gif 13 4 final v3

The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community

Analytic Innovator

Cathy JohnstonDirector for AnalysisDefense Intelligence Agency

3-D Modeling O Video Analytics O Digital Elevation ModelsVisualization O SAR

May/June 2015 Volume 13, Issue 4

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InsIde: IntellIgence cOMMUnItY

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Cover / Q&AFeatures

Cathy JohnstonDirector for Analysis

Defense Intelligence Agency

17

Departments Industry Interview2 edItor’s PersPeCtIve14 Industry raster27 resourCe Center

stuart BlundellGeneral Manager and Director of SalesExelis Visual Information Solutions Inc.A subsidiary of Harris Corporation

May/June 2015Volume 13, Issue 4GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE FORUM

42-d to 3-d GeoInt Although modern technologies that transform 2-D into 3-D imagery have been around for a number of years, their use by the U.S. military and intelligence communities has really taken off in the last few years. By Peter BuxBaum

9GloBal elevatIon ModelA new global digital elevation model presents a significant increase in resolution and accuracy, providing a wide range of users with a unique and valuable information source.By Gertrud rieGler

12GeosPatIal data ChallenGeAs the power of sensor technology grows, companies in imagery and related geospatial fields are having to beef up their information infrastructures to manage torrents of imagery data that dwarf the data streams that seemed so formidable only a few years ago.By Harrison donnelly

20vIdeo analytICsWith strong roots in diverse fields such as physical security, retail marketing and transportation, video analytics technology holds out promise for military and intelligence ISR programs struggling to cope with enormous amounts of video data.By Harrison donnelly

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“We have an opportunity to discover those key pieces of information,

possibly prevent strategic surprise

or transform all operational aspects of the organization.

In order to make these discoveries, we are working to equip our analytic

enterprise with the tools, skills and personnel

we need to harvest these transformative

insights.”

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24sar Power In sMall PaCkaGesAlthough the ability of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to see through night or clouds has made it an important sensor capability, the technology’s significant size, weight and power requirements have mostly restricted its use to large and expensive vehicles. That is changing, however, as small and nano SARs are making this tool suitable for small UAVs.By Henry Canaday

7 GIF is proud to present a guide to the 17 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community.

IntellIgence cOMMUnItYPOSteR

Even to an outsider, it is clear that Director Robert Cardillo is shaking up the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, leading what he calls a “seismic shift” in organizational culture, pushing transparency and developing new ways to work with industry. At the same time, the world of commercial satellite imagery has also been shaken up by the constellations of small satellites being planned by new players such as Surrey Satellite Technology and Planet Labs.

A recent NGA request for information suggests that those two trends may come together as the agency seeks ideas from industry about how to develop a paradigm for commercial imagery acquisition different from the traditional model, under which the agency purchased imagery from a small number of providers through programs such as EnhancedView. While only an initial inquiry, heading toward a new contract no earlier than fiscal year 2017, the document sketches the outlines of the new system.

As described, the contract would involve one or more prime vendors serving as focal points for commer-cial GEOINT capabilities who could work with a wide range of providers, including those based in other countries. The new strategy would support a major goal of the agency’s NextGen Tasking Initiative, which seeks new approaches to the tasking, collection, processing, exploitation and dissemination processes for using commercial GEOINT capabilities. The contact would go well beyond imagery acquisition, incorporating imagery-derived analytic products and services.

The NGA documents also emphasize that significant amounts of the imagery and services would be used in unclassified environments, with data hosted at the vendors’ locations and accessible to users via cloud computing. NGA intends to share the information with allied nations and non-governmental organizations, as it has done increasingly in recent years in response to emergencies and natural disasters.

The NGA statement also opened the door to a variety of technological approaches, offering to consider alternative creative or unconventional solutions and architectures, especially Web/cloud-based systems that are scalable and do not require government investments in multiple architectures.

Although the period for industry responses closed in early June, it seems clear that we will be hearing a lot more about these ideas in the months ahead.

Harrison Donnellyeditor

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Geospatial Intelligence Forum

Volume 13, Issue 4 • May/June 2015

Reflecting the growing potential for small synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems, Sandia National Laboratories last year transferred its Copperhead system for detecting IEDs to the Army. The Copperhead system includes Sandia’s MiniSAR device, plus software and tools to exploit its capabilities. [Photo courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories]

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By Peter BuxBaum, GIF CorresPondent

GettInG to an aCCurate 3-d PersPeCtIve oF the real world takes GeosPatIal IntellIGenCe to a new level.

Although modern technologies that transform 2-D into 3-D imagery have been around for a number of years, their use by the U.S. military and intelligence communities has really taken off in the last few years. Analysts point to a number of reasons for the surge in interest.

One is the existence of vast collections of 2-D imagery, and the desire to squeeze as much use-ful information from them as pos-sible. Second, and related to the first, is the commitment by U.S. forces to use technology to develop the highest level of situational awareness, especially in urban operations, as has been the case in recent conflicts. Industry, mean-while, has been developing technol-ogy to make the process of creating 3-D models from 2-D imagery eas-ier and more automatic.

A major part of the reason for obtaining 3-D from 2-D imag-ery lies in the nature of human perception. “If you want to bring the geospatial world to a broader audience, you need to create a world that they can understand,” said Steve Du Plessis, direc-tor of remote sensing at Hexagon Geospatial. “3-D emulates the real world in a digital format. The real world exists in 3-D.”

“Getting to an accurate 3-D perspective of the real world takes geospatial intelligence to a new level,” said Leslie Ledda, director of the Processing, Exploitation and Fusion Capability Center, Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems (IIS). “If we want to accurately reconstruct the real world from imag-ery, we need data that captures the complexity of the scene including shape and surface characteristics. This allows you to use the 3-D as a model on which to run analysis and simulation,

including addition of the fourth dimension of time. This sort of exploitation and understanding is something that is limited with 2-D imagery.”

Beyond the situational awareness application, 3-D enables communication and collaboration using geospatial intelligence to non-experts, offering rich content and analytic value paired with visual and geographic accuracy, noted Ledda.

“We have cosmic stores of 2-D pixels collected over time, and these continue to be acquired at every moment,” said Karen Ebling, director of strategic development and analytics at Raytheon IIS. “We have invested in collection technol-ogies ranging from highly sophis-ticated imaging systems on orbit to cameras in every device we person-ally carry. It makes sense to make use of the data we have.”

Generating 3-D models is also a matter of making use of readily available technology. “We have the technology capability to build a 3-D picture from a 2-D picture, with any set of pixels available,” said Ebling. “Therefore, we don’t create just realis-tic 3-D models, but rather we use precise georeferencing algo-rithms to create real 3-D models. The applications for 3-D are endless, so we have an urgency to make use of the data at hand in order to get 3-D to users as efficiently and timely as possible.”

“Creating 3-D models from 2-D images has become very efficient,” said Armando Guevara, president and chief executive officer of Visual Intelligence. “It used to involve a lot of manual labor and the use of analog technologies in isolation. Now this has all moved to the digital realm and the technologies have con-verged into a set of methodologies that we call pixelgrammetry.”

Steve Du Plessis Armando Guevara

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navIGatIon and Isr

The 3-D models generated from 2-D imagery facilitate an enor-mous number of military and intelligence applications, as well as civilian. “Navigation is one,” said Guevara, “especially now that we are moving to autonomous vehicles. You need 3-D when you merge robot-ics with navigation for applications like collision avoidance.”

“These models can be used in traditional ISR applications requiring terrain information,” said Ledda. “They can be used as well to form a layer of foun-dational GEOINT against which other data and data derived from analytics can be fused and layered. Incorporation of these models into automated queu-ing or change detection algorithms can improve algorithm performance, result-ing in a higher probability of detect and a lower false alarm rate, making the algorithms more suitable for inclusion in activity-based intelligence applications.”

The navigational applications of 3-D modeling are most evi-dent in operations in urban settings. “Let’s say you are planning a raid on a terror compound,” said Du Plessis. “3-D models can reveal vision and concealment information not readily discernible from

2-D images. Operators can figure out line-of-sight problems so they know where they can be seen from, and therefore places to avoid, and where to take their shots from as well as the best ingress and egress points.”

Targeting is another important military and intelligence appli-cation for 3-D models, as is immersive training. “3-D is used for target selec-tion for drones and minesweepers,” said Guevara. “They provide rich informa-tion to determine the best approach to targets. 3-D models can also be used as part of training in which warfight-ers are immersed in conflict scenarios and can view virtually the buildings and infrastructure they will encounter in actual locations.”

Other applications include mission planning and rehearsal, aerial survey-ing, disaster relief, augmented reality

applications, digital terrain model creation, mobile mapping systems, and a host of civilian applications. “A civil engineer might use one of these models to estimate water runoff, calculate line of sight, or track ongoing progress of earth-moving activities in bridge and dam building projects,” said Ebling. “3-D is a technology accelerator that users can implement to expose spatial and temporal relationships in layered analytics.”

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Hexagon incorporates technology that can calculate the elevation point for each pixel in an image in systems that are able to generate 3-D city models from 2-D images, such as this depiction of Klagenfurt, Austria. [Image courtesy of Hexagon]


Cots soFtware

A number of COTS software packages use computer vision technology and photogrammetric techniques to automate 3-D reconstruction from imagery, noted Joe Seppi, practice director of national security for Woolpert, an architecture, engineering and geospatial firm that has tried out various COTS systems in its work.

“There are several out there that work well with large airborne image data sets, which have various dif-ferent business models,” he said. “Some companies want to have customers send the imagery to them, and they process it as a service, while others license their software. That’s what we’re interested in, because we need to have control over it to get the accuracy that we are look-ing for. They have different functional-ities, with some outputting just a point cloud and others a full-textured mesh, which is traditionally what you think of as a 3-D model.

“We’ve tested and evaluated a bunch of systems and are using two off-the-shelf systems now. We even looked at developing our own tools to do it, because there is open-source research available that gives you the insight needed to build your own applications. But it’s a lot of work, and to do the software engineering to scale it enough to handle the size of the data sets that we are giving it, we realized it was more cost-effective for us to go COTS,” Seppi reported.

The key is to effectively combine computer vision algorithms and traditional photogrammetry. “If you’re not so concerned with absolute geolocation accuracy, computer vision techniques will get you results that look great,” he said. “But to make it very accurate, so that the 3-D model can become part of a 3-D GIS database, for example, you have to incorporate photogrammetric techniques. You have to bring in accurate GPS data and preserve a very accurate tra-jectory from your camera position.

“The real takeaway is that computer vision alone will not gener-ate the geospatial data sets that we are after. It takes photogramme-try as well,” Seppi added.

One challenge, however, is that the power of these new sys-tems may be getting out in front of capabilities for disseminating them. “There aren’t that many GIS applications out there that will efficiently render large city-scale textured meshes,” he said. “If you have a custom data set that is highly accurate, and has a lot of addi-tional information that you want to bring in and add on, such as vector overlays, there are only a handful. The big names out there are playing catchup in terms of being able to render efficiently these large models. The underlying file types aren’t supported by a lot of the standard software being used now.”

One key area for this technology in the future is tied to the explosive growth of UAS-derived aerial imagery. Although Federal Aviation Administration restrictions on domestic UAS use have limited this trend in the United States, it is flourishing in Europe. There, companies are bundling the software with their UAS systems, thus enabling even non-experts to take advantage of the technology. Seppi also sees further automation leading to greater speed and effi-ciency, especially by using cloud computing to provide the massive amounts of computational power needed.

lidar role

The technologies that facilitate today’s 3-D-from-2-D capabil-ities have transformed the process from a heavily manual one to a highly automated one. “The technologies have come a long way in the last couple of years,” said Du Plessis. “It used to be that you had to use expensive aerial cameras and then triangulate multi-ple images. This required elaborate ground control operations and

skilled operators to collect the images. “Now, LiDAR technology generates

dense 3-D point clouds from airborne platforms, and it is possible to gener-ate 3-D models from them almost in a black-box fashion. Photo facades can then be overlaid on them. It has evolved from a manual process to one which is quite automated,” he continued.

LiDAR uses laser light pulses to gauge elevation by measuring the time delay between transmission of the pulse and detection of the reflected signal. A range finder mounted on an aircraft

collects the data and provides location information on an x-y-z axis known as a point cloud. LiDAR provides accurate elevation data and can pinpoint the location and elevation of buildings, trees and roads.

“Other technology developed in Germany can calculate the ele-vation point for each pixel in an image, which generates a very dense point cloud,” added Du Plessis. “All it takes is a push of a button.”

Hexagon incorporates that technology in systems that are able to generate 3-D city models from 2-D images.

The processes supported by the software that facilitate the build-ing of 3-D models have become so intuitive that updating of infor-mation can take place in near-real time, and predictive analytics can also be applied to the 3-D data.

“The fresher the data is to the decision-making, the better the decision is going to be,” noted Du Plessis. “For example, if a con-voy detects a roadside device, that information can be immediately incorporated in mapping applications and the transportation maps are updated immediately. In the past, it may have taken hours before the data could be uploaded to systems and the maps updated. Now, the information is loaded in real time on a server and the new routes for the convoys are updated automatically.”

dIreCt From ImaGes

BAE Systems has developed a process to generate accurate 3-D models directly from imagery, as opposed to LiDAR point clouds. The key to the systems is that the images used to generate the 3-D must be taken at oblique angles, as opposed to directly overhead.

“We developed volumetric feature collection from 2-D non-nadir imagery,” said Steve Lossman, senior application engineer at BAE Systems. “There must be some obliquity to them. We can measure the height of buildings on the basis of sensor metadata. Users can first create surface models and then add volumetric buildings to them. One particular application would be line of sight analyses. They don’t have to be pretty. They just have to supply accu-rate data. What would be the best position for a sniper, or to take out an enemy sniper?”

BAE Systems has developed a process to generate accurate 3-D models directly from imagery, such as this depiction of London before the 2012 Olympics. [Image courtesy of BAE Systems]

Geospatial intelliGence Forum

September [13.6]

Q&A:maj. Gen. John shanahan

25th air ForceSpeciAl Section:

Wide area surveillanceFeAtureS:

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Geoint for mission planning

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managing Big DatacloSing DAte:

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mobile appscloSing DAte:

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elizabeth l. trainDirector, national maritime

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commander, office of naval intelligence

SpeciAl Section:modeling & simulation

FeAtureS:international partnerships

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The latest version of SOCET GXP, the company’s solution for the analysis of imagery, allows users to collect features and retain the textures of buildings in geospatial databases. The system also enables the conversion of LiDAR point clouds into actual terrain and man-made features. “These are used around airports and to identify landing areas,” said Lossman. “Users can visually analyze potential obstructions in a landing area.”

“Raytheon is committed to 3-D as a technology discriminator,” said Ebling. “We have led technology advancements in accuracy, the ability to distinguish and render very fine features, and the integra-tion of additional algorithms to exploit multispectral data in new ways, and in three dimensions.”

Traditionally 3-D information has been derived from standard digital terrain data, stereo pairs of images and collected LiDAR data. “While that provides adequate answers for some intelligence problem applications, these traditional sources of 3-D data have limitations,” said Ledda. “They fall short when we need access to remote or diffi-cult-to-reach locations. There is often insufficient detail or granular-ity. These traditional data collects may not be sufficient for the time relevance to the problem under study. And there may be limited or no availability at multiple instances in time to support change detec-tion or other temporal analysis. In other words, traditional 3-D just can’t get us the answers we need.”

Intersect Dimension uses Raytheon patent-pending technologies, derived from principles of physics, photogrammetry, mathematics and statistics, to automatically generate dense 3-D models. “These models are not limited to a single elevation for a given location,” said Ledda. “They have high-positional accuracy and resolution. The Intersect Dimension workflow is completely automated, end-to-end.

“The software automatically selects optimal 2-D data sets to be used as inputs to the model generation process through registration and fusion of intensity, spectral, physical and many other attributes to the points in the generated model. The implementation also lever-ages Raytheon’s rich heritage of software optimization and perfor-mance tuning,” Ledda added.

Raytheon invested internal research and development funds to develop Intersect Dimension and related analytics capabilities. “We recognized early on that 3-D models created from 2-D imagery pro-vide a richer source of information without the limitations of the tra-ditional methodologies, so Raytheon began to invest years ago in this technology,” said Ledda.

“The Raytheon Intersect Dimension model generation tech-nology provides the capability to generate LiDAR-like, high-resolu-tion 3-D models from multiple 2-D satellite or aerial image data sets over large geographical areas in a time- and cost-efficient manner,” she explained. “We have built 3-D models with multiple sources of remote sensing data, including current collects and historical data from archives. Data from multiple sensors and data not specifically collected for the purpose of generating 3-D models can be inputs to the model generation process.”

Intersect Dimension models are packaged in standard LiDAR for-mats, enabling compatibility with existing enterprise investments in people, training and tools. “The models can be interactively viewed, manipulated, measured and analyzed using many legacy and COTS 3-D viewers and toolkits,” said Ledda. “Models can also be converted to other formats including digital surface models, wireframes and facet models, as appropriate for the problem being addressed.”

Intersect Dimension models have been used by a wide vari-ety of end-users, including law enforcement and first responders.

“Raytheon scientists and engineers have worked shoulder to shoul-der with end-users to build what they need most for their prior-ity problems,” said Ebling. “We are participating to evolve 3-D data standards. Our engineers are enthused by our commitment and continue to bring new ideas for enhancing the technology to include non-traditional GEOINT sources.”

Visual Intelligence has created a software platform called the iOne Software Sensor Tool Kit Architecture that addresses the col-lection of 2-D and 3-D data. “The sensors that can be built with our architecture can collect 2-D and 3-D data for a variety of different applications including homeland security and border patrol,” said Guevara. “The sensors are multipurpose and functionally and col-lection scalable. Users can escalate their collection or add capabili-ties as they grow. They can transform their sensors over time and it is all software-based.”

mICro devICes

Devices have recently been developed for smartphones to cre-ate micro devices that have 3-D awareness. “These will transform the smartphones that warfighters carry to highly intelligent devices that can accommodate a variety of different sensors,” said Guevara. “The 3-D capabilities in these devices will aid in targeting and map-ping applications. Within the next three years these kinds of devices and applications will become ubiquitous.”

Visual Intelligence plans on launching its own such micro device this fall.

Raytheon is also working to build the next generation of advanced processing, storage and retrieval architectures to man-age massive volumes of imagery pixels. “On the processing side of the equation, our scientists are coming up with new algorithms that will enable new capabilities in the areas of change detection, rich content integration, and other advanced analytics,” said Ebling. “Raytheon is investing now in advanced research and development around multisensor, multimission systems, where highly precise 3-D is the framework upon which all this rich data sits. Our engi-neers are working on adding the fourth dimension of moving time in 3-D space, and are producing some amazing capabilities for the most important missions we support.”

As is the case with many developments in military and intelli-gence technology, 3-D is commonplace to the coming generation of warfighters and scientists. As is the case with the adaptation of high-fidelity imaging from gaming systems to training technologies, the younger generation expects nothing less than the kind of realistic 3-D modeling that is now coming to the fore.

“It’s astounding to be around all the brain power we find com-ing out of our universities and early-career engineering talent, our most forward-thinking industry colleagues, and our partners in government R&D shops,” said Ebling. “This next generation was born immersed in a 3-D online world, and they can’t imagine any-thing less. We are compelled to think past the pixels. 3-D is a realm of technology that will go far beyond what we can imagine, now that the foundational elements of 2-D to 3-D are in place. 3-D has become table stakes.” 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.

GIF 1 3 . 4 | 9 www.GIF-kmi.com

Whether planning an infrastructure network, conducting mili-tary missions in unknown terrain or assisting disaster crisis man-agement, precise and reliable elevation data supports a wide range of needs and forms the foundation of any accurate geospatial product.

Many global or near global digital elevation models (DEMs) are today available, mostly derived from Earth observation satellites. Airbus Defense and Space’s recently launched WorldDEM presents a significant increase in resolution and accuracy, providing a wide range of users with a unique and valuable information source.

An often-quoted tenet from the Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”—that knowing the ground will assure victory—is still true today. From now, military and geo-intelligence agencies and other defense users can rely on the WorldDEM and its high-quality standardized eleva-tion dataset, which offers a seamless, homogenous height model for the Earth’s entire land surface representing approximatively 150 million square kilometers.

As the first DEM to provide truly pole-to-pole coverage, the program offers accuracy and quality surpassing that of any global satellite-based elevation model available today. Its relative vertical accuracy—2 meters in relative and better than 4 meters in absolute (in a 12 meter x 12 meter raster)—defines a new standard in global elevation modeling.

multIPle aPPlICatIons

WorldDEM has benefited multiple applications since its com-mercial launch in April 2014, including satellite image orthorectifi-cation, aviation and defense and security-related missions.

WorldDEM offers a perfect homogeneous coverage, presenting no break lines at regional or regional borders due to differing mea-surement procedures or data collection campaigns staggered in time. This is a very important asset, and a differentiator when com-pared to other DEMs, that can drastically enhance a wide range of applications, particularly if users require data globally with a very high level of detail and precision, such as mapping, defense and nat-ural disaster and humanitarian crisis management.

Orthorectification and Mapping. Accurate DEM layers are essen-tial for building very high-quality databases. Thanks to WorldDEM,

operators of civil and military Earth observation satellites have a standardized elevation model at their disposal for high-qual-ity image orthorectification, no matter where their acquisition area is located on the planet. Cartographic authorities around the world are now able to improve or update their standard car-tographic maps thanks to this more accurate and up-to-date data source.

Defense. WorldDEM offers detailed terrain information and hydrology data for surveillance, reconnaissance and mission plan-ning. The 3-D nature of the data provides an ideal visualization tool for military and intelligence planning and rehearsing of com-plex missions. The data facilitates the assessment and interpreta-tion of landscapes with exceptional detail. It supports assessment of military engineering projects and mobility-options planning, including mapping of natural or man-made obstacles that can stop, impede or divert military movement, such as a hilltop, swamp, ditch, bridge, building or a line of barriers along a roadway, but also support cover or concealment. Secured land communications between the different ground forces present in the mission theater are also crucial when operations are ongoing, and good estimation of the line of sight is essential to getting the best possible coverage for radio transmission.

Aviation. WorldDEM can also bring a valuable contribution for civil and military aviation (manned and unmanned aircraft). The highly precise and globally available DEMs combined with air-field information provide more accurate terrain information, thus improving collision avoidance, ground proximity warning and flight management systems. WorldDEM also supports low-altitude flight path and landing area planning for helicopters and aircrafts even in remote and difficult-to-access areas, thanks to precise slope analysis and flat areas localization.

Natural Disasters. The global availability of a dataset with full homogeneity and seamlessness enhances international cooper-ation and cross-border mission planning. Particularly when the rapid provision of accurate information is of utmost importance, for instance in emergency situations, the availability of a standardized, highly accurate DEM will be a major advantage. WorldDEM can support the improvement of emergency preparedness measures by

By Gertrud rIeGler

a sInGle-sourCe, hIGh-PreCIsIon dIGItal elevatIon model BeneFIts deFense, avIatIon and dIsaster resPonse.

supporting reliable flood modeling and sea-level-rise mapping, for example, to calculate risks and evaluate exposed areas.

In a crisis situation, rescue teams on the ground can rely on accurate elevation information for the rapid implementation of response measures, including damage assessment and planning of access and evacuation routes. Being able to assess prior to the intervention on the ground which roads are flooded or can be trav-eled by rescue team vehicles, or determine which areas remain dry for secure helicopter landings, are at stake.

Customer requIrements

The WorldDEM has been built on the global TanDEM-X DEM as acquired by the TanDEM-X mission, which has been performed jointly with the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Airbus Defense and Space holds the exclusive commercial marketing rights for the data and is responsible for the adaptation of the elevation model to the needs of commercial users worldwide. The DEM is refined according to customer requirements, such as editing of water sur-faces or processing to a digital terrain model (DTM) representing bare Earth terrain.

Three WorldDEM products are available. WorldDEMcore is an unedited digital surface model (DSM) that may contain radar artifacts and voids. WorldDEM is the edited DSM with assured hydrological consistency such as the flattening of water bodies, consistent flow of rivers and editing of shoreline. WorldDEM DTM is

a terrain model representing bare Earth terrain, with vegetation and man-made objects removed.

Since the commercial launch of WorldDEM, customers have been able to tap into a global database of digital elevation data that are seamless, so they can expect to use the same type of data from one project to the next. Consistency and homogeneity are guaran-teed, and the level of detail and quality of the data impress custom-ers and users equally.

The availability of WorldDEM data is continuously expanding, with more than 100 million square kilometers already produced in one year. Just as the data acquisition by TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X was done successively, the production is also done progressively. Thus, step by step, more WorldDEM data are becoming available.

In addition to full availability of the African and Australian con-tinents as well as the Middle East, large areas of North and South America, Northern Europe and Asia are available. An overview of available WorldDEM data is provided in the WorldDEM database: www.geo-airbusds.com/worlddem-db. O

Gertrud Riegler is WorldDEM product manager for Airbus Defense and Space.

CYBERWARFARE HAS A NEW FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE.

LEARN FROM THE LEADER.

We want you to make an informed decision about the university that’s right for you. For more about the graduation rate and median debt of students who completed each program, as well as other important information—visit www.APUS.edu/disclosure.

PUBLICSAFETYATAMU.COM/GIF

B.S., CYBERSECURITYM.S., CYBERSECURITY STUDIES




Airbus Defense and Space has a constellation of optical and radar satellites that can cover any point on Earth at least twice a day. Whether it’s charting the safest route through the deep canyons, or navigating expertly in the dark, it is vital to have the most relevant and current information at hand. Having timely satellite imagery and geo-intelligence will bring fresh intel to your plan when it matters most.

www.geo-airbusds.com/fresh-perspective

Intelligence

is a matter of perspective

Intelligence

is a matter of perspective




As the power of sensor technology grows, companies in imagery and related geospatial fields are having to beef up their information infrastructures to manage torrents of imagery data that dwarf the data streams that seemed so formidable only a few years ago.

With one company reporting a tenfold increase in the amount of data collected by its latest high-resolution UAV-based image collection platform, both providers and users of geospatial visualization seem likely to have to upgrade their computing infrastructures to take advantage of this vital form of GEOINT.

The company, MetaVR, recently completed transition of its software to native Windows 64-bit computing in response to the new flood of information, according to Scott Davidson, manager of Terrain Tools, an extension for Esri’s industry-leading ArcGIS software that enables users to turn their geospatial data into real-time 3-D terrain from within their GIS software. MetaVR’s 3-D terrain and image generator are used in simulation training.

The increasingly popular 64-bit architecture supports vastly larger amounts of virtual and physical memory than is possible on 32-bit processors, thus enabling programs to store larger amounts of data in memory.

MetaVR’s transition, which applies to all its terrain generation and visualization software, was spurred at least in part by its release in late 2013 of a new system for collecting and processing 1 inch per-pixel resolution aerial imagery for geospecific real-time 3-D terrain. Using MetaVRC, a remote-controlled aircraft for collecting imagery data, the company’s data collection and processing workflow uses Terrain Tools for ArcGIS to compile high-resolution imagery of an area with accurate satellite elevation data or other digital elevation models, resulting in a realistic, geospecific synthetic environment rendered in MetaVR’s Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG).

“It’s something that has been driven largely by the high resolu-tion imagery from the MetaVRC, which can collect a large area of very high resolution imagery—much higher than we have been able to get commercially before,” Davidson explained. “In the past, we used commercial imagery or public data, and the highest resolution we could realistically get was only about 30 cm, which never really pushed the boundaries of Terrain Tools or VRSG. But the first data-base that we built with the super high resolution imagery from the MetaVRC was from data it captured in southwest Arizona—roughly 5 square kilometers of imagery at about 3 cm resolution. Just the raster data alone was 28 gigabytes of processed data that we needed to compile in our Metadesic (round-earth terrain) format.

“That was our initial proof-of-concept database, and we couldn’t build it at full resolution with the existing version of Terrain Tools. That required that we port all of our Terrain Tools code to the 64-bit platform. There was a fair amount of work to get to that point, and we decided to do all of our applications at the same time.”

Rendering coverage for 5-square-kilometer terrain at 1-inch per-pixel resolution was at the edge of what the existing 32-bit version of VRSG could handle at the time, although that database didn’t cause problems, Davidson said. “But we recently captured 65 square kilometers of even higher resolution imagery, 2 cm per pixel, using a MetaVRC unit that was able to fly closer to the ground for longer flights over larger areas. So instead of 28 gigabytes, we’re now deal-ing with 300 gigabytes of even higher resolution data.”

The amount of data also posed problems in image generation in several ways. System memory limits were exceeded by terrain geom-etry alone, while visible textures in a simulation scenario could not be efficiently managed. “We really had to get our image generator 64-bit compatible as well,” he noted.

At 2 cm per-pixel resolution, details such as helicopter landing areas, bullet-ridden vehicle targets, scrub grass, and small craters left from exploded ordnance are visible on the terrain when it is ren-dered in VRSG.

Scenario Editor, which enables users to create and edit real-time 3-D scenarios to play back in VRSG, also benefitted. “Having a 64-bit compatible scenario creation tool allows us to work on multi-ple databases at the same time. Before, there were very strict limits. Now we can throw as much content at it as we want,” Davidson said.

“Before we did this, we had a hard limit on what we could do with rendering terrain databases built with extremely high reso-lution data, but this gives us comfortable breathing room for the future,” he added. “Getting higher-resolution data into our data-bases is something that our customers were asking for. So I think it’s going to affect all of industry.” O

Geospatial Data Challenge

MetaVR VRSG real-time rendering of 2 cm per-pixel 3D terrain built with imagery collected at the Fallon Range Training Complex by the MetaVRC data collection RC plane. A dynamic model of the MetaVRC is shown in flight over the terrain. [Image courtesy of MetaVR]

the tIde oF data From ever-more PowerFul sensors Is drIvInG adoPtIon oF enhanCed ComPutInG arChIteCtures.By harrIson donnelly, GIF edItor

www.metavr.com

Real-time screen captures are from MetaVR’s visualization system. The 3D virtual terrain is of geospecifi c target areas at Fallon Range Training Complex, Nevada, with 2 cm per-pixel imagery collected by the MetaVRC™ platform. This screen capture is unedited except as required for printing. The real-time rendering of the 3D virtual world is generated by MetaVR Virtual Reality Scene Generator™ (VRSG™). 3D model is from MetaVR’s 3D content libraries. © 2015 MetaVR, Inc. All rights reserved. MetaVR, Virtual Reality Scene Generator, VRSG, MetaVRC, the phrase “Geospecifi c simulation with game quality graphics,” and the MetaVR logo are trademarks of MetaVR, Inc.

Aerial imagery collectionGround-level photographyTerrain compilation3D content modelingScenario creationReal-time visualization at 60 Hz

MetaVR’s remote-controlled portable aircraft can collect 2 cm per-pixel imagery that you can use in your sensor simulation for intelligence training.

MetaVR visuals are used for simulating HD H.264 sensor video with accurate KLV metadata in U.S. Army UAV training simulators.

With 3D terrain built from 2 cm per-pixel resolution imagery captured by our MetaVRC remote-controlled portable aircraft, the sensor view with real-time thermal material classifi cation simulates, with a high degree of accuracy, the actual sensor payload imagery of ISR assets.


AGI has previewed a new capability that streams high-resolution building models into any Cesium-based client. To provide content for this new service, it worked with CyberCity 3-D, a geospatial modeling company specializing in “smart” 3-D GIS buildings. CyberCity’s buildings enable optimal visual performance, and an open database architecture allowing for the publishing of building attributes and links. To showcase Cesium’s new streaming building capability, CyberCity 3-D is providing a small subset of its 3-D buildings as free content in Cesium, which combines them with local zoning and street vector data. This includes 130 sq. km. high-resolution building geometry with rooftops; a limited number of textured buildings created from CyberCity 3D auto-texturing software are also included. Cesium is a JavaScript library for creating 3-D globes and 2-D maps in a Web browser without a plugin. It uses WebGL for hardware-accelerated graphics, and is cross-platform,

cross-browser, and tuned for dynamic-data visualization. Cesium is open source under the Apache 2.0 license, and is free for commercial and non-commercial use.

Stephanie Eftimiades; [email protected] DeVito; [email protected]

INDUSTRY RASTER

Geospatial Video Recorder Captures High-Res Imagery

The geoDVR Gen2 is Remote GeoSystems’ second-generation geospatial digital video recorder. The geoDVR Gen2 is an advanced plug-and-play DVR for recording multiple channels of geo-referenced high-definition and standard-definition full-motion video in aerial and mobile mapping environments. Unlike most DVRs, the geoDVR includes both open-format and patent-pending methods that log GPS and permanently embed the video with this important location, time and other data. This means the videos can be edited and still keep the GPS data intact for later mapping projects. Operators simply connect nearly any fixed-mount or gyro-stabilized gimbal video camera to the geoDVR, and in under two minutes are ready to start recording high-def and/or standard-def geo-referenced video, audio, photos and points of interest.

Jeff Dahlke; [email protected]

CartoDB and DigitalGlobe have partnered to bring satellite data to mapmakers everywhere in order to help them visually explain the events and information shaping our world. The new offering will provide users of all levels with access to the latest satellite content from DigitalGlobe, enabling journalists, publishers, bloggers and web developers to easily incorporate high-resolution imagery into their online content in a matter

of minutes. Entry-level pricing for the new cloud-based offering is affordable, and the platform enables access to high-resolution imagery captured as recently as 24 hours before and archive imagery dating back to 2011.

Eva Cabanach; [email protected] Aspegren; [email protected]

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has contracted with Woolpert for the first 3-D Elevation Program (3DEP) project awarded in conjunc-tion with a 2014 broad agency announcement (BAA). The USGS has received BAA funding proposals from multiple states in support of this 3DEP initia-tive, and is in the process of awarding the BAA proj-ects throughout the country, with this 3DEP project in Mississippi being the first. The data will be collected using LiDAR. According to the USGS, the data will be used to support high-value applications, such as flood risk manage-ment, agriculture and precision farming, infrastructure and construction management, natural resource manage-ment and conservation, and geologic resource assessment and hazard mitigation.

Jill Kelley; [email protected]

3-D Elevation Program Uses LiDAR Technology

New Capability Streams High-Resolution Building Models

High Resolution Satellite Imagery Available on Demand


OpenGeo Suite 4.6 is the latest version of Boundless’ open source geospatial software stack, powering Web, mobile and desktop maps and applications across organizations large and small. New capabilities and enhancements in Version 4.6 include: enhanced OpenGeo Suite Composer, which allows anyone to build and style maps by making it easier to add data to GeoServer, style layers and publish to the Web; improved reliability, handling and security when executing geospatial analysis; multiple updates to rendering and tile design capabilities; and numerous updates and bug fixes to all compo-nents to improve stability and reliability across the entire software stack.

Sean Brady; [email protected]

DigitalGlobe and Exelis have agreed to provide a new commercial offering of cloud-based ENVI earth science analytics for the DigitalGlobe Geospatial Big Data (GBD) platform. ENVI is remote sensing analytical software used by government, academic and private industry organizations to extract meaningful information from imagery and sensor data.

The agreement will enable all imagery users and customers of Exelis and DigitalGlobe to easily combine powerful ENVI geospatial analytics with the vast DigitalGlobe image library to solve chal-lenging environmental, natural resource and global security problems. DigitalGlobe’s cloud-based GBD offering is a platform as a service model designed to create a new ecosystem in which partners and developers can leverage their exper-tise and an application programming interface to create new customer solutions at a global scale.

Nathan Pinder; [email protected] Aspegren; [email protected]

Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. has integrated four of the five complex instruments that will fly onboard the nation’s next polar-orbiting weather satellite and is moving toward environmental testing by early 2016 with on-time delivery scheduled for late 2016, followed by launch scheduled for no later than the second quarter of 2017. Polar weather satellites contribute 85 percent of the data that go into numerical weather prediction models. NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System will be responsible for delivering the primary contribution from the afternoon orbit. Launch of the instrument-loaded orbiter will continue accurate/reliable weather forecasting and provide severe storm warnings that protect lives and property across our nation.

Roz Brown; [email protected]

Engility Holdings and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency have announced an innovative govern-ment program to solicit, screen and acquire geospatial applications from commercial developers. With the Innovative GEOINT App Provider Program (IGAPP), NGA has developed a platform that captures the creativity of commercial application developers and bridges the gap between govern-ment contracting procedures and non-traditional businesses. NGA awarded a four-year, $25 million contract to TASC, an Engility company, to manage and operate IGAPP, which facilitates the delivery of the application creations

to the NGA GEOINT App Store (apps.nga.mil). The App Store is NGA’s online storefront that provides down-loadable applications for mobile, Web and desktop devices. IGAPP serves as a trusted broker between commercial vendors and government agencies who are interested in acquiring applica-tions. In this capacity, IGAPP screens, registers and approves vendors and provides the infrastructure and support to test and offer innovative mapping apps using data from NGA and other organizations that will then be avail-able through the GEOINT App Store.

Diane Clark;[email protected]

Innovative Program Supports NGA App Store

Open Source Geospatial Software

Adds New Capabilities Polar Satellite to Provide Severe Storm Warnings

Analytic Software Added to Geospatial Data

Platform

Compiled by Kmi media Group staff


Cathy Johnston was appointed director for analysis, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in October 2012. She leads DIA’s all-source analytic effort, and also serves as the functional manager for all source analysis across the Defense Intelligence Enterprise, including DIA, the services and the combatant commands.

Previously, Johnston served as national intelligence manager-East Asia in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), where she oversaw and led the intelligence community’s efforts on East Asia. Prior to assuming her position at ODNI, she served as the Asia mission manager in CIA’s Directorate for Science and Technology.

She began her analytic career at DIA as a China/East Asia analyst, and was a DIA analyst for 15 years. She oversaw a wide range of issues, including force modernization, strategic issues, WMD and multi-national proliferation activities, and later served as the senior defense expert for China/East Asia and was the Asia substantive expert for the agency. She was the focal point for regional analytic support during operations in Afghanistan in 2001, and served on crisis support teams during Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Johnston earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in East Asian Studies and her master’s degree from the University of Michigan in Chinese Studies. She was born in Taiwan and lived in the region for 13 years. She speaks Mandarin Chinese and French, and is certified as a chemical weapons con-vention inspector.

Johnston was interviewed by GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly.

Q: DIA has taken a prominent role in promoting innovation and new ways of interacting with industry partners. How do you see this aiding DIA’s analysis capabilities?

A: DIA’s partnership with industry is critical to aligning the agency’s analytic capabilities to the new information environ-ment. At one point in time, government had a near-monopoly on innovation, but the age of open information has empowered industry, smaller organizations, universities and in some cases individuals to discover and implement technologies that com-pletely change how to conduct daily business. As an agency, we embrace collaboration and partnerships because the old say-ing is true: “Two heads are better than one.” We stand on the shoulders of giants—both internal and external across gov-ernment, academia and industry—who have made investments and demonstrated success. These partnerships allow us to know what “good” looks like sooner; we do not have to start from scratch.

One example of interaction with industry is our Needipedia website. Needipedia, located at our www.dia.mil homepage, is a website that communicates our agency’s needs, whether func-tional, analytic or technological, to a larger community of inno-vators in the form of specific “lists.” Solution providers use these lists of needs to respond to specific agency requirements and pri-orities. With a dedicated forum to communicate our internal needs and solicit external solutions, we increase the likelihood of perfectly matching service providers to agency needs; we have created a conduit for innovation. This is just one example of DIA’s interaction with industry; we view private-sector partnerships as strategic enablers to our ability to improve analytic efficiency and effectiveness going forward.

Q: How would you describe the big-data challenge facing DIA analysis, and what steps are you taking to manage it?

A: The “problem” of big data, or the vast amount of raw informa-tion generated across society, is a problem facing every industry and every government in every part of the world. However, this problem is also an opportunity or call to action for DIA analy-sis. Hidden in this immense volume of data are new informa-tion, facts, relationships, indicators and points that either could not be practically discovered in the past or simply did not exist before. We have an opportunity to discover those key pieces of

Cathy Johnston Director for Analysis

Defense Intelligence Agency

Analytic InnovatorFacilitating Effectiveness and Enabling Intelligence Integration

Q&AQ&A


information, possibly prevent strategic surprise or transform all operational aspects of the organization. In order to make these discoveries, we are working to equip our analytic enter-prise with the tools, skills and personnel we need to harvest these transformative insights.

We have a multifaceted approach to position our agency to harness the power of big data and profoundly enhance our effectiveness to accomplish the mission. Industry is far more advanced in innovating on big-data methodologies, so we are partnering with industry to leverage their expertise. We are also implementing agency training programs and building a cadre of data scientists through active recruitment of academically trained or industry-tested data scientists via internships, entry-level jobs and other employment opportunities. The Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise (IC ITE) initia-tive is a huge player in the tools or IT solution. The enterprise will have an underpinning infrastructure that can store and pro-cess massive amounts of structured and unstructured data across functional and organizational lines.

Q: What is the Nerd Brigade, and how is it addressing your information challenges?

A: The Nerd Brigade started as a joint analytic modernization effort sponsored by DIA’s Directorate for Analysis and Innovation Office. I would like to point out that we view “nerd” as a term of endearment; we are proud of our nerds and I fly the Nerd Brigade flag in my office for all to see. The objective of the Nerd Brigade is to practice true agile software development by having soft-ware engineers co-located with analysts and domain experts as they jointly create new technology to enhance analytic efficiency and apply data science methods. The key concept is “agile soft-ware development.” This conceptual development framework is counter to traditional software development processes in that the goal is to introduce new low-cost, high-impact software develop-ment into the intelligence community by physically co-locating innovators with domain experts to shorten the feedback-cycle in software development.

Traditionally, technologists and analysts are separated. Agile development shortens the feedback cycle and creates a close-knit working relationship, ensuring that the finished product is immediately responsive to the analyst’s needs. This development life cycle can deliver mission-enhancing tools without expend-ing considerable resources. As an example of impact, the Nerd Brigade’s first effort has reduced the research phase of one ana-lytic mission by 63 percent in terms of time. That is immediate impact in the information challenge realm. Our Nerd Brigade uses industry best practices to “buy back” time, giving our ana-lysts more time to focus on higher orders of analysis. Our biggest impediment remains operationalizing. We have been very suc-cessful at innovating, but have a real challenge taking our pilot to operational capability.

Q: Video has been called the “biggest big data.” How can technology help manage the huge volumes of information from UAVs and other platforms?

A: DIA is a national leader in exploitation of video through our National Media Exploitation Center. Even in the Directorate for

Analysis, many parts of our all-source analytic work flow exploit and enrich video formats, including full-motion video. While automated sense-making of the content of video continues to be a challenge, metadata on video allows us to use some big data meth-odologies on video. Again, this is an area where we are tapping into industry innovations.

Q: What can DIA do to better follow and make effective use of social media?

A: Social media is one of the many non-traditional sources DIA is exploring and developing new and promising methodologies to exploit. We are interested in the experiences of industry and how industry is getting value from social media. But remem-ber, the mission of DIA is to provide understanding of foreign military forces and their operating environments to provide decision advantage to prevent and win future conflicts. We are interested in social media when analysis of social media can fur-ther that mission, always keeping in mind the rights to privacy of ordinary citizens.

Q: You also co-chair the IC-ITE Mission Users Group. How would you assess progress on this initiative from the perspective of users?

A: The IC ITE Mission Users Group (MUG) remains focused on developing and demonstrating real value of IC ITE for our mis-sion and encouraging adoption. The MUG is designed to be the voice of mission and create a demand signal for the IC ITE infra-structure, ensuring it can facilitate mission effectiveness and cre-ate enabling conditions for intelligence integration. The MUG has established several initiatives to allow for mission user participa-tion, providing them with input in the process. For instance, the MUG has established mission threads focused on real-world inte-gration challenges to identify data, tools and future mission work-flows to enable adoption that include mission-user participation.

Q: How are you working with other agencies to better integrate geospatial intelligence into DIA analysis?

A: DIA’s partnership with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is enduring. Because DIA’s mission is to provide foun-dational intelligence on foreign militaries and operations envi-ronment intelligence for our forces, DIA and NGA leverage each other’s data, tools and methodologies frequently. NGA’s invest-ment in human geography and DIA’s focus on socio-cultural anal-ysis is an example. In the IC-ITE transition period, the entire IC relies on NGA to provision geospatial services to us all. NGA has refined its effort to address the full-spectrum of images, content, policy and tradecraft associated with delivering GEOINT.

The MUG established a cross-agency working group on geospa-tial issues; we call these groups joint leadership networks (JVLNs). Various JVLNs operate on a task-oriented and time-limited con-struct to identify key IT capabilities that are common across agen-cies and missions to develop focused plans to migrate toward common, integrated solutions. The Geospatial JVLN determined the need to move to common services and supported ODNI’s memorandum that established NGA as the service provider of common concern for geospatial intelligence. Implementation of


a multi-phased strategy that ensures all GEOINT needs are met from a community perspective is continuing.

Q: What are some of the chief obstacles you see in introducing new technology into DIA analysis?

A: Introducing new technology is always a challenge in analysis. To provide warfighters and policymakers with timely and accurate assessments, we have established rigorous tradecraft and proce-dures. So for analysts, new technology isn’t just about learning new ways of doing tasks; it’s about ensuring that the new technol-ogies still meet the old standard, too. But we have to start mak-ing hard decisions on legacy data and legacy systems. If another agency has a “best of breed” tool that provides similar function-ality, we need to start making trades and allowing other agen-cies to provide certain tools/applications of common concern. We will need to start turning off legacy data stores and legacy systems because we simply cannot afford to transition them all to the cloud. We are working as a community to determine the most effective and affordable approaches. Some of the obstacles to adopting new technology are completing the accreditation pro-cess and ensuring we don’t break critical legacy warfighting con-nections. For instance, the Modernized Intelligence Database is a pretty outdated database model. It is tied to other databases, weapons systems and processes, however, and we need to ensure we do not break those linkages as we move forward.

Q: How would you describe your mission as DIA’s director for analysis?

A: Being the director for analysis is a dynamic and rewarding posi-tion that has several key roles and missions. First and foremost, my job is to train and develop the expertise of the DIA analytic workforce and deliver relevant and timely all-source defense intel-ligence to decision-makers and warfighters. I’m proud of the work we do at DIA. We have a very important mission and some of the brightest talent in the organization.

As the functional manager of the defense intelligence all-source program, my job is to align analytic efforts and resources to manage defense intelligence analytic requirements, assess the ability of defense all-source analytic activities to meet requirements and advise the under secretary of defense for intel-ligence and director of national intelligence on analytic risk and resource allocation.

But one of my most critical missions is as the co-chair of the IC ITE MUG. Because DIA has the unique mission of serving both the policymaker and the warfighter, it is leading the change and IC ITE adoption for mission within DoD. The MUG com-prises senior “mission voices” in the intelligence community who are actively engaged to ensure IC ITE delivers for mission. The MUG holds weekly meetings to address how to exploit new capa-bilities and to steer future developments that empower the mis-sion community. We prioritize what data and applications should transition to the new enterprise, and develop and oversee IC ITE adoption plans and timelines.

Q: DIA also has a program called IntelTrak which monitors what your intelligence customers want from your agency. What are you learning from their responses?

A: IntelTrak delivers even more of what the defense intelli-gence enterprise needs to make wiser production decisions: real-time business analytics that show the reach and effec-tiveness of our intelligence production. In January 2013, we launched IntelTrak, a business analytics tool that did two important things: helped analysts tailor their products based on consumer use and made collaboration easier by connect-ing analysts to their counterparts throughout the defense intelligence community.

From a strategic perspective, IntelTrak has given organiza-tional leaders insight we need to adjust production so that we better anticipate our consumers’ needs and improve defense intelli-gence enterprise collaboration.

So far, we’ve learned what the IC consumers are interested in and how long they are remain interested in these hot topics. We were also able to identify and address gaps in our product deliv-ery. If a product’s intended audience isn’t well-represented in our usage, we can proactively market that product. Finally, we’ve been able to better serve our executive consumers by proactively responding to trends in their usage.

Q: What is involved in carrying out your additional role as functional manager for all-source analysis for the defense intelligence enterprise?

A: My all-source analytic management, advocacy and pol-icy implementation roles apply not only to DIA Directorate for Analysis, but also include 16 other all-defense, all-source analysis and production centers operating throughout the world, includ-ing the combatant commands and service intelligence centers.

I use the Defense Intelligence Analysis Program (DIAP) to execute this mission. Through the DIAP, I collect quarterly data on analytic level of effort, facilitate collective enterprise resource management decisions at DIAP Board of Governors meetings and publish DIAP Quarterly Health Reports that highlight current areas of analytic focus and risk.

Q: How has your extensive career in the intelligence community shaped your current approach to your job?

A: I believe first and foremost I am an IC officer. I’ve been for-tunate enough to gain perspectives from working at DIA, CIA and ODNI and recognize that collaboration is the true cur-rency of the realm. One agency’s priorities are inextricably linked to another’s, all in the service of the same national goals, and my approach is to leverage those shared goals to find effi-ciencies and build consensus. There will be times when DIA needs to stop doing tasks and start leveraging other mem-bers of the IC. This approach has meant that some “scared cows” are threatened because other members of the IC are bet-ter able to deliver those tools, methodologies, analysis and capabilities. I also believe that the best analysts are ones who have had out-of-body experiences and walked in the shoes of our collection brethren. My time spent in the Directorate for Science and Technology working on technical collection made me a much better analyst, and I strongly encourage that type of cross-fertilization. My guild is still analysis, but I am much more active in stressing collection systems to close the truly important gaps. O


With strong roots in diverse fields such as physical security, retail marketing and transportation, video analytics technology holds out promise for military and intelligence ISR programs struggling to cope with enormous amounts of video data.

A broad term for a variety of imagery techniques, includ-ing motion detection and facial recognition, video analytics seeks to solve the problem of a virtually unlimited amount of visual information and a limited number of human eyes by auto-matically indexing, characterizing and drawing conclusions from images, and then alerting an operator about its possible significance.

The driving force behind video analytics is simply the volume of video data from surveillance cameras, UAVs and other platforms, which is far more than can feasibly be observed, and so tax-ing to carefully scrutinize for hours that errors or oversights can easily occur. For hard-pressed operators, video analytics hold out the promise of automatic screening for potentially significant events, thus enabling them to focus on the most important times and locations.

“We don’t want to cut out the human, but we can make his or her job a lot easier by, for example, making sure that they are focused on reviewing things that are truly significant,” said Joe Santucci, president and CEO of piXlogic, an image and video search company. “The software can add an extra set of eyes. It indiscriminately examines everything in the video, even if not strictly relevant to the mission at hand, since it could be important in some mission or to another analyst and would otherwise have been missed.

“A lot of information is captured in these videos, and today there are not enough people to go through it all, so they are largely unexploited. The government has devoted a lot of resources to making sure they can store and transmit videos, but they haven’t really started to get into the analysis of the vid-eos. But we can do that,” Santucci added.

The factor that distinguishes video analytics from other video capabilities, advocates say, is the ability to glean informa-

tion out of the video, rather than just recording and storing the video and counting on the user to find the information.

“The objective of video analytics is to drive actionable intelligence out of the video itself, and automate that to the extent possible,” said Larry Bowe, president and CEO of PureTech Systems, a provider of geospatial video man-agement software. “The idea is to automate the detection and tracking, and then present that in a way to users that they can make decisions in real time, and also aid in investigation after the fact.”

“There is too much now that we are giving to the analyst. It’s got to be metadata, video ingest and much more complex analytics that can look at all this stuff in milliseconds and make a decision and say that this is what you need to look at. The underlying analytic system needs to present to the operator what they need to see. The operator shouldn’t be figuring out what they need to see; it should be right in front of them,” said Frank McCarthy, director, solutions development video surveillance for EMC.

teChnoloGy From the retaIl and seCurIty IndustrIes helPs solve the ProBlem oF too muCh vIdeo and eyes. By harrIson donnelly, GIF edItor

Larry Bowe

Frank McCarthy


The recent surge in interest in video analytics represents the revival of a field that drew attention about a decade ago, but subsided when its technologi-cal challenges became apparent. Since then, however, software algorithms have become far more sophis-ticated, and cameras and computer hardware more powerful, enabling much more robust capabilities.

“There was a recognition of a need, especially after 9/11, because it’s so impractical for people to watch cameras constantly,” Bowe said. “But there was a lot of overhype in the market in terms of the capabilities. The market was attempting to meet demand, but the technology wasn’t quite there. Some companies threw a lot of money at it, but they weren’t able to deliver on their promises.

”Some of that was due to the software algorithms that were needed, but also because of the lack of commercial hardware that was affordable and able to run sophisticated algorithms. If you need a huge computer to run the algorithms, it’s not very practical. But as computers have advanced, we’re seeing more power at a lower price, which enables running more powerful algorithms,” he added.

As a result, backers of video analytics see a major opportunity to convert technology developed to track shoppers through a store, for example, to support military and intelligence missions. But they also warn, as is true with a lot of such consumer-focused technology, that the benefits of these programs need to be balanced with uneasiness over privacy and civil liberties.

“There is a crossroads of non-military technol-ogy and military needs. The kinds of things that are being done for retail, automotive and other pur-poses can provide a huge number of use cases in the military space,” said Mike Flannagan, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Data and Analytics Business Group. “There is so much potential to do good things using these advanced analytics and machine learning techniques. But those technol-ogies also come with the responsibility to respect people’s privacy and concern over intrusiveness. So it’s important for those using these technologies,

whether in retail or defense, to find a balance between using the technology for good things without being unnecessarily intrusive.”

GeosPatIal awareness

PureTech recently released the latest version of its PureActiv geospatial video management and video analytics software, which provides new detection capability through the addition of advanced video analytics, map-based user features, advances in metadata collection and playback and a wide range of security sensor integrations.

The company’s focus on geospatial information sets it apart from others in the field, Bowe said, as does its ability to analyze long-range video over water or land. “We focus on a high probability

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of detection with a low false alarm rate, which is key to success. The geospatial understanding aids in that tremendously, and gives us a significant advantage,” he noted.

“We tie the pixels in the image space to the terrain so we know where the pixels are hitting the surface of the earth. That way, we can give a range to the target detected and give an indication to the end-user of where that target is so that they can plan an inter-cept. The base of what we’re doing is analyzing the content of the video and deciding what rules have been violated that are of con-cern,” Bowe explained.

PureTech concentrates on three classes of applications: ship-ping ports, international borders and perimeter protection, including military bases. While the issues involved in perimeter protection are similar to those in retail surveillance, for example, the challenges are greater when studying long-distance video of ports and borders.

“For one thing, the accuracy of pointing is different at 100 meters than at five miles. Also, you have to have cameras able to reach out far. The capabilities and cost of a standard surveillance camera don’t compare with those of a camera doing border patrol,” Bowe said. “You also have challenges in the imaging processing, including being able to stabilize the image at long range and deal with the atmospheric interference. Your analytics have to be capa-ble of consuming that information and making meaning out of it.

“With more computing horsepower comes more capability, so accuracy and capability to identify target types will continue to grow,” he continued. “Now, you can identify a person, for example. But down the road, we will be able to distinguish between two dif-ferent people and be able to track one in particular.”

Another company that emphasizes the role of geospatial data is Agent Vi, an Israel-based video analytics provider. Its technology works on stationary surveillance cameras, which can detect the exact location of any point within their field of view.

“The core of what we do is to take the video stream and extract meaningful metadata in a fully automated way. It is a description of every frame in a video stream telling us the list of objects in that field of view, and different types of attributes for each object. The size, shape, speed, position and direc-tion of movement are extracted automatically in real time,” explained Zvika Ashani, the company’s chief technology officer.

“The second stage is to analyze the metadata, such as rules-based real-time analysis, which is intended to detect events,” he said. “For each camera, a user would configure for one or more rules, such as to provide an alert when a person approaches a fence, a vehicle parks in a no-loading zone or a crowd starts to form. We have rules that the user can configure. We then analyze the data in real time, and if we discover that any object has violated a rule, we can send out an event to the user.”

The system also provides forensic search capabilities, Ashani said. “We can take the metadata, store it in a database, and enable an investigator to perform queries—rather than the normal method of reviewing days of video from multiple cameras. The user can specify all video clips with a large white van, for exam-ple. Within seconds, we can scan the metadata and find any objects that meet that criterion. When used for investigation, it’s a great time-saving tool.”

automatIC metadata

PiXlogic’s software is able to automatically process a still or video image without knowing anything about what the image con-tains, said Santucci, whose company has received funding from In-Q-Tel and works with the intelligence community.

“Our system can segment the contents of the images in a way that makes logical sense. If you imagine an image of someone sit-ting at a desk, the software will identify all the areas where we have enough contrast difference to be able to pull out the outlines of the things in the scene. It can segment out your shirt, hair, face, coffee cup or painting in the background,” he said.

The software creates descriptions on the fly, characterizing the location of the item and other properties. “We are generating a lot of metadata automatically, and as it does that, the software is also rea-soning about what it sees in the image,” he said. “If it understands that it is seeing something that belongs to a set of items, it will auto-matically tag the item. If the sky is in a photo, it will identify the sky and tag it with a keyword.

“We call these things ‘notions’ because they are broad catego-ries,” Santucci continued. “A car, for example, can be in many dif-ferent shapes and colors. But we can understand the idea of what a car is, and recognize and tag it. It can also recognize specific items of interest to the user, such as a particular make, model and year.”

The result is a very rich set of metadata, he said. The software can also recognize faces in general as well as specific individuals, and even text in different languages. The metadata can then be exploited—for example, by searching through a large amount of video.

“Another value point is that people are storing lots of material, some of which is not so interesting. You could use the software to decide which parts of the total video are really important and inter-

esting, saving them and getting rid of the other stuff, thus reducing storage costs,” Santucci said.

maChIne learnInG

For Flannagan of Cisco, which offers a product suite called Video Surveillance Manager, some of the greatest value of video analytics comes when it is used in combination with machine learning technology.

“There are different ways that people can use video and analytics on the video frames,” he noted. “Depending on what you are trying to accomplish,

there may be a variety of different things that you would do. There are some basic functions, such as the number of objects mov-ing through a frame and whether something is present or not present, such as a high-value item on a retail shelf, for example, or the presence of a person in a place where no one is supposed to be.

“Those are what I would consider basic video analytics, which is using movement through a frame of video. But there are also more advanced analytics that are being done with video that involve things like anomaly detection. That’s not just video analytics, but also combining it with machine learning,” Flannagan said.

To illustrate the potential benefits, Flannagan used the exam-ple of video surveillance cameras on a freeway, where video analyt-ics can answer questions such as average speed or breakdown time. But what it can’t do is tell you whether these factors are normal, or unusual enough to merit closer attention.

Zvika Ashani


“With machine learning, I can tell you when, and over time, how fast traffic should be moving at this time of day, and how fast is it actually moving. From that, I can tell you if we are seeing an abnor-mal traffic pattern,” he said.

“The ability to detect anomalies is where video analytics starts becoming really interesting in public safety,” Flannagan noted. “Is someone normally in this space at this time of day? How many peo-ple do we normally count standing in front of a bank in the middle of the night? How many people do we normally see with huge back-packs at the finish line of a race? Those things might enable you to detect something anomalous.”

analytICs InFrastruCture

As a leading data storage and virtualization company, EMC’s focus is on the infrastructure needed to support video analytics.

McCarthy noted, for example, that he company’s “edge to core” architecture can help systems manage information from large arrays of sensors. “What we’re seeing is that as those sensors become more complex and capable of doing more at the edge sites, including cameras, then it’s important for the edge sites to have some local storage as well as pre-processing capability, so that you can massage the data at its source, put it in a format that is less net-work-intensive, and get it back to a central location.

“You’re using the edge sites to prepackage the data so that it’s more efficient when you get to the core,” he said. “The sizing of the infrastructure, whether a hypervisor for virtualization or a regular server or computer, is really important because you have to main-tain the existing production workload, as well as handle all that pre-processing that is going on in real time or near-real time.

“When it gets back to the core, we have a highly scalable, flex-ible platform that offers hyper consolidation with our converged infrastructure offerings, as well as scale out storage capability. Embedded technologies that lend themselves to analytic process-ing help you move to the next thing. They meet today’s require-ments, but they also allow you to build and add on,” McCarthy said.

EMC is also working to get other providers in the surveillance space to become more descriptive in their data sets from a meta-data perspective.

“Some camera providers today can do what they call video con-tent descriptions, where as the camera is looking at a field of view, they can run analytics in it,” he said. “Some of the higher-end cam-eras can run the analytics in real time, and most of them work pretty well. Some are even getting into demographics. They can be pretty comprehensive, looking at size and color, and describe what’s going on in the field of view.

“But what we’re asking is that instead of putting that out as video snapshots, they create a metadata stream that is much easier to handle as a data set. Then we can take that and mas-sage the data so we can input it into an analytic engine. It will be important for companies like us in the future to have a plat-form that can run the applications that support the normaliza-tion of the data that is coming in, whether video or metadata,” McCarthy predicted.

“There are some standards out there today in the video sur-veillance industry, but they are pretty loose, and there is nothing about metadata creation and context,” he added. “That’s something we hope we will see in the future, and our company is pushing for those kinds of standards. That will help us simplify the whole

equation of video and metadata analytics in the video surveillance environment.”

advanCed alGorIthms

Another major player in this field is Raytheon, which has com-bined analytics from specialized tools usable only by select image scientists into a suite of analytics called Intersect, which is designed to be fully accessible to a much wider set of analysts.

Elements of the suite include Intersect Reveal, which auto-mates basic full-motion video (FMV) analytic functions and fuses the resulting data using a multi-INT context accumulation engine. Reveal automates the registration, tracking, classification and indexing of video, delivering increased content with fewer analyst work hours. In parallel, advanced analytic algorithms rapidly sift through massive amounts of data to provide important context about the source video.

In addition, Intersect Dimension automates the creation of high-resolution 3-D imagery from low-cost commercial 2-D imagery, and has recently been upgraded to support 3-D video as well as still images. High-resolution 3-D then forms a geo-precise foundation upon which additional content can be added.

The capabilities increase video analyst productivity by auto-mating common tasks. “While some analytics may not replace the human eye, they can certainly replace valuable hours the video ana-lyst spends on mundane tasks. Oftentimes, they must manually cor-relate video to other data sources by looking at the time and location of the video, then searching dozens of other databases to find infor-mation associated with that time and place,” a company spokesman explained.

A key technology underlying these capabilities is precision geo-location. Raytheon worked from early in development to enable pre-cise relative geolocation and registration of frame data. Once the data are well-registered, software extracts 3-D information from multiple images or video frames, producing 3-D data sets that can serve as a foundational layer for fusion of data from other collectors, as well as a value-added data layer enabling volumetric and line-of-sight analysis.

Unique algorithms in the system correlate video to other data sources. A feature called Intersect Relay, for example, produces loca-tion information icons directly on moving video, like a pushpin on a map.

The spokesman cited two examples of advantages provided by the system, including addressing geopositioning errors com-mon to FMV data. For that, Raytheon developed the Video Image Photogrammetric Registration algorithm, which corrects FMV geo-locations in order to make the data useful for targeting and multi-INT fusion.

“Second, we have increased the productivity of multi-INT ana-lysts through the use of Intersect Reveal,” the spokesman added. “Reveal uses a complex ensemble of analytics, including moving vehicle track extraction, signal-to-track correlation, relevance ana-lytics, which determine the most relevant information related to a video, and visual analytics, to improve analyst productivity—both time to decision and decision quality.” O




The ability of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to see through night or clouds, spot minute changes on the ground and even detect and track targets has made it an important sensor capability. But the tech-nology’s significant size, weight and power (SWaP) requirements have mostly restricted its use to large and expensive vehicles.

That is changing, however, as small and nano SARs with SWaP in very limited ranges are making this tool suitable for small UAVs. Coverage, use cases and economy of operation will all improve as sophisticated SAR is downsized to fit in more affordable and poten-tially plentiful aircraft. This has happened already in a limited way in U.S. military operations, and is getting under way in a wide variety of other fields as well.

A key development in this trend came with the transfer last year by Sandia National Laboratories of its Copperhead sys-tem for detecting IEDs to the Army. The Copperhead system includes Sandia’s MiniSAR device, plus software and tools to exploit its capabilities.

Sandia had been reluctant to release information on MiniSAR, but decided to go public after the Secretary of Energy gave an award to the invention, explained Bryan Burns, a Sandia senior engineer.

The latest MiniSAR weighs about 65 pounds, a bit more or less depending on the aircraft it is installed on. MiniSAR can work on both manned and unmanned aircraft. The smallest UAV it has ridden is the Tiger Shark with a 17-foot wingspan. “It can go on anything that can carry 65 pounds,” Burns said.

“The military is very satisfied and wants to continue using it,” he noted, while declining to provide specific information on effectiveness and deployments. “It’s been a success every place it had been used.”

Sandia engineers developed three increasingly sophisticated mod-els of MiniSAR, and since first use in 2009 has made major upgrades in microwave hardware and the processing software. “We want it to fly higher and faster,” Burns explained. “The Tiger Shark is slow, and we wanted to put it on something higher and faster than that.”

Hardware has been upgraded, and processing algorithms enhanced. Processing capacity has increased as computer technology has improved. At present, there are several variants of MiniSAR, and Burns predicted more in the future.

Sandia did not build the circuits for MiniSAR, but obtained cir-cuits and technologies developed by other companies and integrated these. “There were many vendors,” Burns recalled. “We used the lat-est processing widgets. The gaming industry spends much more than Sandia on processors, so we used them.”

ChanGe deteCtIon

Like all SAR tools, MiniSAR can see things that electro-optical (EO) imaging cannot see, and see them under conditions that EO will not work under. It uses Sandia-developed coherent change detection (CCD) techniques, which Burns described as the key to SAR’s power. “Optical has no phase information, so it cannot see changes. You have to look at phases to do CCD. That is want makes SAR unique.”

CCD has been used to spot Earth moved to install IEDs, and the MiniSAR CCD can notice where a lawnmower has mown grass and determine whether the blades of grass have rebounded to their original position.

No other system does change detection to spot IEDs as well as MiniSAR, Burns argued. “We have proven it to the military and many nay-sayers and validated change detection in a harsh environment. One’s mind can run wild on all the other things it can do.”

All MiniSAR processing is done on board the UAV or manned aircraft, then compressed and transmitted for display to a trained interpreter on the ground, and this interpreter spots the changes. Operators can be trained in five weeks to interpret MiniSAR images.

The images might look like simple frame pictures to untrained observers. It is MiniSAR’s microwave transmitter that emits a pulse so that the return echo can be processed to make the rich SAR image. “You must transmit to get the echo to have CCD,” Burns said. “And there is lots of processing.”

MiniSAR typically operates at 10,000 feet but can go higher and faster. “It’s not difficult, and is done routinely. But you don’t want to go too low in case people throw rocks at you,” Burns observed.

The toughest challenge in developing MiniSAR, Burns recalled, was simply getting other people to understand its potential value. He started thinking about the tool in 2004 and then spent a long

By henry Canaday, GIF CorresPondent

soPhIstICated radar unIts are BeInG downsIzed to FIt In more aFFordaBle and PlentIFul uavs.

The Copperhead MiniSAR detects disturbances in the earth, for example those made when IEDs are buried. It can find them day or night and in many weather conditions, including fog and dust storms. [Photo courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories]


time convincing others. “It was hard for them to believe that CCD could see grass move with careful interpretation. To convince peo-ple with money was the biggest uphill battle. They told me it was impossible. Persuading them was much harder than coming up with the algorithms.”

MiniSAR started out at just 30 pounds, and Burns has ideas about how to get it well below the current says that, if he had to reduce the current weight. “It just costs money to make it smaller, lighter and use less power, but I know exactly how to do it. We did the miniaturization in a very short time to meet requirements.”

Rival small SARs have not really measured up to the Sandia tech-nology’s performance,” he suggested. “They do not do as good a job on change detection. It’s way more than the radar. You must be very careful with the entire system, the aircraft, the engine, the autopilot and the program behind it that drives it all. You can’t just get a great radar; there are lots of other things. It’s system-level design.”

Some miniaturization efforts have fallen short by not considering small SAR from this full-system perspective, Burns continued. “They don’t repeat passes well, the autopilot is not very good, they fly too low and they are not good at getting a low-noise level. There are a hundred things you can do wrong and it will not work.”

warFIGhter assets

All these hurdles have not stopped others from trying. In 2006 IMSAR and Insitu completed a prototype of a one-pound SAR device

called NanoSAR. It was intended to operate on almost all UAVs, includ-ing Insitu’s light ScanEagle.

“The motivation to pursue NanoSAR is small UAVs,” stressed Adam Robinson, vice president of IMSAR. “With big manned aircraft there is no motivation for low power and light weight.”

The necessity for small UAVs lies in part because larger UAVs such as RQ-4 Global Hawk fly high and are controlled as theater assets, so warfighters on the ground must navigate complicated paths to obtain their data. Small UAVs like the Army’s RQ-7 Shadow and the Navy’s Scan Eagle are tactical, subject to direct control by low-echelon oper-ators. UAVs that weigh less than 500 pounds need equipment like NanoSAR, according to Robinson.

IMSAR’s assumption is that, just as all fighter aircraft have radar, light UAVs should have it, too. NanoSAR can provide small UAVs with images, CCD capabilities and a moving target indicator (MTI) that can detect movement and track multiple moving objects continuously.

Both SAR and MTI capabilities can be packaged all in one 6.5-pound unit or put in separate devices, depending on the mission. Both radar-based capabilities see through clouds and at night and cover a wide area. “Cameras have a narrow field, like a soda straw,” Robinson says. “If you zoom out, you lose detail.”

NanoSAR’s radar technology covers wide areas and its MTI can cue cameras to identify tracked moving objects more precisely, which is very helpful. “Radar is good at detecting widely, but it can’t tell whether a truck is black or white or what the license number is,” Robinson pointed out.

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NanoSAR’s best use is not replacing other sensors but in integrat-ing or fusing with them to give a more complete picture of events. That is one reason why NanoSAR has such low SWaP requirements: so it can be mounted on the same platform as EO and IR devices.

IMSAR worked first on military applications of NanoSAR, but now that initial development has been paid for, NanoSAR can be offered at lower price points, and IMSAR is getting into commercial uses. NanoSAR is fully operational and is flying on UAVs in the United States and abroad, for both military and non-military customers. It has been tested in Japan looking for landslides in steep terrain.

NanoSAR’s CCD capabilities can detect very small changes. “Using CCD, we can detect millimeters of change,” Robinson said.

These detected changes could be very subtle. For example, EO and IR cannot tell whether a road has been traversed unless they spot a moving vehicle. With CCD, NanoSAR can come along later and spot the rearrangement of gravel that indicates a vehicle has driven down the road.

NanoSAR works at any altitude, Robinson said, and SAR tech-niques have been used on space-based satellites. Some detail is lost with higher altitudes, since radar is like a flashlight that disperses its beams with distance.

For imaging purposes, NanoSAR cannot go too slow. “You like to move at a fair clip,” Robinson notes. But MTI functions can be used in either moving or stationary vehicles.

A 2.5-pound NanoSAR first flew in 2008 on a Scan Eagle, and a one-pounder has flown on a RQ-20 Puma. The basic technology ranges in size from one to 10 or 14 pounds. Configuration depends on application and altitude. For example, a higher altitude might require “a bigger flashlight” to get required resolution, Robinson says.

Although NanoSAR’s development was driven by small UAVs, it can also operate on manned aircraft. This approach may be more practical for a while inside the United States because the Federal Aviation Administration still restricts UAVs so tightly in the national airspace and because early commercial UAVs are still fairly expensive. “Eventually, UAVs will be offered at lower price points,” Robinson predicted.

For commercial purposes, NanoSAR can now create 3-D eleva-tion maps through interferometry, which could be used for flood mapping, mining and other purposes. LiDAR and photogramme-try can also make these 3-D maps, although Robinson character-ized LiDAR as too expensive and photogrammetry as not as accurate as interferometry. IMSAR expects its first 3-D customer in a couple of months.

The company is also looking into emergency uses such as fire control. Radar can see through smoke clouds, and CCD can see where the fire line is and how fast it is moving. “The fire edge is obvi-ous,” Robinson noted. “We can protect vehicles by moving them and save lives.”

NanoSAR is currently mapping ice ridges in the Arctic for an oil company. “Optical sensors see only white,” Robinson said, while NanoSAR sees rapidly changing cracks, fissures and pressure ridges.

IMSAR develops its own processing algorithms, but can use third-party software. Processing can be done entirely onboard or partly on the ground, depending on equipment. All data are trans-mitted in standardized formats so anyone familiar with SAR can consume it.

Most processed images are easy to interpret even without train-ing, Robinson said. “They’re quasi-optical. CCD is similar; you can teach it in a few minutes.”

There would be no point in putting NanoSAR on larger orbit-ing satellites, but it might be useful on a CubeSat, where every ounce matters. The technology is not yet qualified for space, but could be.

“NanoSAR for nano satellites is not mature, but we think it’s realistic,” Robinson said. A satellite-based NanoSAR could not spot rearranged gravel, but might help with land planning, ice covers and forestry.

For the future, IMSAR sees significant maritime applications. IMSAR makes the image-processing software for NanoSAR but

not software for controlling UAVs. To image a particular location, it plots the required waypoints and transmits these automatically to the UAV operator. Then, NanoSAR can detect its position and turn its radar on or off as needed.

IMSAR has the smallest SAR of any revealed to the public, Robinson said, adding that the company takes pride in delivering on hard requirements in a time span that competitors cannot match.

PenetratInG the weather

In Europe, the synthetic aperture radar for all weather penetrat-ing (SARape) project is developing miniaturized SAR for small UAVs. SARape is being pursued by organizations from four countries, including Germany’s Fraunhofer IAF research institute.

SARape is still a demonstrator at present, according to Michael Caris, team leader for Millimeter Wave Radar in Fraunhofer’s depart-ment of millimeter wave radar and high-frequency sensors.

The demonstrator model puts out 100 milliwatts of power. SARape provides resolution of up to 15 centimeters in both range and cross-range directions, independent of target distance. “Two receive channels enable interferometric and polarimetric measure-ments,” Caris indicated.

Digital transmission enabled by SARape’s onboard preprocess-ing yields sufficient bandwidth for synchronous transmission of all data, including inertial measurement unit (IMU) navigation data. “This enables a quick-look capability by using a real-time SAR pro-cessor on the ground,” Caris said.

SARape measures 4x8x14 inches and weighs about 33 pounds, including its IMU and preprocessor. It requires about 40 watts of power at 28 volts.

The unit could be used on any manned or unmanned aircraft that provides sufficient space, payload-carrying capacity and power. It is designed to fly at about 70 to 110 miles per hour at altitudes of 1,000 to more than 3,000 feet.

Caris noted that, as with all SAR, SARape will operate in all weather, image through sandstorms or dust clouds and does not require daylight. The device will provide real-time, quick-look capa-bilities and its millimeter waves will be sensitive enough for small-scale structures.

Caris said he expects SARape to be used for surveillance, search and rescue, border control, disaster recovery and monitoring and environmental monitoring. In the future, Fraunhofer engineers hope to reduce SARape’s weight and size and increase its output power so it can operate at higher altitudes. O




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INDUSTRY INTERVIEW Geospatial Intelligence Forum

Stuart BlundellGeneral Manager and Director of SalesExelis Visual Information Solutions Inc.

A subsidiary of Harris Corporation

Q: Please tell readers about the ENVI Analytics Symposium scheduled for later this summer.

A: About a year ago, we started thinking about the work we were doing in the cloud for image analytics, and how we were developing a new market with partners such as DigitalGlobe and Airbus Defense and Space. One conclusion we came to was that we needed to bring together the thought leaders in data science, remote sensing and GIS to have a conversation. That conversation is about how we can deliver a new generation of information products from geospatial data that is not delivering pixels, classified images or a data layer. Rather, it is an information product that is fit for purpose and can be consumed in any manner that our cus-tomers would like to consume it, whether in a report, map or some other way to visu-alize the output.

As we started to dig into what we would call the ENVI Analytics Symposium, we saw that, within analytics and geospatial analytics in particular, there wasn’t a def-inition of geospatial analytics that every-one could agree on. When we thought more about it, we came to the conclusion that geospatial analytics is the discovery and communication of geospatial patterns in data. It’s different from GIS, remote sensing and data science. That thinking led us to put together this symposium, and we’ve had an overwhelming response from the community to participate.

Q: What do you have planned for the agenda?

A: The symposium will be held August 24-25 in Boulder, Colo., which has always been an area of innovation, both in an artistic and an engineering/technology perspective. We have developed the agenda around four basic tracks: algorithms and analytics; big geospatial data; remote-sens-ing phenomenology; and applied research. I reached out to Vice Admiral Robert

Murrett (Ret.), a former director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, when I was in London at the DGI confer-ence earlier this year. I invited the admi-ral, who is now at Syracuse University, to be part of this event. He accepted, and that formed some of my thinking around the use of geospatial analytics for global secu-rity issues. I also reached out to colleagues at DigitalGlobe to talk to them about the work they are doing on the Geospatial Big Data platform, and they are a sponsor of what we are doing. They will be partici-pating, as will Airbus Defense and Space, a leading provider of geospatial data around the world, and Esri. They are sponsors at the “platinum” level, supporting the talks and technology demonstrations that we will have.

After more than 20 years in the geo-spatial side of remote sensing and feature extraction, I was able to reach out to a wide range of contacts, such as Dr. John Irvine of Charles Stark Draper Laboratory and Dr. Fred Kruse of the Naval Postgraduate School. It’s a real “who’s who” of thought leaders in data science, remote sensing and GIS.

Q: Who do you see attending this event, and why should readers consider doing so?

A: We’re limiting attendance to 150, and right now we have 100 slots filled repre-senting 46 different organizations from eight different countries. We wanted to address people who are thought leaders in the business and have a conversation. As

we develop a new market for information products, we’re trying to reach beyond traditional remote sensing and geospa-tial markets to people in other fields, such as financial services, insurance, energy, and food and water security issues—beyond just water scarcity to the long-term impacts of water and its distribution, such as trans-border issues. We’re looking at both large and small solutions with geo-spatial analytics, and we think that ENVI is the right platform to have these discus-sions around.

Q: What do you see coming out the conference, and how do you see Harris moving forward in this area in the future?

A: We’re working with the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) and the U.S. Geospatial intelligence Foundation (USGIF) to help us develop a community lexicon on geo-spatial analytics. We’ll have a conversa-tion about that at the upcoming GEOINT Symposium. We also expect to develop out of this a set of information graph-ics that can help consumers who aren’t scientists and engineers understand the value of persistent Earth observations. We can help them manage a wide range of investments in land and industry and look at topics such as infrastructure for energy and natural resource management in timber, mining or oil and gas. Although remote sensing has helped these indus-tries in the past by selling imagery prod-ucts in the form of pixels, we’re going to change that paradigm by asking what kinds of information products are needed to improve business and minimize risk. We hope that a wide range of publica-tions with leading nonprofit organizations such as ASPRS and USGIF will come out of the conference. We want to make the community feel comfortable that they are participating in something that is much larger than any one application or com-pany, but is really involving the whole GEOINT community. O

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Put near real-time, shareable insight

into the hands of the people that need

it most. With platforms that aggregate

multi-source, unclassified data and

anticipatory analytics that help focus

your resources, DigitalGlobe ensures

you have the most complete picture

when and where you need it.

To see for yourself, visit Booth #4099

at GEOINT 2015.

Go beyond pixels with solutions that help you

analyze vast amounts of geospatial data

anticipate global threats

respond effectively

overcome your most critical challenges

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