proprietary hardware that stores the video files.

GeoCatalog creates a local index of the archived videos that can be quickly searched by any metadata attribute. The analyst can then retrieve the relevant video file from the server. Opening the file in V-TRAC allows the analyst to review, annotate and generate a report from one interface.

AGGreGAted solutIon

The core product from ITT Exelis for FMV is Jagwire, which is a “combination of two existing products which provides a unified solution for managing not only Full Motion Video, but also imag-ery and wide area motion imagery,” said Ehrlich. “Understanding and supporting these different modalities is important, and offer-ing an aggregated solution for the processing, management, dis-covery, exploitation and dissemination of them puts ITT Exelis in a unique position in the market.”

Video Event Addresses Government NeedsVideo technology for military and intel-

ligence will be on the agenda in April in Las Vegas, Nev., where the broadcast industry’s NAB Show will feature a “Government and Military Summit” focused on the challenges and solutions of providing actionable intel-ligence to decision-makers. The first day of the event, April 17, will be moderated by Joseph Smith, technical executive, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Acquisition Directorate, Sensor Assimilation Division. Led off by a talk by Jeff Jonas, chief scientist, IBM Entity Analytics, who will address “Big Data, New Physics and Geospatial Super-Food,” speakers will look at the video issues facing homeland security, law enforcement and media organizations.

The following day, moderated by John Brodner, senior ISR analyst, NGA, will look at solutions being used by journalists and

security analysts, and also offer a pre-sentation by Christopher Wolfe, director of the NGA Time Dominant Operations Center, entitled “Geospatial Solutions for Decision Support.”

The third day, moderated by Thomas Sabolsky, chief, Media Services Center, National Reconnaissance Office, will examine future possibilities for video in law enforcement, news and other areas. In addition, Louise Moggio of Harris will look at advanced full motion video programs.

“The Military and Government Summit at NAB is unique in the industry,” said Susan Sheppard, principal, Certa Cito Marketing, who has worked on behalf of Harris Corp. in planning the event. “The summit draws together a diverse group of government and military person-nel to meet with professional broadcast

executives and flush out where needs and solutions fit together. The summit was originally developed by a small group of representatives from NGA, Harris and myself several years ago, and has grown to include about 300 attendees from a vari-ety of organizations.

“The summit was originally intended to provide a forum for military users of video to understand how to take better advantage of the cutting edge technology and solutions that were on display at NAB. Today, the summit comprises three days of sessions that address both the challenges faced by government and military, but also case studies by professional news-casters, whose workflows share some sim-ilarity with intelligence agencies in terms of the processing, exploitation and deliv-ery of materials,“ Sheppard added.


Jagwire combines the companies adLib video and data manage-ment software with its Enhanced AGILE Access. AdLib is the solu-tion that provides the FMV capabilities, while Enhanced AGILE Access brings the support for both imagery and wide area motion imagery to the Jagwire solution.

“Uniting adLib and Enhanced AGILE Access enables warfighters to have almost immediate access and visibility into the full enterprise of collected data on either traditional or mobile devices, even in the most austere environments,” said Ehrlich.

ITT Exelis recently enhanced its FMV search capabilities by joining forces with Analytical Graphics Inc. (AGI). “The capabilities developed by ITT Exelis and AGI will enable soldiers to effectively find and retrieve geospatial intelligence data at an enterprise level,” said Ehrlich. “These capabilities also provide mechanisms for information systems manag-ers to administer the delivery of operational intelligence.”

AGI brings ISR mission modeling software to the table, noted Ehrlich.

“AGI adds back-end processing, but also generates additional meta-data values, so that users can move beyond searches based on geospa-tial and temporal data,” he explained. “They can search video streams and generate characteristics such as angle of capture and sun angle. This will allow users to better analyze items within a given range of a target and better understand the environments, especially urban areas, that they are viewing. These enhancements will provide end-users with added intelligence and relevant data-driven results to geo-spatial queries.”

Intergraph has developed the ability to create a georeferenced mosaic image. “Video can be analyzed at the pixel level, the same as for still imagery, to provide change detection capabilities, as well as the ability to reconstruct activity at or near a target of interest,” said Woodling.

Recent enhancements to Intergraph’s geospatial exploitation tool-kit include capabilities to fuse FMV, geospatial elevation data and satel-lite imagery into a single view.

Search technologies are likely to become more sophisticated as they continue to evolve, allowing users to search for different and more complex objects and events. They will also likely make progress on the identifying, tagging and distributing of items of interest in real time or near real time.

“There is now greater interest in activity-based intelligence than in identifying orders of battle,” said Lockheed Martin’s Morrison. “In today’s environment, intelligence about the number of tanks or planes in the vicinity is not as critical as whether two suspicious individuals are digging a hole somewhere. We are developing an algorithm that can automate the search for data. If an event of interest occurs, such as a vehicle stopping in front of a particular building, a system can put a tripwire on the video in order to identify that something of interest has occurred.” O



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Compression Module Supports Wireless Video Distribution

SRI Sarnoff’s TerraSight video and information processing now includes a salience-based compression (SBC) module, allowing dismounted soldiers to view and communicate mission-critical information on handheld devices. TerraSight integrates streaming video and data for situational understanding and real-time decision-making from surveillance and early warning air and ground sensors. The SBC module reduces overall bandwidth requirements to 50 Kbps (kilobits per second) and below, enabling the distribution of relevant, full motion video and data over existing, bandwidth- l imited wireless communication networks. SBC makes it possible for soldiers on the ground to leverage key accurate data and information sent from forward operating bases. Soldiers can now select relevant areas of interest and update data for real-time

two-way communication. The SBC module chooses targets based on motion, key infrared signatures, and operator selection. TerraSight provides precise, context-rich information for sensor control, data storage, vision processing and 3-D visualization.

John Bradburn;[email protected]@sri.com

Contract Provides

Infrastructure Support for NGA

West

NJVC is being awarded a $33.9 million ceiling-priced modification to a previously awarded cost-plus-award-fee contract to create a standard West Managed Service Provider offering and provisioning process by designing, installing and maintaining the infra-structure needed to support remod-eled and new facilities spaces within the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency West and other locations. The information technology/information services contract provides the NGA information technology enterprise operations and sustainment support to NGA information technology systems at approximately 170 sites (90 manned, 80 unmanned) around the world. Completion of the project is expected by the end of the year.

Army ISR System Acquires Geospatial Collaboration Software

As part of the Distributed Common Ground System-Army (DCGS-A), the Army has purchased TerraGo geospatial collaboration software to produce, access, update and share geospatial information and applications in support of warfighter efforts around the world.

DCGS-A is the Army’s premier ISR enterprise for the tasking of sensors, anal-ysis and processing of data, exploitation of data, and dissemination of intelligence. Under DCGS-A, Army personnel will leverage TerraGo Publisher for ArcGIS to produce TerraGo GeoPDF maps and imagery and Composer for Adobe Acrobat to quickly compile thousands of GeoPDF maps into intelligent, portable, interactive and dynamic digital mapbooks to cover a county or an entire country. The multi-year, multi-million dollar contract award also includes the TerraGo Toolbar to enable warfighters in mission critical roles to use virtually any mobile computer to access and share interactive, compact, portable and intelligent 2-D and 3-D GeoPDF maps and imagery. TerraGo Toolbar also allows users to easily make georeferenced updates using notes, audio, video, Web services or other informa-tion in connected or offline environments without the need for complex systems or advanced GIS training. In addition, the contract provides Army personnel who use the TerraGo Toolbar with support, training and product updates as part of an enterprise distribution agreement.

Renee Wagner; [email protected]

Coast Guard Seeks GIS Enterprise Framework

The Coast Guard has selected the Timmons Group to design a common GIS framework. The intent is to develop a highly scalable GIS enterprise architecture framework that will satisfy the Coast Guard’s functional and geospatial needs in support of a common operational GIS framework. The framework is intended to leverage the Microsoft Silverlight applications programming interface within the Esri ArcGIS platform environment.

The project will involve extensive strategic planning services and analysis for the GIS framework. Tasks involve determining current and future business driven spatial information requirements, research and identification of best practices, and developing recommendations for spatial information focused on processes, policies, procedures, access, security, maintenance and archiving. The tasks will ultimately document gaps and leverage best practices in developing a roadmap for future framework capabilities. Following the strategic plan, Timmons Group will develop an implementation guide, which will document all aspects of the architecture including data formats, network design considerations, framework and application performance factors, development methodology and testing strategies. This guide will provide tactical plans for the enterprise GIS program that will accompany the higher level strategic plan.

Tim Asimos;[email protected]


INDUSTRY RASTER

Image Processing Service Helps Meet Demand Surges

Leveraging its GeoImaging Accelerator (GXL) technology, PCI Geomatics is now offering image processing services. The company has invested significantly in developing highly automated, high-perfor-mance image production systems designed to process large volumes of imagery quickly, efficiently and with a high degree of quality. A service that leverages these systems is now available through PCI’s new GXL Professional Production Services. The GXL Professional Production Services are ideally suited to help

customers who are faced with sudden peaks in demand for their color-balanced, orthorectified mosaic products, derived from raw aerial or satellite imagery. PCI’s GXL Professional Production Services offer customers processing capa-bility for most commercial satellite and aerial sensors. Highly accurate derived products can be generated from raw imagery provided by customers using the advanced GXL systems within PCI’s facilities.

Kevin Jones;[email protected]

3-D Visualization Capability Fuses Multiple Data Sources

Intergraph has released GeoMedia 3-D 6.1.1, which offers a better way for organizations to exploit the precision and power of their geospatial data. 3-D visualization provides the realistic view to facilitate smarter, more confident decision-making and enhanced visual communication.

GeoMedia 3-D is an add-on seamlessly connected to GeoMedia, enabling users to represent existing geospatial datasets in three dimensions through a new 3-D map window. By fusing multiple data sources together into a single georefer-enced 3-D view, users can better utilize this data for enhanced decision support and improved communications. Users can also leverage the recently announced Live Link capability, connecting the GeoMedia 3-D map window to ERDAS Imagine. This enhances the 3-D view with ERDAS Imagine’s rich raster capabilities to support synchronized data sharing, viewing, editing, updating and analysis. Users can leverage these prod-ucts together, integrating accurately processed imagery and terrain data from ERDAS Imagine. Within ERDAS Imagine, users have access to a sophisticated set of assisted feature collection capabilities and quantitative image processing that supports change detections and the extraction of details about the earth.

Stephanie Deemer;[email protected]

Mobile Streaming Added to Full Motion Video System

VITEC has announced the addition of mobile streaming capabilities to the widely deployed Optibase Full Motion Video (FMV) Streaming system. The mili-tary-grade architecture delivers standard definition and high definition IPTV content, in real time, to iOS and Android phones and tablets over 3G, HSPA+, 4G LTE, WiFi and WiMAX networks, and seamlessly integrates with existing IP video environments. Optibase FMVMS addresses the dynamics at the core of the FMV network and at the battlefield by combining broadcast-grade video quality with dense, flexible and easy to deploy mobile delivery technology that is certified for all types of networks and data rates. FMVMS can be integrated with the widely deployed EZ TV IPTV System and FITIS Situational Awareness and ISR Platform to enable rapid deployment of real-time streaming to phones and tablets. Offered in a blade form factor that integrates with Optibase Media Gateway platforms, FMVMS is designed to be used as a video hub service or as an edge device that is positioned close to the users for optimal network utilization.

Conversion Developer Toolkit Transforms

Geospatial Data

GeoCore 2012 from Blue Marble Geographics is an all-in-one data conversion developer toolkit for geospatial data. The updated version of GeoCore features GeoCalc 6.5, GeoTransform 6.2, and GeoTranslate 5.2. If desired, the latest versions of these software development kits are also available for individual purchase. When combined into GeoCore, users can seamlessly work with any Blue Marble data conversion toolkit in the same development environ-ment to build powerful geospatial software. Whether an applica-tion requires coordinate, vector, CAD, raster, 2-D or 3-D geospatial data handling, GeoCore enables developers to address a variety of unique data transformation challenges quickly and efficiently, freeing up time to concentrate on the organization’s core offerings. Within GeoCore 2012, developers will have access to the GeoCalc 6.5 coordinate transformation library and toolkit, which showcases a new vertical height offset method, as well as support for various new height models.

Kris Berglund;[email protected]


Compiled by KMi Media Group staff

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 Limited36 USC 220506

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Michael G. “Mike” Vickers was nominated by President Obama as the under secretary of defense for intelligence (USDI) on September 29, 2010, and was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on March 17, 2011. Vickers served as acting USDI from January 28, 2011, to March 17, 2011, and as first and only assis-tant secretary of defense for special operations/low-intensity and interdependent capabilities (ASD SO/LIC&IC) from July 23, 2007 to March 17, 2011. His service has spanned the administrations of both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.

As the USDI, Vickers is the principal intelligence adviser to the secretary of defense. He exercises authority, direction and control on behalf of the secretary over all intelligence orga-nizations within the Department of Defense, including the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office and intelligence components of the combatant commands and military services.

Vickers is the program executive for the military intelligence program. He is also dual-hatted as director of defense intelli-gence in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and reports to the DNI in this capacity. He is the department’s prin-cipal interface with the Central Intelligence Agency and other elements of the intelligence community, and represents the department on intelligence and sensitive operations at depu-ties and principals committee meetings of the National Security Council.

As ASD (SO/LIC&IC), Vickers had oversight of global oper-ations and served as senior civilian adviser to the secretary of defense on counterterrorism, irregular warfare and special activ-ities. He played a central role in shaping U.S. strategy for the war with al-Qaida and the war in Afghanistan. He had oversight of the core operational capabilities (strategic forces, conven-tional forces and special operations forces) of the Department of Defense, as well as the functional combatant commands (U.S. Strategic Command, Special Operations Command, Joint Forces Command and Transportation Command). With the vice chair-man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he had oversight of the force application (maneuver and fires) joint capability area.

From 1973 to 1986, Secretary Vickers served as an Army spe-cial forces non-commissioned officer, special forces officer and CIA operations officer. He had operational and combat experi-ence in Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia. His operational experience spans covert action and espionage, unconventional warfare, counterterror-ism, counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense.

During the mid-1980s, Vickers was the principal strategist for the largest covert action program in the CIA’s history: the para-military operation that drove the Soviet army out of Afghanistan. From 1996-2007, he was senior vice president, strategic studies, at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Vickers holds a Bachelor of Arts with honors from the University of Alabama, a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Doctor of Philosophy in international relations/strategic stud-ies from the Johns Hopkins University.

Vickers was interviewed by GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly.

Q: What are your priorities as USD(I) for 2012?

A: My priorities for 2012 are essentially the same priorities I established when I became USD(I) a year ago, updated, as nec-essary, for the evolving strategic and fiscal environments. My principal responsibility is to ensure that the president, secretary

Michael G. VickersUnder Secretary of Defense for

Intelligence


Intel StrategistSustaining U.S. Intelligence Advantage

Q&AQ&A

of defense and the national security leadership have the intelli-gence they need for national security policy and decision-mak-ing, and that our warfighters and operators have the intelligence they need to plan for and conduct successful operations and cam-paigns. Most of our most pressing national security challenges are fundamentally at their core intelligence problems. Our oper-ations are predominantly intelligence-driven. Accordingly, intel-ligence advantage is central to our national security. Sustaining U.S. intelligence advantage into the future is my second core responsibility.

My top priorities as USD(I) are of course derived from the president’s top national security priorities: operationally disman-tle and strategically defeat al-Qaida; set the conditions for suc-cessful transition in Afghanistan; prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, principally but by no means exclu-sively in Iran and North Korea; and defend the nation against cyber-threats. As USD(I), I set the strategic direction for defense intelligence and ensure that sufficient resources are devoted to accomplish these core missions. Looking at the longer term, I must also ensure that defense intelligence is postured to prevent strategic surprise, and that it is postured for a period of rising challenges with flat or declining budgets, as we take the neces-sary steps to reinvigorate our economy and get our fiscal house in order.

During my tenure as USD(I), I have sought to strengthen my organization’s integration with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, its role in policy and operations, our over-sight of the principal defense intelligence agencies and defense analysis, our relations with our congressional oversight com-mittees and our foreign intelligence partnerships. I have also launched a major, multi-year initiative to strengthen the capa-bilities and contributions of defense HUMINT at the national level, and have other initiatives underway to further strengthen the operational integration between DoD and the Central Intelligence Agency. Further strengthening the ties between our special operations forces and defense and national intelligence is also one of my top priorities. I have sought to ensure that the department will have the intelligence capabilities it will need for sustained counterterrorism operations and irregular warfare, counterproliferation operations and operations in anti-access/area denial environments.

I have also sought to ensure that the department will have the intelligence capabilities it needs for emerging war fighting domains—cyber and space, for example—and that it will have the capability needed to attribute attacks. With the new strategic guidance, the coming drawdown in Afghanistan and the multi-tude of experimental systems we have deployed there, the pros-pect for flat or declining budgets, and the continued imperative for intelligence-driven operations, I also see a need to begin the rationalization and institutionalization of our airborne ISR force. I also must ensure that our evolving overhead architecture is optimized for both national and departmental needs. Finally, I want to ensure that defense intelligence career opportunities—both military and civilian—are commensurate with their contri-butions to our national defense.

The new strategic guidance, “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense,” which President Obama and Secretary Panetta signed out on January, 5, 2012, makes most of my priorities even more imperative. Intelligence

will, even more in the future, serve as our “first line of defense.” The shift to a small-footprint, counterterrorism-focused strat-egy in the Near East and South Asia and the continued volatility as a result of the Arab Awakening will place a premium on intel-ligence capabilities. The strategic shift toward Asia will require new investment in capabilities. We will still be required to pro-vide global coverage, but increasingly with a more remote, stand-off posture. Integration with the National Intelligence Program to ensure optimization of resources will be critical.

Despite the continuity in my priorities between 2011 and 2012, this year likely will prove to be a very challenging year. As Secretary Panetta recently said, “We are at a strategic turn-ing point” in the DoD, and that certainly impacts the intelli-gence community. Some specific priorities for 2012 will be to provide the additional intelligence resources required to move us closer to, and hopefully complete, the operational dismantlement of core al-Qaida in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan while at the same time moving al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula closer to dismantlement and defeat.

I also intend to sustain our critical intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan this year as we recover the remainder of the surge. My goal is to have us much stronger in intelligence terms on the way down than we were at corresponding points on the way up. I also expect to make considerable progress this year in build-ing the national capability and capacity of defense HUMINT, new capabilities to support DoD/CIA integrated operations, and expanded cyber-operations capabilities. I am excited about the possibility of taking what may be the initial steps toward a future overhead architecture that would provide persistent GEOINT and real-time tipping and cueing through activity-based intelligence. Finally, we must do a better job at protecting classified informa-tion, both from leaks and espionage.

Let me close by emphasizing the importance of sustain-ing our intelligence advantage. In the nearly four decades since I began my career as a special forces soldier, I have never seen our intelligence advantage this deep and broad. It is vital to our future security that we sustain this advantage.

Q: How would you describe your views on intelligence integration?

A: Its importance to our intelligence advantage far transcends the establishment of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Very few intelligence problems these days rely on a single intelligence discipline or agency as a source. The bin Laden raid is a classic example: CIA, NGA and NSA all made vital intelligence contributions to finding and fixing UBL at that com-pound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Within agencies, integration—operations and analysis, operations and science and technology, analysis, and science and technology—has proven essential. Operational integration between CIA and DoD is central to our ability to deal with many of our toughest national security prob-lems. Foreign and domestic intelligence integration between CIA and FBI is central to counterterrorism, counterproliferation and counterintelligence. Integration between offense and defense is essential in cyber-operations.

Q: Having been in the position of USD(I) for a year now, what do you see as working?


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A: I had worked very closely with Director Clapper throughout his tenure as USD(I), and his promotion to director of national intel-ligence has further solidified our strong partnership. I could not succeed without his strong support. I joined an already superbly functioning national intelligence team, with John Brennan at the White House, Director Clapper, Stephanie O’Sullivan and Robert Cardillo at ODNI, Director Panetta and Deputy Director Michael Morell at CIA, Director Mueller and Sean Joyce at FBI, and Keith Alexander, Ron Burgess, Tish Long, Bruce Carlson and others in defense intelligence. I’ve also had the opportunity to work with General Petraeus when he was in Iraq, CENTCOM and Afghanistan, and continue to work closely with him in his cur-rent capacity as CIA director. I also inherited some very strong performers in OUSD(I), and a very experienced principal deputy in Tom Ferguson, who served as acting USD(I) for several months. Having had the honor and privilege to serve under one of the great intelligence officers in our history in Bob Gates, and now under Leon Panetta, is an intelligence officer’s dream.

Our combat support agencies are all performing superbly. The SIGINT provided by NSA is central to national intelligence, our war with al-Qaida and our operations in Afghanistan. They are also doing critical, pioneering work in the cyber-realm. NGA is providing very specialized GEOINT that, among other things, enables the most precise campaign in the history of warfare—our war with al-Qaida. NGA-provided GEOINT is also critical to our counterproliferation successes. DIA continues to provide our policymakers and warfighters with superb all-source analy-sis, and its attaché network provides global coverage and access. Bruce Carlson has turned NRO around in terms of cost, schedule and launch success.

Over the past three years, the services, the combat support agencies, and the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Task Force [ISR TF] have remarkably grown the size and capabilities of ISR in Afghanistan. I’m very proud of the efforts of my staff in the ISR Task Force, which was established by Secretary Gates as a means to streamline and quickly get the needed capabilities and capacities to those who needed it most—the warfighter. ISR is a critical enabler for every operation in Afghanistan and is directly underpinning the incredible pace of special forces’ operations. Overall, I am very pleased with the path we’re on with respect to airborne ISR.

Intelligence integration and DoD/CIA operational integration is working very well. Our support to CIA has been critical to their success in a number of areas. We have made significant invest-ments in operational and tactical HUMINT over the past several years, and are doing very well in this area. I could go on with other examples of areas where I feel we are doing an excellent job, but given the length of this article, let me stop here.

Q: What do you see as needing more attention?

A: There are of course areas where we need to do better, and my priorities include areas where I think we need improve-ment, whether we are doing well currently or not. This includes national-level HUMINT, but also emerging areas such as cyber. It also includes counterintelligence and the problem of leaks.

Q: How would you assess the role of geospatial intelligence in current counterterrorism efforts?

A: Superb. As I mentioned earlier, GEOINT is enabling the most precise campaign in the history of warfare. Counterterrorism [CT] is very demanding of intelligence because of the challenge of iden-tifying individuals and activities that are trying to hide within a foreign society. CT is a multi-INT effort requiring the best efforts of all of our analysts, and they are delivering. GEOINT’s contribu-tion begins with providing the contextual “where” around which intelligence can coalesce and build an understanding of the net-work, which leads to persistent monitoring and ultimately tar-geting the right door—or roof top, as the case might be—and individuals. NGA and service GEOINT analysts are critical team members at every level of our CT efforts.

Q: What do you see as some of the most important contribu-tions of GEOINT and other ISR capabilities in operations in Afghanistan?

A: As previously noted, our operations are intelligence-driven, and ISR is the coin of the realm. NGA and the services have made unclassified geospatial data and imagery ubiquitous across the battlespace. Rapid delivery of GEOINT and ISR assets to com-manders in Afghanistan has been nothing short of a game-changer, putting Afghan insurgents in a far more precarious position. From traditional maps to tailored target packages, GEOINT is embedded in every operation and tactical decision in Afghanistan. More than 200 NGA analysts are augmenting ser-vice and coalition forces across Afghanistan to ensure access to the best GEOINT data, analysis and tailored products. NGA has done a tremendous job of enabling coalition forces access to classified and unclassified GEOINT products through its NSG Expeditionary Architecture [NEA]. The services’ and NGA’s efforts with airborne GEOINT collection, especially full motion video, have been transformative. These capabilities are providing our ground and special operations forces with unparalleled situa-tional awareness, with a persistence and accuracy that is saving our soldiers’ lives and greatly reducing the risk to Afghan civil-ians during combat operations. For example, through GEOINT we have been able to assist in diminishing the impact of IEDs on our forces, via detection and avoidance, as well as by locating IED build sites. Additionally, Predator and Reaper systems are the highest demand airborne platforms on today’s battlefield, revolu-tionizing counterterrorism operations.

Q: Where would you put the ideal balance between reliance on national-technical means on one hand and commercial assets for GEOINT?

A: GEOINT, from all sources, is a critical component of the U.S. intelligence advantage. Commercial imagery provides an impor-tant complement to national technical means, particularly for foundational and shareable imagery. Commercial assets, however, are not a substitute for NTM.

We intend to “play to the strengths” of each in order to pro-vide the most effective GEOINT collection capability based on our collection requirements and intelligence needs.

Q: How would you evaluate the prospects for the commercial remote sensing industry, especially in light of potential bud-get cuts?


A: As noted above, commercial remote sensing remains an important complement to other GEOINT systems, and we are com-mitted to maintaining a strong commercial remote sensing industrial base. That said, we had overinvested in commercial imag-ery as a hedge for NTM, and that hedge is no longer needed. We are in the process with the ODNI of conducting a study to determine our future commercial remote sensing needs.

Q: The use of full motion video for ISR has produced many benefits as well as techni-cal challenges, notably in transmission, storage and analysis of massive amounts of data. How are you working to enhance the former and manage the latter?

A: Full motion video is “the” force multi-plier in theater, but in terms of the chal-lenges you identify, I’d have to tell you that transmission is not a pressing con-cern as our ISR architecture is extraordi-narily robust. Despite the historic amount of FMV collection, we still have not encoun-tered the point in time where we haven’t been able to move the data we collect to those who need it, when they need it, for however long they need it. Whether this data is pushed to analytic centers, or to handheld devices for soldiers on the front lines, our FMV collection is incredibly accessible for both analysis and tactical decision-making. The department is, however, leveraging industry expertise to further enhance FMV contributions to the full spectrum of war fighting operations.

In terms of the impact this large collection has on the man-power needed to conduct analysis, we are continuing to expand our ISR network so that analysts located anywhere in the world can assist in the exploitation and analysis of FMV collection. This sensor-agnostic approach allows us to apply a joint analytic solu-tion set to collection, regardless of which service is employing the platform or where it is located.

Finally, storage is less of a challenge, and increasingly an opportunity for ISR. USD(I) is helping to shape how DoD deals with geospatial storage for both local and long-term use, to include emphasis on activity-based intelligence layers that cap-ture the critical elements of airborne ISR collections. By focusing on the activity, these large disparate data sets can be significantly reduced, exploited and used to increase effectiveness of future collections.

Additionally, NGA and the services are now implementing technologies that enable us to employ automated technologies that catalog and sort through hours of collect to identify events forensically, enabling us to build stronger analysis on patterns of behavior that shape our approach in tactical operations and strat-egy development.

Q: In your remarks to the GEOINT 2011 Symposium, you addressed the “way ahead” for GEOINT. Where is it going? What are your priorities for developing new capabilities?

A: It is vital that we improve our ability to penetrate denied areas to gain insight into, and if needed, produce actionable intelligence on, enemy strategies, capabilities and operations. It is vital that we maintain a very robust precision unmanned ISR fleet for CT operations. It is vital that we maintain global coverage. Finally, we may have the opportunity to add persis-tence and real-time tipping and cueing into the future over-head GEOINT architecture. This would continue the tradition of “game changing” capabilities that have characterized the evolu-tion of GEOINT for several decades.

Q: You have had a fascinating and widely admired career in intelligence and special operations, including a key role in opposing the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. What are some of the key lessons or principles from your experiences that you are applying to your current position?

A: Well, I learned that a bold strategy is often the best one, and that strategy works best when it identifies and exploits trends that are already working in your favor. I learned that covert action only works well when it works in tandem and is consistent with overt policy. I have tried to apply these lessons to the war with al-Qaida and other challenges. I’ve tried to apply the local knowledge I gained about Afghanistan during the 1980s to our current conflict there. I’ve tried to apply my experiences dealing with a rising Asia to the challenges of the new defense strategy. Most of all, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to say?

A: Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you. O

Michael Vickers addresses the GEOINT 2011 Symposium. [Photo by Oscar Einzig]


Seeking to navigate the complex patterns of tribal societies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a few U.S. intelligence organizations began in the mid-2000s to turn to human geography and the behavioral sci-ences after it became clear that both would play a key role in national priorities. As this new focus spread, demand increased for a new breed of analyst in the intelligence community, and over the past few years the application of human geography has evolved in purpose and application.

In order to address new national priorities, a new type of ana-lyst was needed. This new hybrid would need to have roots in geog-raphy, all-source techniques, an understanding of social networks, knowledge of core behavioral science theories and regional expertise. This new analytic combination became known as the human terrain analyst.

The human terrain analyst maintained a dedicated focus on the cultural aspects that influenced whatever problem they were asked to address. Over the course of the last six years, the assessments created by these hybrid analysts built the foundation of methodology and tra-decraft for human terrain analysis.

For a brief period of time, the term briefly expanded to cover all cultural work within the Department of Defense. Although different combatant commands and agencies used different terminology—for example, socio-cultural dynamics, human terrain and human geogra-phy—human terrain was the most common description used by DoD.

As the discipline grew, analysts with different focus areas began to broaden the term and alter the original scope and intent of what requirements human terrain analysis could answer. Today, we have many terms, methodologies and working groups that perform analy-sis with a cultural foundation.

Attention dedicated to this progressively maturing tradecraft increased for nearly five years, arguably hitting its height in 2009 with the establishment of CENTCOM’s Human Terrain Analysis. Following 2009, investments in war fighting have shifted along with key fund-ing lines. As a result, organizations are looking to be more conserva-tive with existing funds. As human terrain matured, emphasis shifted to the documentation of the tradecraft, development of training and a focus on technological solutions.

Although the concepts of human geography have become well known, future funding of human geography within DoD remains

uncertain. One thing remains cer-tain: The analytic principles developed are not going away. Requirements will continue for this type of analy-sis, and expectations on its utility will increase. The likely future of this dis-cipline will be shaped by established data standards further methodologi-cal development from emerging data sources, and growth in current technological solutions to our data collection and storage issues.

weB dAtA

A major area of opportunity for the future is exploring the role of web data in informing human geography efforts.

As Web 2.0 hype has worn off and the participatory use of the Internet becomes a societal norm, we are witnessing an unprece-dented explosion in the creation and analysis of geospatial data. Just as major governments are reducing their investments in location intel-ligence (due to budget reductions), individuals and non-government organizations (NGOs) are fueling a bonfire of innovation in the world of GIS data.

This timely innovation is driven in response to several recent trends:

• The explosion of social networks for sharing information• The proliferation of smartphones and GPS technology• Web-based planning and operations for humanitarian relief and

crisis response.

There are at least three important socio-technological advances that are affecting human geography: how users are co-creating con-tent through the participatory Internet; how new methods are avail-able for exploring and analyzing data; and how emergency responders are finding new ways to use old technologies.

Throughout the 20th century, GIS data remained locked up in proprietary databases belonging to commercial interests and nation-states. The Internet has played a major role as a catalyst for acceler-ating the generation and exchange of location data. With commercial

new teChnoloGy Is provInG to Be A powerFul ForCe, drIvInG sIGnIFICAnt ChAnGes In the CommunIty oF onlIne mAppInG.By ABe usher And julIA Bowers

Abe Usher

Human Geography: An Evolving Discipline


platforms like Google Earth and Twitter, major governments have been disintermediated as sources of information in highly developed nations.

As access to high-speed Internet has grown, the democratiza-tion of geospatial information has moved forward at a geometric rate. Suddenly, amateur grassroots projects have started amassing quan-tities of data that dwarf the amount of information tied up in pro-prietary systems. Such grassroots content creation is exemplified by websites like bbs.keyhole.com, flickr.com, twitter.com and openstreet-map.org.

Originally established on the Web in December 2002, bbs.key-hole.com was an important early location for community-generated geospatial data. Before it was acquired by Google in 2004, the key-hole community was set up as a community resource, allowing users to post points of interest to share with other users. With sponsorship from Google, the site has expanded tremendously. Today it boasts mil-lions of users and a collection of keyhole markup language (KML) points that span hundreds of thousands of locations around the world.

The Yahoo property Flickr goes even further than bbs.keyhole in providing a data creation community. On Flickr, photos can be geo-spatially annotated, marked up, uploaded and shared free of charge. Although not required, many photos feature geospatial annotation or markup. Researchers from the University of Munster in Germany have estimated that Flickr has more than 100 million geotagged pho-tos. The aggregation of such a large volume of volunteered geographic information, also referred to as community remote sensing, paints quite a picture of the state of affairs on the ground.

The next generation of community-generated geospatial data is now being created at the popular micro-blogging site Twitter. In 2009, Twitter implemented a geo application programming interface that allows developers and applications to annotate tweets with location information in the form of decimal degrees coordinates.

Only a slim 0.23 percent of Twitter tweets include geospatial information. But at more than 100 million tweets per day, that still amounts to more than 230,000 geospatially tagged tweets per day, or 6.9 million geo-tagged tweets per month. This has given rise to an entirely new era of near real-time geospatially annotated data.

The Cloudmade-funded OpenStreetMap community has become a boon to organizations looking to obtain and evaluate road network data. Originally founded in 2004 by Steve Coast, the OpenStreetMap project originally aimed to encourage growth in the development and distribution of GIS data by providing map data free of charge under a Creative Commons license.

In the past seven years, OpenStreetMap has grown from just an idea to the dominant source of free map data in the world. It allows users to edit and interact with map data in a similar style to wikis and other community-based collaboration mechanisms. True to its mission, OpenStreetMap makes all of its polygon data available for

download as a data export in OSM (sounds like “awesome”) format—approximately 250 gigabytes.

onlIne tools

Simultaneous with the expansion of capabilities relevant to human geography, there has been a renaissance in online tools for the explo-ration and analysis of location data. Notable innovations include Google FusionTables, GeoIQ’s (formerly FortiusOne) collaborative GeoCommons site, and enhancements within Google Maps.

Google’s creation of FusionTables has opened up a world of the-matic map generation. Fusion Tables provides a simple, Web-based service for uploading and sharing tabular (structured) data. As a sim-ple consumer technology, Fusion Tables lacks many of the features belonging to sophisticated data analysis software. However, its ease of use vastly eclipses other online offerings.

In just five minutes, a user can upload a text file with detailed geo-spatial data, generate a geospatial heatmap based on location data, and then share it with the world as a downloadable KML file or network-addressable KML network link. The simplicity of this data mashup solution has significantly lowered the bar for viewing and exploring location data online.

Geocommons.com, the open geospatial analysis platform provided by GeoIQ, provides easy data processing and analysis for the novice GIS user. Slightly more complicated than FusionTables but much more customizable, the GeoCommons site provides a very rich interface for creating compelling and beautiful thematic maps.

Through its wizard-driven interface, GeoCommons guides users through the process of selecting datasets (from an online collection of more than 4,000 sources, and up to 23,000 when you include data con-tributors and map makers) and choosing thematic views of the infor-mation. Like FusionTables, GeoCommons allows users to share their creations as KML file downloads.

The granddaddy of Web 2.0-style online maps, Google Maps now provides many optional location data points and photos in conjunction with its standard interface. In addition to its “slippy maps” (the first Web-based maps that allowed moving maps around without reloading the Web page), Google Maps now provides users with three significant enhancements that improve data exploration: photos, places and buzz.

The “photos” feature allows users to turn on a layer of geotagged photos from the site panoramio.com. Similar to the capability native to Google StreetView, these images give users ground-level photos of the region of interest, along with the annotations and metadata that the originators uploaded with their photo.

The “places” feature enumerates a number of major locations sig-nificant to the local community, such as schools, historical landmarks and government buildings. These places provide insights into espe-cially important regions of social significance.




emerGenCy response

Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, is an open source platform originally created to help facilitate grassroots reports of vio-lence following elections in Kenya in 2008. During its use in 2008, it rapidly expanded to over 45,000 users in Kenya, and today it is the most widely used platform for local-level geospatial reporting. Capable of accepting input from SMS text messages or Internet-based Web forms, it has played an important role in the recent history of emergency response in Haiti, Afghanistan and Chile.

AliveInAfghanistan, an Ushahidi-based website, set out to mon-itor reports of fraud and violence during the period surrounding elections in 2009-2010. More successfully than any other source, AliveInAfghanistan (officially sponsored by the Pajhwok news agency) provided up-to-date micro-stories detailing exactly what was taking place across the country. Such a capability is especially important in developing countries that lack a strong government infrastructure for monitoring local security and that have weak information exchange capabilities.

During earthquakes in Chile in 2010, Ushahidi was used exten-sively to aggregate field reports on activity following the natural disas-ter. More than 1,200 earthquake damage assessments and situation reports were uploaded via the Web and SMS. Such information served as an important catalyst for getting aid to the right place at the right time.

In the lull between emergencies, you can find NGO staff and emer-gency responders hanging out at Crisis Mappers, a Ning-powered social networking site that connects hundreds of professionals and volunteers interested in helping bring geospatial data to bear in crisis situations. The site’s mission is “leveraging mobile platforms, compu-tational and statistical models, geospatial technologies, and visual ana-lytics to power effective early warning for rapid response to complex humanitarian emergencies.”

Borrowing techniques from the Facebook playbook, Crisis Mappers is a growing online community where users are encouraged to express their experience and ideas related to humanitarian emergencies through blogs, videos, discussion forums and internal mail.

On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake and tsunami devas-tated the northeastern region of Japan and damaged a nuclear power plant. As emergency responders from Japan, China, and the United States swung into action, Internet users were uploading vitally impor-tant messages and images about the aftermath via Twitter and Flickr. Although restoration efforts of the affected areas still continue, the geospatial data provided by Internet users in Japan provided critical indicators for emergency responders operating in the area.

New technology is proving to be a powerful force, driving signifi-cant changes in the community of online mapping. As Internet users join together to co-create geographic content, use Web-based tools for geospatial analysis, and work together in emergency response scenar-ios, they are rapidly leaving the governments of the world behind. O

Abe Usher is chief technology officer for the HumanGeo Group. Julia Bowers is the director of defense programs for Courage Services Inc.

Co-sponsored by


Following National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director Letitia A. Long’s 2010 call to put more GEOINT power in the hands of tactical users, key companies in the field have moved vig-orously to develop mobile apps provid-ing easy access to geospatial images and information.

At the same time, U.S. government agencies have also jumped on the band-wagon and have come up with their own mobile apps, including one that gives cus-tomers access to unclassified, commercially available satellite imagery. The app, devel-oped by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in partnership with NGA, is called the

Enhanced Quality Imagery Search (EQUIS) mobile application, for both Android and iOS tablet and smartphones.

The beauty of the EQUIS Mobile app is that it is free to government users and eas-ily downloadable to both Apple and Android mobile devices carried into the field. This gives users much-needed mobility and por-tability, particularly in situations where the user does not want to be encumbered by maps and papers. It also gives users access to timely information.

In the case of a foot-patrol in Afghanistan, for example, warfighters may need information on the latest develop-ments in the area, which may have altered

the security picture after the pre-patrol briefings had been conducted.

To help remedy such situations, the EQUIS Mobile app was developed to give users quick and easy access to commer-cial satellite imagery from NGA’s Web-based Access and Retrieval Portal (WARP) database on mobile, handheld devices.

“It was built for the end-user so that the folks in the field could use it in whatever capacity they are in,” stated Scott Judkins, NRO senior systems engineer.

And thanks to collaboration, innovation and the development team’s ability to cul-tivate this cutting edge, government off-the-shelf application, users are now able to

nro And nGA’s equIs moBIle App GIves FIeld users ACCess to GeospAtIAl ImAGery.

By kAren e. thuermer

GIF Correspondent


download and view unclassified commer-cial imagery on any device using Google’s Android operating system or Apple’s iOS free of charge.

Both allow smartphones and other personal devices to access and download commercial satellite imagery from NGA’s unclassified WARP image library.

While the app is gaining recognition, it’s important to point out that the desk-top version of EQUIS has been in place for several years. “We wanted to duplicate the EQUIS desktop capability on mobile devices for users who are away from their desk,” Judkins said.

In partnership with the NGA, and in response to federal agency demands for smartphone applications, the NRO’s Rapid Capability Office modeled EQUIS Mobile on its previously developed EQUIS architecture.

Michael Udell, project manager for EQUIS, described the original desktop version in an NRO press release as “an easy-to-use web application that combines discovery, display and dissemination of national, airborne and commercial imagery directly to a user’s desktop.”

In that same release, Lieutenant Colonel Bogdan Chomicki reported that EQUIS Mobile had received extremely favorable reviews since its premier and that “users were really impressed with it.”

First demonstrated at the GEOINT 2010 Symposium, EQUIS immediately proved to be popular with law enforcement and mili-tary officials who use the application to view and email imagery in addition to writing or drawing on an image.

BAndwIdth lImIts

Because the software is for mobile phones and devices, however, the downside of the EQUIS app is the fact it has limited bandwidth. Consequently, users are limited by the amount of data they can receive.

“The fact that the end-user is band-width-limited was one of the main design constraints,” Judkins acknowledged.

But then one has to consider this: Geospatial data files are usually enormous, ranging from gigabytes to terabytes. Fine-resolution overhead digital imagery usu-ally must be turned into maps displaying population densities, availability of water resources, locations of past improvised bomb explosions and other data.

The trade-off is the EQUIS app allows users to get very quick access to commercial

imagery that is mobile and portable and share it with others. This point was demon-strated by NRO in an exercise in May 2011 with a law enforcement agency involving hostage rescues.

“We were able to show the team the area in which the hostages were believed to be,” Judkins described.

This was important because, in the exercise, the team was heading to the wrong location. By using EQUIS on their mobile devices and tablets, the team was able to get updated information while en route and head in the right direction of the hostages.

In another demonstration, law enforce-ment agents used the EQUIS Mobile app to help their team do advance preparation on a location which they were going to visit.

“Based on their requirements, we were able to add icons and distance measurement capability to the app,” Judkins described.

As a result, the agents were not only able to get commercial imagery, but also were able to put icons and measurements on it that could then be shared with their team.

“EQUIS Mobile uses Google maps as the geospatial context or geospatial base-line. When a user searches for imagery, the footprint or overview is placed on Google Maps, which helps them know where that footprint is located in the world,” Judkins said.

In other words, it stitches the foot-prints and overviews onto Google maps and also quickly identifies what a user is looking at and where it is located.

Key to the EQUIS Mobile app is the fact commercial imagery is licensed from NGA. “NGA purchases it from the commercial satellite vendors and NGA stores it in the NGA library. That is what NRO has access to,” Judkins explained.

To access the information, NRO has an account on NGA’s WARP portal. WARP system engineers worked very closely with the EQUIS Mobile development contractor during all phases of the system develop-ment life cycle. After the team completed system development, it transferred the EQUIS Mobile application to the WARP program, which is now available for down-load by users.

“If a user is logged into the WARP sys-tem, they will see the most recent version of the imagery,” Judkins said.

NRO transitions updates to the app as soon as the latest versions are available. “Updates are developed on an ongoing basis,” he added.

Government officials decide what and what not to update on the EQUIS Mobile app. “Most suggestions come from users of the app themselves, similar to the app store where the user downloads an app from iOS or Android,” Judkins remarked. “They’ll put feedback on what they want to see approved or not approved.”

Overall, EQUIS tries to provide a sim-ple interface intended for the end-user, he added.

mIssIon pArtnershIp

EQUIS Mobile is one of several smart-phone projects under way across NGA. In particular, EQUIS Mobile exemplifies the new capabilities supporting the NGA vision of providing online, on-demand access to NGA’s GEOINT knowledge.

Making that work is the fact that NGA and NRO mission partnership for EQUIS Mobile is stronger than ever. According to Rob Zitz, former director of the NRO-NGA Support Team and former deputy director of NRO’s Mission Support Directorate, the EQUIS Mobile project is only one exam-ple of the technologies to emerge from this partnership.

Other examples include innovative and user-friendly ways to task satellites via broadband wireless devices, extraordi-nary new processing routines to automate image exploitation and inventing meth-ods to gain precise geolocational data from video sources in real time.

The EQUIS Mobile app, however, can be deemed a leap for users in need of geospa-tial information. That’s because this new capability puts the power of GEOINT into the palm of their hands and allows them to better interact with content and services through online, on-demand access.

In essence, EQUIS Mobile empowers users of GEOINT with the tools, data and information required to meet their needs when and where they need to better under-stand the world.

In fact, the EQUIS Mobile app continues to be improved. New versions will provide even more information and offer images lay-ered with additional value regarding loca-tions, such as fires, earthquakes or weather conditions. O

For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at [email protected]

or search our online archives for related stories at www.mmt-kmi.com.


April 14-19, 2012Government and Military SummitLas Vegas, Nev.www.nabshow.com

April 16-19, 2012National Space SymposiumColorado Springs, Colo.www.nationalspacesymposium.org/gi2

April 23-27, 2012SPIE Defense, Security and SensingBaltimore, Md. http://spie.org

June 4-8, 2012GEOINT Community WeekWashington, D.C. areawww.usgif.org

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GeoEye Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3www.geoeye.com/nationalsecurityLockheed Martin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C4www.lockheedmartin.comNational Space Symposium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24www.nationalspacesymposium.org/gi2SpecTIR LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9www.spectir.comUSGIF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7www.usgif.org

Compiled by KMi Media Group staffGIF CALENDAR & DIRECTORY

Volume 10, Issue 3 April 2012

NEXT ISSUE

Bruce CarlsonDirector National Reconnaissance Office

Cover and In-Depth Interview with:

Features: Enhanced View Update Commercial SAR Big Data

Insertion Order Deadline: March 23, 2012 | Ad Materials Deadline: March 30, 2012

Bonus Distribution:

National Space SymposiumApril 16-19, 2012


Al PisaniSenior Vice President, Intelligence Group

TASC

Q: The federal government is facing unprecedented budget pressures. What does that mean for the defense and intelli-gence communities?

A: It’s clear that in the current political and fiscal environments, one of the big-gest challenges facing our nation will be balancing our national security objectives with tightening budgets. As a nation, we are being challenged by new kinds of threats, including those from non-state actors and cyber-attacks. Our national intelligence and defense communities can keep pace with these new threats by developing new col-lection abilities and new collaboration tech-nologies for sharing intelligence responsibly and securely. We also need greater analytical depth to maintain a global watch while pro-ducing better predictive intelligence.

Q: How do budget cuts impact the NGA vision of putting GEOINT into the hands of the user?

A: The NGA goal is a dramatic paradigm shift, but it is achievable, even in this era of fiscal austerity. Success will depend on re-engineering the organization and re-direct-ing people, processes and technology to implement a new, dynamic business operat-ing model that centers on making GEOINT accessible to the right people at the right time in a manner that is affordable and secure. The new model must support this new line of business for the GEOINT user interaction, with business analytics under-pinning the shift from supply-driven ser-vices to demand-driven services. Meeting the new challenges requires clear commu-nication of the operational renovations, tied with innovations in the IT architecture and improved content coverage. In other words: renovate, innovate and communicate.

Q: How can industry help government inte-grate innovations in technology?

A: Historically, the application of map-ping and imagery analysis to our national security interests has involved a complex suite of national sensors, a highly technical

ground architecture and a limited suite of applications built around a linear tasking, collection, production, exploitation and dis-semination business model for hard copy production. Today, given the increased avail-ability of commercial and airborne imag-ery, there is no shortage of data. Bandwidth and processing power have increased loga-rithmically. Solutions are being delivered as services to include computing as part of the cloud, data centers for content management and applications via widgets. GPS and loca-tion-based services have permeated our per-sonal computing space.

The challenge will be making the changes necessary to leverage these new capabilities while continuing to ensure the viability of our legacy systems. Experienced, independent systems engineering and inte-gration (SE&I) will lead this transition by helping create solutions, sharing the front runners early and engineering right the first time to minimize cost, risk and negative mission impacts.

Q: Where is TASC making its technologi-cal investments?

A: TASC is putting a strong emphasis on SE&I because we know from our own expe-rience that it is essential for achieving cost-reduction goals. For example, when planning its program to comply with the BRAC initiative, a Department of Defense customer estimated that the cost of neces-sary changes would be 15 percent of budget. TASC applied SE&I processes to the custom-er’s BRAC project, which resulted in the cus-tomer spending only 3.6 percent of budget on program changes, saving more than $200 million. On a project for another intelligence customer, TASC used SE&I processes to analyze the current space architecture, cost

constraints and mission needs. The TASC team saved a program from cancellation by proposing a mission-focused architecture with an achievable acquisition strategy that fit into the customer budget and satisfied the mission requirements.

Q: How does TASC see its GEOINT role in the current environment?

A: TASC’s sweet spot is helping our intelli-gence and defense customers define what they need now and design an operational and budgetary framework that will evolve alongside the threat environment, mission requirements and technological advances. In every instance, our customers are relying on us to provide stability and assurance around constantly changing mission objectives in a very uncertain budget environment.

With our decision analysis support, our customers can identify and evaluate investment alternatives. We also help them develop viable IT plans that can accommo-date the rapid insertion of new technology. Our SE&I processes are scalable and flexi-ble; for the customer, that means they can be applied to the development of large system acquisitions, or to simple, low-cost capabili-ties in 60-day drops.

In today’s constrained budget environ-ment, the geospatial community’s transition to a sharing infrastructure needs to be exe-cuted efficiently, with few missteps. TASC’s SE&I process offers a higher fidelity mod-eling and simulation capability so that our customers can have an accurate prediction of future consequences of pending decisions, which in turn reduces risk. In other words, with SE&I, programs remain on schedule and on budget and, most importantly, per-form according to the mission requirements.

The budget crisis is forcing both govern-ment and industry to think differently about how to solve problems. That is exciting for TASC because there is a real premium on the innovative, agile company. Budget churn aside, the national security mission stays, and the government is looking for solutions that help achieve greater efficiency and rel-evance while still achieving the necessary cost reductions. O

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW Geospatial Intelligence Forum


CLIENT BAE Systems GXP

DESCRIPTION GXP Xplorer 2011

PUBLICATION Geospatial Intelligence Forum

ISSUE April 2011

CONTACT Rachel Snyder, (858) 675-2850, [email protected]

ART DIRECTOR Laetitia Santore, (858) 592-5383, [email protected]

BLEED .125” / 8.625’” x 11.125”

TRIM Full page / 8.375” x 10.875”

SAFETY .125” / 8.125” x 10.625”

FORMAT PDF/X1a

COLOR CMYK

baesystemsgxp_gif_april11.indd 1 4/6/2011 11:51:21 AM

www.lockheedmartin.com

© 2012 Lockheed Martin Corporation

In a world where events can unfold at dizzying speeds, decisions must be made quickly and decisively. Decision makers rely on the nation’s intelligence organizations to securely gather, distill, distribute, and share information that can come virtually from any place, any source, and in any form. At Lockheed Martin, we provide systems and solutions that make sense of it all. From analyzing geospatial-intelligence and UAV video feeds to defending networks against the most sophisticated cyber attacks. All backed by a team of highly skilled, experienced professionals who understand the intelligence mission and the technologies that drive it. Making sure government agencies have the critical decision advantage over our nation’s adversaries is all a question of how. And it is the how that Lockheed Martin delivers.

THIS IS HOW LOCKHEED MARTIN INTELLIGENCE SOLUTIONS

ON DEMAND™

WITH MEETINGMISSIONDEMANDS MISSION

314-63079_MissionDemands_GIF.indd 1 2/22/12 11:26 AM

GIF 10-2 (March 2012)

Documents

nuggets of intelligence

intelligence use of

reusable solutions

image analysts

trademarks of exelis

available satellite

mission critical imagery

geoint applications