Gif%2011 7 final

The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community

Special Report: Guide to GEOINT Technology

GEOINT Innovator Letitia A. Long www.GIF-kmi.com

Director NGA

October 2013 Volume 11, Issue 7

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GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE FORUM Features

October 2013 Volume 11, Issue 7

Cover / Q&A

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A whirl of activity has produced diverse technologies that are establishing the integrated foundations from which to manage GEOINT “big data.”

But multi-source fusion and the automated filtering of big data for targeted analysis remain works in progress.

By Cheryl Gerber

A survey of innovative technologies and solutions on display at this year’s GEOINT Symposium.

Big Data Foundations

30

GEOINT TechGuide

Compression Acceleration

After more than a decade of helping analysts work with and transmit geospatial imagery files, MrSID has gotten a makeover designed to speed performance and enable users to cope with the massive amounts of data being produced by aerial and satellite sensors.

By Harrison Donnelly

21 Letitia A. Long

10

Planning the SOF Global Network An interview with Colonel Stuart W. Bradin, chief of the Global SOF Network Operational Planning Team, focused on giving SOCOM greater authorities, as well as establishing a new command structure with greater presence in the national capital region by creating a new training and education component command.

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With the help of the latest visualization technology, that old creative-writing mandate—“show, don’t tell”—is becoming as vital for conveying and understanding intelligence information as it is for portraying the mysteries of literary character and motivation.

By Peter Buxbaum

Responding to the government’s demand for trained intelligence analysts, a number of companies are providing classroom, web-based, in-field and other forms of training, laying the groundwork for or supplementing intelligence analyst training offered by the agencies themselves.

By William Murray

The intelligence community reached an important milestone this summer in development of a new information infrastructure, with the initial deployment of a communitywide software desktop, the opening of an applications “mall” and the launch of an IC computing cloud.

By Harrison Donnelly

Showing to Tell

Departments

Training for Intel Analysis

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Industry Interview

2 Editor’s Perspective 18 Industry Raster 35 Resource Center

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“In this rapidly evolving world, if NGA were to continue to fulfill our mission of providing timely, relevant and accurate GEOINT, we knew we had to change— and change dramatically. ” —Letitia A. Long

EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE

Geospatial Intelligence Forum Volume 11, Issue 7 • October 2013

The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community Editorial

Managing Editor Harrison Donnelly harrisond@kmimediagroup.com Online Editorial Manager Laura Davis laurad@kmimediagroup.com Copy Editor Sean Carmichael seanc@kmimediagroup.com Correspondents Peter A. Buxbaum • Cheryl Gerber William Murray • Karen E. Thuermer

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Intelligence information sharing is again on the schedule for the GEOINT Symposium this year, and there is no doubt that the topic is near the top of everyone’s agenda these days. As Kshemendra Paul, program manager for the information sharing environment (PM ISE), noted recently, it’s been “a big year for information sharing,” as diverse events ranging from the Boston Marathon bombing to the release of secret NSA information “remind us of the importance of strengthening information sharing and safeguarding together.”

In his office’s annual report to Congress, Paul shows how information Harrison Donnelly sharing—broken down into the categories of collective action, standards, Editor shared services, safeguards, protection of privacy and civil rights, and the “culture of sharing”—is becoming a way of life in protecting the nation against terrorism and other threats. And it turns out that the geospatial intelligence field is among those leading the way, particularly in the area of shared services and interoperability.

The report highlights, for example, current efforts to encourage reuse of geospatial services, reduce their IT investment costs, and promote information sharing through development of a Geospatial Interoperability Reference Architecture (GIRA). The PM ISE is coordinating an effort with DHS, NGA, and the departments of the interior and commerce to publish GIRA during the first quarter of 2014.

GIRA is intended to provide guidance and direction to managers and systems architects from federal, state and local agencies and private-sector and international partners, to ensure the interoperability of geospatial services, fostering information sharing and ensuring fiscal responsibility.

The report, available at www.ise.gov, also highlights the Geospatial Intelligence Working Group (GWG), which serves as a Department of Defense, intelligence community, federal and civil community-based forum dedicated to advocating for IT standards and standardization activities related to GEOINT. The GWG places a heavy emphasis on collaboration between standards and enterprise architecture to promote re-use, interoperability, and open, “non-specific vendor” architectures.

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Industry delivers solutions to realize the potential intelligence in unstructured big data from sensors and social media.

A whirl of activity has produced diverse technologies that are establishing the integrated foundations from which to manage GEOINT “big data.” But multi-source fusion and the automated filtering of big data for targeted analysis remain works in progress.

Most of the foundation-building is coalescing around integration and interoperability, linking structured with unstructured data in SQL and Hadoop or incorporating online enterprise GIS. There are also significant efforts underway to automate and speed the processing of GEOINT sensor data.

Long accustomed to managing big data, companies such as BAE Systems, EMC, Esri, Exelis Visual Information Solutions, IBM, SAS and Teradata have been delivering solutions to realize the potential intelligence in unstructured big data from Hadoop and social media. Their aim is to improve the rate and method of source delivery or to integrate the analysis of social media with ISR collection.

Exelis VIS and IBM, for example, have worked with Riverside Research to develop the use of commercial big data analytics with cloud-based exploitation services to boost the speed of processing huge amounts of ISR sensor data. Riverside, an independent, nonprofit research institution, provides systems engineering, program management, modeling and simulation to national security and intelligence programs.

BAE Systems, a provider of geospatial software solutions like SOCET GXP and big data solutions like activity-based intelligence, recently invested in the development of an Advanced Analytics Lab to enhance collection, processing, analysis and integration standards of open source data into intelligence products.

4 | GIF 11.7

By Cheryl Gerber GIF Correspondent

EMC expanded its existing big data advantage of massively parallel processing infrastructure by acquiring Greenplum for (MPP), in which multiple processors work cloud-based, data warehousing and selftogether on different parts of a program at service analytics. It also purchased Isilon once, with each processor containing its Systems, for high-speed, scale-out netown operating system and memory. work attached storage (NAS) designed for When used with ArcGIS 10.2, Esri’s streaming video.

GIS Tools for Hadoop analyzes, visualEsri has been fully engaged with big izes and stores enterprise geospatial data data integration in the past year, supplyin Hadoop. ArcGIS 10.2 expands suping GIS Tools for Hadoop, ArcGIS 10.2, a port for Teradata and online GIS analfull release of the ArcGIS platform, and ysis, among numerous other enhanced GeoEvents Processor for Server. functionalities. GeoEvents Processor for SAS rolled out Social Server integrates real-time Media Analytics as an onstreaming data with anademand software as a service lyst-defined steps to filter (SaaS) product. The comout noise and redundancy. pany delivered high-perfor“Integration is the key mance analytics on the EMC for big data,” noted Marwa Greenplum database appliMabrouk, Esri product ance and in the Teradata manager, cloud and big Unified Data Architecture. data. “GIS Tools for Hadoop In addition, Teradata have plugged GIS into the acquired Aster Data Systems Hadoop environment. They Marwa Mabrouk for advanced analytics and have geo-enabled Hadoop. management of big unstructured data, “The libraries can give analysts betthen integrated Aster and Hadoop technolter accessibility to more information by ogy under its Unified Data Architecture. opening up all the unstructured and semiThe company produced SQL-H for stanstructured data that is stored and transdard ANSI SQL support on Hadoop and formed in Hadoop. Now analysts can query expanded Hadoop support with its Teradata billions of records and keep large data Portfolio for Hadoop. in one location—in Hadoop. The tools will filter and aggregate the parts of the data that are relevant to an analysis,” Software Infrastructure Mabrouk said.

Semi-structured data does not comDerived from the Google MapReduce ply with the formal structure of relational program, Hadoop is a highly scalable, databases, but contains self-describing fault-tolerant, Java-based, open source tags to enforce some hierarchy of records software infrastructure. It supports dataand fields within the data. intensive distributed applications in large Teradata also believes integration is clusters of commodity hardware. the top priority. “Managing big data is MapReduce filters and sorts big data, really about integrating data from muland distributes it in parallel processing tiple sources into one central analytic while managing transfers and communicaenvironment to improve total visibility tions between the parts. MapReduce takes www.GIF-kmi.com

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have a Hive extension that recognizes and connect all the dots across data SQL spatial data types, Esri geometry and types, departments and data marts in an geometry operations,” Mabrouk said. organization. Our Teradata Unified Data Hive allows SQL developers to write Architecture was launched specifically Hive Query Language statements that are for this purpose,” noted Bobby Caudill, similar to standard SQL statements.

Teradata program director, government Esri’s GeoEvents Processor for Server industry. integrates multiple streams of data flow“Our customers need solutions to haring continuously through filters with userness all this data and exploit it,” said Peder defined processing steps that can track the Jungck, chief technologist, BAE Systems most operationally important events and Intelligence & Security sector. “That’s why locations with alerts of changes. The prodwe are constantly adapting our products uct offers connectors to common sensors to accommodate new sensors. Whether like GPS. it’s adding LiDAR analysis features to our geospatial software products, like SOCET GXP, or adapting our activity-based intelProcessing Speed ligence solutions to process and exploit data collected by ground, airborne, space The rate of processing the most numerbased electro-optical, infrared and hyperically complex data from ISR sensors is spectral sensors, our goal is to save anaslowing many analytical operations. lysts time so they can work on solving crit“Analysts often spend 60 to 70 perical intelligence problems.” cent of their time acquiring and fusing The growth of mobile devices with GPS data rather than analyzing it,” said Jungck. has contributed significantly to the volume “Tools like activity-based intelligence are of unstructured geospatial data. “There are automating data acquisition, while simulunprecedented amounts of multi-structaneously flagging suspicious data anomtured data with locations on them today. alies that may warrant closer intelligence This is high-value volatile data that is only analysis. We need to give analysts tools so valuable for limited time—the data you they can do just that, analyze.” might want to store in Hadoop,” noted Exelis VIS, IBM and Riverside Research Arlene Zaima, Teradata program manager, worked together on a solution to reduce Integrated Global Analytics. the lag of processing time for hyperspecEsri’s ArcGIS Tools for Hadoop is an tral imaging by using IBM Infosphere open source product available on GitHub, Streams to optimize software performance a web-based hosting service and ENVI hyperspectral for software development imaging analysis software projects. The tools extend from Exelis VIS. The subthe Hadoop platform with ject addressed a real-world libraries and software utilimission shortfall in an operties that connect ArcGIS to ational airborne hyperspecthe Hadoop environment. tral imaging platform.

Software utilities surpass “The team’s goal was to application software capabiltake individual hyperspecities by addressing the entire tral data cubes that were in computing infrastructure, proprietary sensor-derived Michael Nelson which is why the GIS tools format and convert them can be considered an extension of Hadoop. into exploitation-ready NITF format,” The tools allow ArcGIS users to export said Michael Nelson, director, Intelligence map data in Hadoop’s native format, the Operations Directorate, Riverside Research.

Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), The National Imagery Transmission and intersect the map data with billions of Format (NITF) standard is the default records stored in Hadoop. The results can for the exchange, storage and transmisbe saved to a Hadoop database or imported sion of Department of Defense and intelliback to ArcGIS for higher-level geoprocessgence community imagery. Hyperspectral ing and visualization. images are captured in an area of the elecArcGIS Tools for Hadoop provides spatromagnetic spectrum that is invisible to tial querying inside Hadoop using Hive, the human eye. The images are highly preHadoop’s data summary, querying and cise and can be captured remotely. The analysis module. “The Tools for Hadoop results appear as cubes.

6 | GIF 11.7

“Using those processes wrapped in an Infosphere Streams environment, we consistently achieved one to two orders of magnitude improvement in speed of processing from the baseline,” Nelson said.

“This will enable users to spend a significant amount of their time exploiting the data and processing results rather than spending time waiting for data to process.”

IBM Infosphere Streams provided the acceleration to the processes executed in the ENVI services engine. “Our end goal is to apply analytics to enable activity-based intelligence on automatically processed and exploited data sets using these techniques,” Nelson said.

“We can do the same with WAMI and LiDAR by using Streams-wrapping mechanisms without going into the code base,” he added, referring to wide area motion imagery (WAMI) and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors.

Nelson was pointing to the fact that the team’s technique avoids the need for time-consuming software design and development of specific algorithms for specific applications. The team’s technique splits the processing across diverse commodity hardware.

Metadata Standard These and other gains aside, one obstacle blocking the more effective management of big data for GEOINT is the lack of a metadata standard.

“There is a true need for a multi-agency metadata tagging standard. It would solve the redundancy of data problem so every agency would not have its own copy of the data,” said Rich Campbell, chief technologist for EMC Federal.

One of the most widely distributed metadata standards is the NITF Rational Polynomial Coefficient, used by commercial satellite vendors and supported by imagery exploitation tools as a sensoragnostic mechanism for data exchange.

However, the reach of big data surpasses this one standard.

As the Intelligence Community Information Technology Enterprise (ICITE) builds a common desktop and cloud computing infrastructure across the IC, the program also could provide a shared metadata standard that would reduce multi-agency data redundancy. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency www.GIF-kmi.com

is producing the common desktop environment for ICITE, while the CIA and NSA provide the common secure cloud infrastructure.

“We’re encouraged by the progress on the ICITE program. We hope that includes an IC-wide metadata standard. This would further the application of advanced processing capabilities like big data analytics,” said Nelson.

The adoption of independent infrastructures, not dependent on file type, was accelerated, in part, by the introduction of object-based cloud storage in EMC Atmos, a geo-distributed big data repository that can serve either as a hardware appliance or as software in a virtual environment. EMC owns a majority share of VMWare, a key player in the field of virtualization technology.

After acquiring the two companies last year, EMC integrated Greenplum’s database with Isilon’s scale-out NAS architecture.

Greenplum’s hybrid database sits atop and writes data directly to native Hadoop, yet works with SQL data.

The technology takes full advantage of MPP with multi-level fault tolerance, and runs analytics against petabyte-scale datasets stored in and outside its database. Now called EMC Pivotal, Greenplum’s platform as a service integrates technology from EMC and VMWare in the independent venture.

Isilon integrated HDFS natively into its OneFS operating system, thereby increasing the speed of using Hadoop data in Isilon data storage without the need for translation. Isilon’s OneFS operating system is also integrated with EMC Atmos.

All data structures in OneFS maintain their own information protection in an Isilon system called FlexProtect, which rebuilds the data in case of a failure and spreads individual file blocks across nodes.

The nodes are connected via a high-performance, low-latency network based on InfiniBand, a communications link used in enterprise and high-performance computing to deliver quality of service.

Isilon technology is the fastest NAS available today, according to a recent test.

An Enterprise Strategy Group Lab audit of response time in performance for big data workloads showed the Isilon S200 scale-out storage set a world record of 1.6 million file operations per second.

“The overall response time is fewer than three milliseconds, which feels 8 | GIF 11.7

instantaneous from an end-user perspective,” noted Audie Hittle, chief technology officer, EMC Isilon federal market.

Isilon provides accelerated data movement over a wide array of standard protocols such as NFS, FTP and HTTP. Standards for metadata imagery may just be the beginning.

“The industry is already discussing the need for other security-focused metadata layers,” said BAE Systems’ Jungck.

“These layers could track user changes and establish access control standards for enhanced security.”

Hadoop’s maker, Accumulo, is already working on a product called Apache, a robust, scalable, high-performance data storage and retrieval system that tags both source and user data, along with security information.

Data Integration

SAS provides interactive GIS software within SAS that allows users to visualize and interact with data by selecting features and performing actions based on the selections. The SAS GIS software uses spatial data containing the coordinates and identifying information describing the map itself and attribute data to match, for instance, addresses and coordinates in the spatial data.

Under SAS OnDemand SaaS, Social Media Analytics, text analytics and data mining have opened big unstructured data to GEOINT analysts by applying link analysis to reveal relationships between entities, performing entity extraction and ontology management, including unknown and abnormal behavior patterns.

SAS Social Media analytics consumes social media sources such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube to uncover sentiment by filtering, categorizing and analyzing content. The product can follow specific topics of conversation or influential individuals who discuss them. Within these conversations, changes in sentiment over time can be compared to tactics or events to determine after-action effects.

Teradata also delivered faster processing of integrated big data in its Unified Data Architecture (UDA). To expand its established position as a data warehouse and analytics provider, Teradata merged with Aster Data Systems to integrate unstructured big data and advanced anaMedia Analytics lytics. The result was UDA and the Teradata Enterprise Access for Hadoop.

SAS provides advanced social media “The better data is integrated, the analytics with open source media for taskmore quickly questions can be formed ing, collection, processing, exploitation and and answered. Teradata UDA provides dissemination. The company teamed with faster times from first query to intelligent AGI, a producer of commercial modeling response,” said Caudill. and analysis software for the space, defense Two components of the Teradata and intelligence communities, for the inteEnterprise Access for Hadoop are SQL-H gration of social media analytics with ISR and the Studio with Smart Loader for analysis and visualization.

Hadoop. SQL-H provides ad hoc access AGI’s application programming interto data stored in Hadoop through stanface supports interoperability between dard ANSI SQL, letting users query the SAS Social Media Analytics and ISR coldata where it lies. SQL-H can combine lection systems from satellite and airborne data from Hadoop with prointelligence. duction data in the Teradata “We actively pull social warehouse or run analytics and news media information on Teradata with only the from more than 20 million data required for the query websites in 30 languages,” pulled from Hadoop. SQL-H said Marc Kriz, account execsupports the Hortonworks utive, SAS Federal National Data Platform.

Security Group.

The Studio with Smart “In a use case scenario Loader for Hadoop supsuch as Somalia, a humaniports the Hortonworks tarian relief effort using SAS Marc Kriz Data Platform and Cloudera Text Analytics was able to Distribution with drag and drop interfaces, discover, within 30 native languages, confor a choice of two commercial distribuversations or data around refugee camps tions of Hadoop. that were no longer safe for displaced www.GIF-kmi.com

to the financial services and governvillagers to migrate to because warring ment sectors for infrastructure maintefactions within the region were making it nance offerings, including data cleansing unsafe,” said Kriz. and management.

In Yemen, social media analytics could “We assess the data to detect anomadiscover the conversations around the lies, to evaluate if it has different formats reconstruction of hospitals and clinics in and metadata tags, topographical errors or the area on local civil engineering webinconsistencies such as address changes, sites, where engineers were blogging about new job descriptions or different spella new hospital or clinic being built. “They ings,” said Garcia. “It’s critare blogging in Arabic, so ical that data be cleansed we run the analytics in the before it is prepared for native language,” he said. the analyst.”

“SAS Enterprise Content SAS DataFlux data manCategorization (ECC) techagement technologies pronology puts documents in vide data access across the granular categories such enterprise; governance for as refugee camps or intera consistent set of policies national Red Cross or Red and processes; data integraCrescent camps,” said Kriz. tion and quality to assure To manage big data, SAS Rebecca Garcia the flow of accurate data technology creates filters on across an organization; and master data 5 million documents to whittle it down to management for a single unified view of 1 million, extracting only the relevant docenterprise data. uments using SAS ECC. SAS works with a partner network SAS leveraged its history providthat includes EMC and Teradata for a ing data cleansing and fraud detection

www.GIF-kmi.com

predictive risk analysis product called High Performance Analytics to achieve an MPP-based velocity boost in modeling and scoring procedures.

“We perform analytics within a database to maximize time to decision and time to mission,” said Rebecca Garcia, sales director, SAS federal business unit. “We connect natively with various databases and perform analytics in a grid or within a cloud based on commodity hardware.”

Meanwhile, it remains unclear just how big today’s big data will get to be. The nextgeneration framework for Hadoop data processing, introduced in Hadoop 2.0, will deliver Yet Another Resource Negotiator, a Hadoop project that will provide an even wider array of interaction patterns for data stored in Hadoop, including interactive, online and streaming applications. O For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup. com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.

GIF 11.7 | 9

A conversation with Colonel Stuart W. Bradin.

The Global SOF Network Operational Planning Team (OPT) is focused on giving SOCOM greater authorities, as well as establishing a new command structure with greater presence in the national capital region by creating a new training and education component command. We recently had the opportunity to talk with Colonel Stuart W. Bradin, chief of the Global SOF Network OPT. KMI: How does the OPT concept support the USSOCOM 2020 vision?

Col. Bradin: When Admiral William H. McRaven took command of USSOCOM in August 2011, he established operational planning teams to focus on his top four priorities: win the current fight; strengthen the global SOF network; preserve the force and families; and utilize responsive resourcing.

These teams are flat, fast and cross-functional; they report directly to the commander. I previously worked for Admiral McRaven on the stand-up of the NATO SOF Coordination Center [which later became the NATO SOF Headquarters], and he asked me to lead the Global SOF Network OPT at USSOCOM. KMI: What is the mission of the Global SOF Network OPT? Col. Bradin: In short, the OPT is charged with realizing Admiral McRaven’s vision of a globally networked force of SOF, interagency, allies and partners able to rapidly and persistently address regional contingencies and threats to stability.

KMI: Why is a Global SOF Network needed?

Col. Bradin: Admiral McRaven often likes to use the phrase, ‘There’s no such thing as a local problem.’ The reality is that one country’s internal security issues are often transnational or transregional in nature. We see this phenomenon borne out again and again through the growing interconnectedness of terrorist, narcotrafficking and piracy networks, to name a few. And in order to combat these threat networks, we need a network of allies and partners. To that end, the admiral also likes to use the phrase, ‘You can’t surge trust,’ the idea being that it’s very difficult to develop trust among partners when a crisis occurs. That way, when an opportunity arises or a crisis occurs, the relationships are already in place and we can operate exponentially better.

Instead, it’s much better to develop relationships with our partners before a crisis occurs.

The Global SOF Network has many components, to include: geographic combatant commands [GCCs], theater special operations commands [TSOCs], special operations commands forward, SOF units, special operations liaison officers, interagency partners, special operations support teams to the interagency, partner nations, the International SOF Coordination Center at USSOCOM HQ, proposed regional SOF coordination centers, and forward logistics and communications nodes.

The OPT is working to strengthen the USSOCOM-owned elements of the network—especially the TSOCs—while simultaneously strengthening the ties among all the elements. USSOCOM 10 | GIF 11.7

is the supporting command in all of this, and a major thrust of our work is increasing SOF’s forward presence and making it more persistent—thus enabling the enduring relationships we wish to build.

KMI: How are you going about creating the Global SOF Network?

Col. Bradin: Beginning in September 2011, USSOCOM began an assessment of how to best posture SOF for the future. This assessment resulted in the vision of the Global SOF Network as I described, and it identified the need to improve the special operations capabilities and capacity available to the GCCs through the TSOCs. In the two years since, the OPT has begun implementing many of the initiatives of the admiral’s vision. We now find ourselves weeks away from submitting to the Joint Staff the Global SOF Campaign Plan, which consolidates all of the SOF requirements as identified and validated by the GCCs. It lays out the rationale and operational construct for the network.

The Global SOF Campaign Plan is a proactive plan completely different than anything in our history. It will nest all SOF activities under a single plan that is not reactive like contingency or operational plans of the past. It operationalizes the Defense Strategic Guidance [which directs the joint force to focus on the prevention of war] and the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations [which calls for globally integrated operations].

Prevention will require persistent engagement with key partners. Our forces will be working directly with key partner nations to build their capabilities and capacity. To support SOF in this effort, everyone must think differently. We can’t just take things from our inventory and expect them to fit into the SOF activities associated with prevention.

SOF will shift the focus from counterterrorism operations to more indirect activities in the human domain.

SOF will be sharing with our partners, helping them grow to peer or near-peer status. SOF activities will mainly occur in sovereign nations that can’t politically afford to have large footprints of U.S. advisors.

Our support to our partners has to be smaller and more discreet but possess the ability to surge should that be required.

Space-based ISR is an example of how we can retain a capability while maintaining a discreet U.S. presence.

All of the activity will be networked to ensure the threat networks do not have the means to pass between self-imposed boundaries. Everything has to get flatter and faster, and it has to be sharable. The majority of our key partner nations do not reside on U.S. national system. To support SOF in 2020, industry will have to think big, move fast and anticipate the future. O www.GIF-kmi.com

Visualization tools, which allow for the absorption of more data, are gaining increasing prominence in the geospatial and other intelligence fields.

By Peter Buxbaum GIF Correspondent

users and make it more difficult for them to overcome the daily With the help of the latest technology, that old creative-writdata onslaught.” ing mandate—“show, don’t tell”—is becoming as vital for conveying and understanding intelligence information as it is for portraying the mysteries of literary character and motivation.

Big-Data Challenges Because acquiring information through visual media is quicker and more efficient than doing so through the other Military and intelligence agencies increasingly use visualizasenses, visualization tools are gaining increasing prominence in tion in dealing with mission-critical issues. the geospatial and other intelligence fields.

“There are fascinating advancements taking place in GEOINT,” Visualizations allow for the absorption of more data, easing said Stacy Pfautz, the lead for interactive intelligent systems at the impact of the proverbial data deluge that is otherwise imposAptima. “Some of these, such as the ubiquity of sensors and the sible to keep up with. The quicker acquisition and processing of explosion of available data, are certainly increasing capabilities. more information leads to more timely and better Yet, at the same time, those advancements are credecision making, which can make all the difference ating additional challenges for analysts who need to in many walks of life, but none more so than miswork with, make sense of and find meaning in this sion-critical military activity. deluge of big data.”

“We acquire more information through vision One of the responses to these challenges, which than through all of the other senses combined,” Pfautz dubs “intelligent visualization,” allows users according to author Colin Ware. “The 20 billion to zoom in on a visualization with a touch or a spoor so neurons of the brain devoted to analyzing ken word. visual information provide a pattern-finding mech“The other challenge is how to find the needle anism that is a fundamental component in much in the haystack within all this big data,” she added. of our cognitive activity,” Ware wrote in his book, “Specific behaviors or threats that need to be idenStacy Pfautz Information Visualization. tified in persistent video surveillance, or wide area The human brain is designed to find meaningful patterns and motion imagery, are often hidden from view in a vast canvas of structures in what is perceived through vision. The processing of everyday, irrelevant behaviors. It isn’t feasible to manually sort information is guided by how it is presented, including attributes through terabytes of multi-INT data collected from unmanned such as color, size, texture, density and movement that activate platforms to find the behaviors of interest.” visual sensitivities.

Maps represent one form of visualization, providing “a treHumans also respond to graphical stimuli by using short- and mendous opportunity to provide real intelligence and a rich geolong-term memory to apply previous experiences on the processspatial capability,” said James Buckley, senior vice president and ing of information, according to a report on visualization best general manager for customer data and location intelligence at PB practices released by TDWI Research.

Software, a Pitney Bowes unit. “We are dealing with the opportuAs a result, the graphic visualization of data is becoming the nity to support more complex missions by pushing mapping soluexpected norm for decision makers in the military and inteltions to the cloud which can provide visualizations to traditional ligence communities, as well as elsewhere in government and geographic information systems and within organizations’ norindustry. Visualization affects how data is made available to users mal IT infrastructure.” and the value they gain from it.

The accuracy of images being displayed is also critical to the “Good data visualization is critical to making smarter value of the visualization. This fact led the National Geospatialdecisions and improving productivity,” according to TDWI. Intelligence Agency to issue standards for the display of visualiza“Poorly created visualizations, on the other hand, can mislead tions on screen. According to the NGA standards, displays must be 12 | GIF 11.7

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adjustable, so that black level, luminance and color temperature of the white point can be adjusted to the desired values.

“Geospatial imaging relies on accuracy of the readings, so imaging performance of displays used is crucial,” said Marc Leppla, chief technology officer of QUBYX, which has developed a software tool that allows users to calibrate the values specified in the NGA Display Performance Standard. “This saves time and costs for GEOINT professionals. For military and intelligence agencies accuracy of geospatial visualization and analysis is a matter of security.”

There are several aspects to the visualization of geospatial information, and different companies attack the issue from different angles. “Aptima is working on tools that help analysts better manipulate and visualize GEOINT data, and to sort through and find the meaningful behaviors or threats they’re looking for,” said Pfautz.

Natural Interactions Aptima’s Imagine software delivers a way for analysts to interact with imagery using a multimodal, naturalistic environment.

“The Imagine software fuses voice, gestures, and touch commands within the context of the analyst’s workflow, improving their spatial awareness and search performance,” said Pfautz. “A conventional Windows environment, with a mouse and keyboard, requires users to continually shift amongst their tasks and reorient themselves, which disrupts their mental and visual momentum. Analysts can now interact in a more natural way.”

For example, Imagine users can employ familiar touch gestures to drag, resize and rotate images within the workspace. Then, pointing to a location on the image and uttering a quick verbal command can open a new window zoomed-in to that area.

“This allows the analyst to focus on the task at hand with far less effort and disruption,” said Pfautz. “Imagine accommodates the user’s preference for touch or voice interaction. It also interprets and reasons about their inputs and tasks to enhance and personalize their experience and workflow.”

Aptima has also developed activity-based intelligence algorithms, which perform pattern recognition to automatically identify adversaries and threats. “This pattern-of-life analysis helps analysts zoom in on the most salient behaviors in human intelligence and image intelligence by separating the innocent from the dangerous,” said Pfautz.

“These algorithms for event detection and behavior recognition identify signature activities in hundreds of thousands of track observations, such as a vehicle performing a U-turn among cars proceeding straight,” she continued. “Analysts can then quickly extract actionable intelligence from streams of multi-INT data to help infer the type and location of adversarial behaviors, when threats are likely to occur, and by whom, based on the connections amongst persons of interest.”

Pitney Bowes is working on similar problems by allowing its solution, MapInfo Professional, version 12 of which was released earlier this year, to absorb information from a variety of sources so that connections between people, places and things can be automatically visualized on a map.

“Different kinds of organizations—business, government, military and intelligence—are all interested in analyzing the complex relationships between people and other people, including family members and colleagues, and people they contact by telephone and electronically,” said Buckley. “Relationships among people on social 14 | GIF 11.7

media platforms can also be relevant from an intelligence standpoint. The places they frequent and the institutions they have relationships with can also be important and can provide insights when they are visualized. We have applications that can visualize these kinds of relationships on maps. These visualizations can show the relationships of a person of interest to spatial points as well as to his network of other people.”

Pitney Bowes takes a big data approach, applying cloud computing techniques to tackle these issues. “We use what we call a data hub to consume extremely large data sets, and we apply analytics to that to establish relationships among people, places and things,” said Buckley. “This is done at a scale difficult to achieve with traditional relational databases.

“Cloud computing capabilities enable us to manage huge data sets,” Buckley continued. “Users can use these tools within their traditional IT infrastructures. We want to be able to provide analysts not just the capability to perform a simple spatial query, but also to provide some of the analysis as well.”

Pitney Bowes earlier this year launched MapInfo Professional v12.0, which is designed to help organizations analyze trends geographically and make critical decisions with greater clarity of potential risk and opportunity.

“The primary goal of this release is to help our users easily and quickly create high-quality labeled mapping outputs,” said Buckley.

“GIS professionals and location intelligence analysts will find that they can work smarter. In addition, the new MapInfo website has been built for users to find information easily on the MapInfo suite of products.”

MapInfo Professional v12.0 allows users to create maps more quickly. “It includes powerful new algorithms for labeling lines and regions, which means that users can create intelligently labeled maps faster and easier,” said Buckley. “Users now have greater control over how labels display, such as using abbreviations when labels are too long, automatic reduction of font sizes to fit labels within regions, selecting fallback options to generate rotated labels and curved labels, and the ability to drag curved labels to reposition them.”

MapInfo Professional also has the ability to read and write data to and from Microsoft SQL Server and PostGIS spatial data. PostGIS is open-source software that adds spatial capability to the opensource PostgreSQL database. “MapInfo Professional offers direct native access to PostGIS without the need for middleware,” said Buckley. “Support for PostGIS is also being added to our MapInfo EasyLoader tool.”

EasyLoader is a free tool for managing bulk uploads of MapInfo tables into database systems. “Data from these a number of different database systems can be accessed and visualized with the software,” said Buckley.

Display Standards According to NGA’s “Softcopy Exploitation Display Hardware Performance Standard,” displays must be “maintenance-adjustable to allow precise control of the black level, white level, and for color displays, the color temperature of the white point.” The document also points out that “since the monitor luminance may decline significantly over time, the maximum luminance by which a new monitor exceeds the required calibration luminance should be considered to ensure calibration throughout its usable life.” www.GIF-kmi.com

Earlier this year, QUBYX announced launch of the new version of its geospatial display calibration software. PerfectEPD was developed to adjust monitors to the requirements of NGA’s display performance standard, ensuring accurate image reproduction and correct readings in geospatial visualizations.

“The PerfectEPD display calibration tool fulfills these requirements, calibrating color, luminance and black level of any display to the requirements of NGA display performance standard,” said Leppla. “Monitors calibrated with PerfectEPD provide more exact readings and retain their imaging quality much longer then noncalibrated monitors.” PerfectEPD Remote works like a remote control for the client software. “Not only can you adjust all levels remotely, but you can also start tasks, manage schedules, see results and even receive warnings if something goes wrong with a display,” said Leppla. “Whenever possible, on supportable displays, we match luminance response to the EPD in the look-up table of the monitor itself rather than the graphics card.”

PerfectEPD display calibration and verification software lets users see greater detail and get more exact readings. It also has a feature called “perfect contrast.”

“This helps to increase lifetime and maximum luminance on certain displays,” said Leppla. “Before there was the possibility of not being able to see certain shadows and gray and green tones. That is what is being enhanced by adhering to the with the NGA standards.”

For analysts, this means that it is easier for them to distinguish different objects in an image as well as details with respect to

those objects. “The product also uses new algorithms to create what we call dominance response,” said Leppla. “How dominance and colors are displayed makes it easier for analysts to see details in an image.”

The monitor calibration software can be integrated with existing hardware systems, and is compatible with nearly any model of displays, graphic cards and sensor devices. “Even less expensive commercial displays can be successfully calibrated with PerfectEPD, which allows saving costs on the hardware,” said Leppla. “In addition to cost-efficiency, PerfectEPD offers excellent functionality with such features as history and reports, task scheduler, remote display management, and others.”

The future direction of geospatial visualization is toward the ability to ingest and visualize a wide variety of different kinds of data, including unstructured data from documents and social media sites.

“We are already starting to do that,” said Buckley. “Another big trend is moving to mobile platforms so that users can access visualized data no matter what kind device they are using.

“Geospatial data is becoming just another data type that functions in everyday IT infrastructures,” Buckley added. “Visualization of geospatial data is emerging as a powerful tool that allows organizations to fulfill their missions.” O For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.

Store. Discover. Disseminate.

Learn how to increase end user productivity and efficiency by using ArchivalWare GS, an easy-to-use geospatial enterprise content management solution.

Visit PtFs Booth

www.GIF-kmi.com

401 at GEoiNt or PtFs.com to lEarN morE aBout archiValWarE Gs

GIF 11.7 | 15

Geospatial Intelligence Forum highlights key technology providers at GEOINT.

2d3 Sensing Booth 436 Danny Proko danny.proko@2d3sensing.com 949-200-6296 www.2d3sensing.com

2d3 Sensing is a nimble COTS technology provider specializing in the processing, exploitation, and dissemination of motion imagery and metadata. Using innovative vision science techniques and standardsbased media management capabilities, 2d3 Sensing improves and extracts the information contained in motion imagery for better situational awareness and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission results. 2d3 Sensing solutions are available as stand-alone software products, SDKs and APIs. American Military University Booth 1532

American Military University (AMU) provides quality higher education to the nation’s military, national security, and public safety communities. We offer respected, relevant, and affordable online programs which prepare students for service and leadership in a diverse and global society.

AMU is the largest education provider to the armed forces, with more than 180 degree and certificate programs. Our faculty combines relevant theory with real-world experience. They come with degrees from top institutions around the world, and many are leaders in the fields of government, business, and non-profit organizations.

Learn more at PublicSafetyatAMU.com or stop by booth 1532 at the GEOINT Symposium.

Astrium Services, GEO-Information Booth 1249 solutions@astrium-geo.com 703-715-3110 www.astrium-geo.com

Astrium Services delivers an extensive portfolio of products and services ranging

16 | GIF 11.7

from data acquisition and processing, data management and hosting all the way to sophisticated geo-information solutions. Astrium operates multi-resolution/multi-sensor satellite constellations with optical (SPOT, Pléiades) and radar sensors (TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X).

Our highlights at GEOINT: WorldDEM: New-class pole-to-pole DEM; SPOT 6/7: Rapid collection and coverage; TerraSARX Services: New Modes for higher resolution and coverage; SpaceDataHighway: Next-generation data transmission service in near-real-time; and GATOR by i-cubed: Autonomous disconnected data streaming.

Join us for a complementary cup of coffee and learn more about our products and services at Astrium GEO Café #1249.

BAE Systems Booth 501 gxpsales@baesystems.com 703-668-4385 www.baesystems.com/gxp

Corp. has the agility to innovate and strength to deliver for the GEOINT community. From persistent data collection hardware to advanced processing and exploitation capabilities, Ball provides innovative, integrated solutions for our nation and world. We support critical missions for national agencies such as the Department of Defense, NASA, NOAA, and other U.S. government and commercial entities.

Ball also develops and manufactures EO and RF solutions for tactical and scientific applications.

DigitalGlobe Booth 1119 Chris Incardona chris.incardona@digitalglobe.com 703-480-9593 www.digitalglobe.com

Get more done with fewer resources.

The GXP suite of products offers an integrated solution that optimizes the analyst’s workflow. Discover your data and reference materials with a single search across multiple data stores using GXP Xplorer. Instantly view and stream data in any format with our newest product offering, GXP WebView, a lightweight, ELT module of GXP Xplorer, built specifically for the all-source and image analyst. Exploit data with SOCET GXP to create geospatial intelligence products using advanced feature extraction tools, annotations, and 3-D visualization. To learn more about the GXP enterprise solution, please visit us at GEOINT, booth 501.

This year at GEOINT 2013, DigitalGlobe will showcase a number of new and existing capabilities that support critical missions around the globe. Accessible and sharable geospatial information is essential to our customers. With unrivaled quality and advanced geospatial analytic capabilities, DigitalGlobe provides warfighters and analysts with improved situational awareness that can help save lives, resources and time.

Please visit DigitalGlobe’s custom GEOINT website at digitalglobe.com/geoint to learn about our tech talks, watch videos about the U.S. government’s Global EGD program, participate in our new crowdsourcing platform, or even take a virtual tour of our booth.

Ball Aerospace

General Dynamics Booth 301 www.gdnexus.com

Booth 413 info@ball.com 303-939-6100 www.ballaerospace.com

As world-class experts in geospatial intelligence, Ball Aerospace & Technologies

General Dynamics will highlight its continued dedication to placing the power of the GEOINT enterprise directly into users’ hands. With real-time collaboration anytime, from anywhere and on any device top of mind, General Dynamics engineered a

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cloud-enabled, virtual environment that runs off existing infrastructures, providing remote access to critical data and applications, while enhancing mission capabilities.

General Dynamics will also showcase the capabilities of GDNexus. An online community that enables technology leaders from across multiple industries to leverage existing products to create new, innovative solutions, GDNexus helps customers advance their mission, reduce acquisition risk and keep pace with technology evolution.

Please visit www.gdnexus.com for more information.

LizardTech Booth 312 info@lizardtech.com 206-652-5211 www.lizardtech.com

LizardTech offers software solutions for managing and distributing geospatial imagery, and is the creator of the MrSID technology, a powerful wavelet-based image encoder, viewer and file format. Exhibiting at the GEOINT 2013 Symposium in booth number 312, LizardTech will conduct defense-oriented demonstrations of the newest version of its image compression and manipulations software, GeoExpress. In addition, LizardTech will showcase its Express Server software for high-performance image delivery and publication, and its LiDAR Compressor software, which turns giant point cloud datasets into efficient MrSID files. For more information about LizardTech’s geospatial software products, visit www.lizardtech.com.

Lockheed Martin Booth 309 John Munson john.c.munson@lmco.com 703-466-2792 www.lockheedmartin.com

Put the power of GEOINT in your hands!

Lockheed Martin delivers capabilities and tools for actionable intelligence. We combine big data analytics with advanced geo-registration empowered by a cloud configuration. With Lockheed Martin, activity-based intelligence is a present-day reality, not a future state.

From full motion video to activity-based intelligence, we are advancing big data, predictive analytics, forensic and situational awareness technology to deliver innovative solutions to critical missions. Visit Lockheed Martin in booth #309 at GEOINT 2013.

www.GIF-kmi.com

Pixia Booth 329 Kenneth Melero melerok@pixia.com 571-203-9665 www.pixia.com

Pixia is the industry leader in high-performance, scalable data access solutions for large datasets. Its innovate technology and HiPER Look, HiPER Stare and HiPER Watch products focus on increased storage I/O, scalability and interoperability to empower data-as-a-service (DaaS) to be accessed anywhere within a cloud-based, services-oriented environment. Demonstrations will include HD-FMV, LiDAR, activitybased intelligence, and deployable disconnected data access.

PTFS Booth 401 Dan Quinn dquinn@ptfs.com 301-654-8088 x154 www.ptfs.com

Visit PTFS’ Booth #401 to see the newest features of ArchivalWare GS, an easy-to-use enterprise content management solution that combines geospatial data management with a browser-based search interface. ArchivalWare GS is intuitive, provides OGC/CSW/WCS and GIAS interfaces, and supports map/exploitation technologies including Google Earth/ESRI/ RemoteView. It collects AOI data and manages repositories enterprisewide while combining full-text and geospatial search, significantly increasing productivity by reducing search time. Learn more about the software that many intelligence/DoD agencies are deploying: demos will be held Monday-Wednesday at 10:45/1:30/4:00 with mini-demos every 20 minutes.

Raytheon Booth 1401 Kim Warth kim.j.warth@raytheon.com www.raytheon.com

As an industry leader in data collection, processing, discovery, visualization, and analysis for the DoD and intelligence community, Raytheon is highlighting its latest analytic tools, tactical ISR solutions and forward-deployed situational awareness capabilities at this year’s GEOINT. Raytheon is launching the Intersect family of analytic solutions at the show. These customizable tools refine data into insight,

providing our customers with the relevant answers they need to ensure mission success.

As part of the team supporting Army ISR through DCGS-A, Raytheon will demonstrate its latest modernization efforts to take link analysis to the tactical edge through DCGS-Lite.

Raytheon will also demonstrate its Army Air Soldier system a next generation wearable computer and helmet mounted display ensuring forward-deployed rotary-wing air crews keep their situational awareness even outside the cockpit.

Riverside Research Booth 443 Jim Bower jbower@riversideresearch.org 703-908-2104 www.riversideresearch.org

Riverside Research, a not-for-profit solutions provider, is shaping the future of GEOINT through IR&D efforts that support rapid systems integration for global missions, graduate-level education, and mobile apps. Building on over three decades of specialized instruction, Riverside Research, in partnership with the Air Force Institute of Technology, authored a first-of-its-kind textbook called The Phenomenology of Intelligence-Focused Remote Sensing. The company also partnered with IBM and Exelis to leverage commercial big data analytics and cloud-based PED systems to greatly reduce ISR data processing time. Visit booth #443 to learn how, and be sure to ask about Seamless Solutions for Mobile GEOINT.

TerraGo Booth 437 John Timar jtimar@terragotech.com www.terragotech.com

Visit booth 437 to experience TerraGo Vision, our powerful platform that helps customers discover the most relevant information from any source and deliver actionable location intelligence wherever it is needed for strategic decision making. In addition, see the latest TerraGo geospatial collaboration solutions that allow field personnel and decision makers on mobile devices to access, update and share placebased intelligence inside and outside their agencies. Booth visitors can also learn how TerraGo 3D Composer allows users to leverage LiDAR point clouds, digital elevation models and imagery to create dynamic, interactive 3D GeoPDF models for situational awareness.

GIF 11.7 | 17

INDUSTRY RASTER Mobile Mapping Software Speeds Data Collection Seeking to connect desktop and mobile workflows in a seamless platform, Esri has released ArcPad 10.2. ArcPad is mobile mapping and field data collection software designed for GIS professionals. The new version of ArcPad improves synchronization with the ArcGIS platform and speeds data collection in the field with new automation options. Esri’s latest release of ArcPad gives users the ability to directly open ArcGIS feature services in ArcPad and synchronize edits with hosted or on-premises GIS. The new capability significantly improves

Imaging Satellites Focus on World’s Highest Mountains Following the successful first coverage of the Earth’s entire land surface delivered in early 2012, Astrium’s WorldDEM data collection has now advanced another key step with the completion of the second coverage. A slight adjustment to the acquisition angles of the satellites was used during the second coverage to eliminate any remaining height ambiguities in the first coverage data takes. While the first coverage already generated quality levels close to the final dataset specifications, with the second coverage now dual baseline processing techniques are applied to increase the homogeneity of the global coverage. The two twin satellites are now focusing their full attention on the Earth’s challenging terrain areas. They are taking a third and sometimes even fourth look at the high-altitude mountain ranges of the globe, like the Himalayas, Alps and Cordilleras in North and South America. The purpose of this additional data take is to ensure that details even in steep terrain, valleys, canyons or gorges are made visible that might otherwise be hidden due to shadow areas. The combined processing of these various data takes will ensure the globally consistent high quality and level of accuracy for the final WorldDEM product.

mobile workflows by enabling disconnected editing of published services.

In addition, ArcPad gives users the ability to automate edits with a Quick Fields option, which can be customized to autopopulate any field during data collection. For users who rely on desktop workflows that revolve around file sharing and distribution, ArcPad 10.2 includes new ArcGIS Online integration. With this option, users can store their ArcPad projects and QuickProject templates as an ArcPad package in their ArcGIS Online accounts for sharing with members of their group.

Merger Creates Major Location-Based Data Provider Watershed Sciences Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to merge with two of the leading providers of geospatial services and solutions—AeroMetric and Photo Science—to form Quantum Spatial, which will become is the largest provider of location-based tools, analytics and data in North America. Quantum Spatial plans to invest significantly to enhance its solutions, as well as expand its newly launched family of GeoApps, a suite of cloud-based, enterprisewide operational solutions. Patrick Olson, the chief executive officer of AeroMetric, will be the new chief executive officer of Quantum Spatial. G. Michael Ritchie, president and chief executive officer of Photo Science, will serve as Quantum Spatial’s chief operating officer.

Crowdsourcing Application Simplifies Incident Reporting Intergraph Mobile Alert is a new mobile application for crowdsourcing incident information that simplifies reporting for citizens. Cities benefit by enlisting the masses to help define and pinpoint issues, such as road or utility line damage. With crowdsourcing to collect data about city infrastructure growing in popularity, Intergraph’s Mobile Alert allows citizens with GPS-enabled smartphones to play an active role in their regions by immediately sending incident information to authorities. The launch of Mobile Alert supports Intergraph’s efforts to bring mobile solutions to the marketplace that function as an extension of the overall enterprise, with the ability to access geospatial data and asset and incident information in the field for real-time reviewing and updating.

Stephanie Deemer; stephanie.deemer@intergraph.com

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www.GIF-kmi.com

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Air Force Seeks Development of Enterprise Collection Planner Riverside Research’s Modeling and Application Development Laboratory (MAD Lab) has been awarded a subcontract by Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solutions to support the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (AF DCGS) Program Office at Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Ga., in developing the Enterprise Collection Planner (ECP). The ECP will enable DCGS collection planners to automatically or manually generate route and sensor plans based upon common collection parameters. It will also provide near real-time, 3-D visualizations of flown missions in a Visual Aircraft Mission Management Portal (VAMMP), a planning and analysis tool

FMV System Adds Automatic Target-Detection Software General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems’ deployable, mobile and highly tactical system to capture and manage full motion video (FMV), TAC-MAAS, now features Sentient’s Kestrel Land Moving Target Indication and Kestrel Maritime automatic target detection software. This integrated offering allows mission operators and analysts to quickly transform raw data from unmanned systems into actionable intelligence and streamline the postmission forensic analysis of video.

Designed for in-theater operations where ease-of-use and low system overhead are vital, TAC-MAAS enables operators and analysts to capture and manage FMV by discovering, tagging and analyzing mission-critical events in real time. When combined with Kestrel’s ability to automatically detect a variety of targets in airborne electro-optical and infrared aerial live video streams, analysts will be able to detect small, slow-moving targets on land and water that might otherwise have been missed or gone undetected using traditional means.

Jessica Howe; jessica.howe@gd-ais.com

www.GIF-kmi.com

designed by the MAD Lab under this subcontract. VAMMP will allow collection planners to clearly see how a sensor’s footprint is affected by aircraft routes, terrain features and other analytical components. Leveraging experience with the previously developed Automated Collection Planning Tool, a satellite collection planning suite used by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the interactive Aircraft Mission Planner, Riverside Research will collaborate with other Lockheed Martin team members in developing the ECP. John Ploschnitznig; jploschnitznig@riversideresearch.org

Geoimaging Solution Serves Oblique, 3-D Sensors Visual Intelligence has released a new geoimaging solution for the rapidly growing oblique and 3-D sensing market.

The iOne n-Oblique is a multi-purpose, high performance sensor that allows collection companies of all sizes to take advantage of new revenue opportunities related to oblique and 3-D imagery. The iOne n-Oblique takes advantage of the iOne Sensor Tool Kit Architecture, a next-generation software/hardware foundation for high-performing, multi-purpose 2-D/3-D geoimaging sensors for aerial, terrestrial and mobile applications.

Rich Miller; rmiller@dstreetpr.com

Software Creates Fully Textured 3-D Building Models PCI Geomatics, a developer of remote sensing and photogrammetric software and systems, and partner IAVO have released 3D FeatureXtract (3DFE). By calculating feature heights and outlines of overlapping satellite or aerial imagery, 3DFE can model 3-D features in a 2-D environment, and it does this without any need for specialized hardware. PCI Geomatics continues to provide leading-edge tools to correct satellite and aerial imagery, having recently released its GXL 2013 software, which includes innovative 2.5-D hybrid DSM-to-DTM editing tools. With 3DFE, customers perform true ortho processing, delineate building footprints, and create fully textured 3-D building models.

Kevin R. Jones Director; jones@pcigeomatics.com

Multispectral Sensor Combines Capabilities in One Unit BAE Systems has introduced one of the smallest multispectral sensors available for unmanned systems, helping to improve soldier situational awareness by reducing the time required to identify targets. The company’s Digitally Fused Sensor System (DFSS) offers a combination of multiple capabilities in a single sensor so that users can intuitively assess a scene using an unmanned vehicle in time-critical situations. The DFSS system allows soldiers to see laser designator spots even in darkness, making it easier to coordinate and confirm target marking with unmanned aerial vehicles. The shading and high-definition imagery provide depth to the scene, and rapid target acquisition is enabled when the system cues the operator to potential problem areas. By blending low-light and infrared images in a single display, fighting forces get a broad range of imaging options, including full daylight, deep shadows, dawn and dusk, illuminated night operations and darkness. The unmanned aerial, ground or underwater vehicle provides the picture via a sensor mounted to the vehicle.

Eric Hansen; eric.hansen@baesystems.com GIF 11.7 | 19

Enabling Advanced Geospatial Analytics    

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predictive analytics in order to solve complex problems and assist decision makers focus limited resources. Our expert geospatial analysts help reduce the search space and employ foundational geospatial data to identify underlying factors in the most problematic areas of interest.

To learn more about our analytic solutions, go to geoint.digitalglobe.com

A N A LY S T R E A D Y H U M A N G E O G R A P H Y L AY E R S

P R E D I C T I V E A N A LY T I C S F O R

S U P P O R T I N G G LO B A L M I S S I O N S

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M U LT I S O U R C E I N T E L L I G E N C E A N A LY S E S

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A N T I C I PAT I N G R I S K S & O P P O R T U N I T I E S

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#1119 at GEOINT 2013

GHARDAIA, ALGERIA

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INT Integrator

Q& A

Providing Access GEOINT Knowledge and Broadening Analytic Expertise

Letitia A. Long Director National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Letitia A. Long was appointed director of the National GeospatialIntelligence Agency on August 9, 2010.

Prior to her appointment, Long served as deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from May 2006 until July 2010. Previously, she was the deputy undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Policy, Requirements, and Resources) from June 2003 until May 2006. She also served as the deputy director of Naval Intelligence from July 2000 to June 2003 and as the director of Central Intelligence’s Executive Director for Intelligence Community Affairs from January 1998 to June 2000, where she was responsible for communitywide policy formulation, resource planning, and program assessment and evaluation.

Long entered civilian federal service with the U.S. Navy in 1978 as a project engineer in training with the David Taylor Research Center. Upon completion of her degree in 1982, she continued with the David Taylor Research Center for six years, working on various submarine acoustic sensor programs. In 1988, Long joined the Office of the Director of Naval Intelligence, where she managed intelligence research and development programs.

Long was selected into the Senior Intelligence Executive Service in July 1994 and was dual-hatted as the director, Requirements, Plans, Policy and Programs Office for the Navy intelligence staff, as well as the director of Resource Management for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). From 1994 to 1996, Long was on rotational assignment from ONI to the DIA as the director of military intelligence staff. In 1996, Long joined DIA as the deputy director for Information Systems and Services where she directed DIA’s worldwide information technology and communications programs. Long was also DIA’s first chief information officer.

Long earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Catholic University of America. She is the recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Civilian Service, the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive, the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive (two awards), the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal (two awards) and the Defense Intelligence Agency Director’s Award (two awards).

In 2011 Long received the Charlie Allen Award for Distinguished Intelligence Service from the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, was decorated with the Medal of Merit by the King of Norway, and was appointed to the rank of Chevalier in the National Order of the Legion of Honor of France. www.GIF-kmi.com

Q: You recently spoke at the annual meeting of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers and the need to attract “brilliant young minds.” Can you elaborate on that?

A: As you know, we live in a world of rapidly evolving and ever more complex threats. DNI Clapper calls them the most challenging range of threats the nation has ever faced. The threats of counterterrorism, counterproliferation, counterintelligence and cyber require the community’s constant attention. At the same time, we must continually evolve to stay a step ahead of those threats. To evolve more rapidly than these threats, we must achieve the DNI’s highest priority of intelligence integration.

For this truly integrated community to emerge will require the fresh insights and multi-tasking skills of the next generation of analysts that we can attract to our agencies. NGA is undergoing a tremendous transformation. And we will only succeed in our transformation with the talent, intelligence, enthusiasm and diversity that today’s gifted young people will use to energize our bright tomorrow.

Q: The agency has a strong background, but you have been quick to point out that it’s not the same agency it was two decades ago.

What is different?

A: NGA delivers world-class GEOINT that provides decisive advantage to warfighters, policymakers, intelligence professionals and first responders, and we are proud of our heritage.

GIF 11.7 | 21

In our history, the Defense Mapping Agency, which was established in 1972 in Bethesda and St. Louis, made maps and charts for the Army, Navy and Air Force for 30 years. The National Photographic Interpretation Center was the joint imagery analysis agency studying images from the U-2, SR-71 Blackbird and Corona satellites from the 1950s until the 1990s. In 1996, Congress united these two organizations with six other components from across the community to form the National Imagery and Mapping Agency—NIMA. The purpose was to maximize the strengths and effectiveness of integrating the foundation data from mapping and the analytic precision from imagery.

Between 1996 and 2001, the groundwork for creating the GEOINT discipline was laid, often overcoming cultural misunderstandings, geographic separation and normal resistance to change.

But the events of September 11th changed everything. And under the leadership of then-Director Clapper, NIMA was transformed into NGA with missions to fight two wars simultaneously as we continued to carry out our Title 10 safety of navigation and Title 50 national intelligence responsibilities.

Between 2002 and 2010, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, by every account from the combatant commanders and the troops on the ground, NGA provided superb GEOINT to the warfighter under the leadership of Directors Jim Clapper and Admiral Bob Murrett.

And we upheld every other mission, especially strategic intelligence over denied areas like North Korea and Iran, and disaster responses like Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti Earthquake.

By 2010, NGA had emerged from its defining decade and could rightly claim its place at the table as a vital contributor to the national security. NGA had arrived.

Q: Which brings us to today.

A: The gains made during that decade only showed us that we faced even more daunting threats along with fiscal challenges in the future. Starting in 2010, we studied the world situation, anticipated the current budget crisis, foresaw the rapidly evolving threats and opportunities social media has created, and anticipated the rebalance to the Pacific. We understood that with the explosion of the Internet, cellphones, video and the like, geospatial information would become ubiquitous—and a vital, if not the essential, source of intelligence.

In this rapidly evolving world, if NGA were to continue to fulfill our mission of providing timely, relevant, and accurate GEOINT, we knew we had to change—and change dramatically.

That fundamental change is stated in our Vision: “Putting the Power of GEOINT in the Hands of the User.” We are realizing that vision by achieving two goals: Provide online, on-demand access to our GEOINT knowledge; and broaden and deepen our analytic expertise to produce new value for our customers.

Q: This is part of NGA’s evolution?

A: Yes. We are not just a GEOINT data store where you go shop for the latest map, or an analysis cell where you work with a group of analysts to solve a problem. We are both at the same time and so much more. Today, we are in the throes of building a new NGA around, though, and on top of the architecture of the old NGA while we keep the whole enterprise running smoothly.

Essentially, we’re building a stealth bomber around a fighter jet while we’re flying combat missions. We are building a seamless, dynamic Map of the World that will integrate all of our foundation 22 | GIF 11.7

NGA is embracing change and encouraging innovation as part of its evolution.

[Photo courtesy of the NGA]

GEOINT and safety of navigation data, feature data, imagery, and intelligence analysis into one common frame of reference. This Map of the World will put GEOINT at the heart of—and shape the core of—the communitywide object-based production environment. This environment is a major new DNI core intelligence business process based on the simple idea of “one object—one time.”

Q: So, it’s all about integration?

A: Absolutely, integration is key. Using standard data structures and formats all data about any object of interest—any person, place or thing—can be easily shared with and accessed by anyone with the need to know. Imagine the fast, efficient work that SIGINT, HUMINT, GEOINT and MASINT analysts can do when they have in one place and one time all the most up-to-date information about the same subject! This will mean a revolutionary change in integration and collaboration. NGA analysts have already begun to receive the benefits of the early stages of this integration with our expanded Integrated Working Group [IWG] concept combined with the new Integrated Analytic Environment, or the IAE as we refer to it.

Since 2011, we have set up and tested three IWGs—one for Iran to solve complex intelligence questions, one for disaster response to work in the unclassified environment, and one for Yemen-Horn of Africa to address gaps in foundation data and content. The IWGs broke down the stovepipes across the agency and brought together analysts, source collectors, application developers, security specialists, imagery scientists, researchers, human resources reps, trainers and anyone who touched the topic into one space to gain synergies from that close constant contact.

We found that the real benefits came from those daily “ah-ha” moments of personal interaction, the shortcuts that saved days or weeks, the questions answered in minutes rather than days, or never.

We are now figuring out how to scale these principles to an entire analytic enterprise.

The IAE drove two major changes—first, it dramatically shortened the acquisition cycle for applications from years to months through a series of 60-day drops developed with the analysts. And it created an online presence where an analyst could put all of her apps, databases, products, news services, etc., to save enormous amounts of time searching for and arranging data.

Q: What is the expanded integration working group concept? www.GIF-kmi.com

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A: While the first steps for the Map of the World, the Integrated Working Groups and the IAE made excellent starts, they are only the beginning. NGA is changing more rapidly than any other intelligence agency.

We at NGA have done more in our short 17-year life as an agency, to embrace change and to encourage innovation. And the changes are just beginning. We are transforming NGA from a static producer of maps and imagery products into a dynamic provider of GEOINT content, analysis and services.

NGA is the catalyst for the integration of all of the intelligence disciplines for one simple reason. Everything, everyone, and every activity on earth has a time and a place—a spatial-temporal or georeference. This unique spatial-temporal reference anchors everything, everyone, and every action on the earth. It creates a unique framework for each object.

And all of the information we can gather about that object—signals, HUMINT, human geography—can be tagged to that object.

This geo-referenced one object one time acts as the foundation for integrated intelligence analysis across all the disciplines. As that foundation, GEOINT anchors all the INTs in the earth.

Q: So, data collection is important, but analysis is its equal partner?

A: That’s right, and we are the community leader in advanced analytics that is deriving big value from big data through a variety of advanced methodologies.

For example, activity based intelligence enables our analysts to use multiple INTs to track activities and identify patterns that discover essential unknowns, such as hidden facilities or targets that adversaries would rather keep secret.

NGA’s advanced analytic methodologies are moving toward a collective sense-making environment in which analysts participate in an iterative, collaborative process where they live within the data.

Rather than focus on targets and points on the earth, they focus on observations, relationships, assessments and objects laden with data from many INTs. They work together in virtual and physical integrated working groups to discover unique insights that give decision makers more time and space to act faster and make wiser decisions.

Given these rapid changes, NGA continues to serve the broadest national security mission as both a combat support agency and a national intelligence agency.

Q: Without a doubt, NGA is the premier provider of geospatial intelligence to the defense, intelligence and civilian communities.

Whether U.S. military—from the combatant commander to the warfighter on the ground—policymakers who require unique insight and strategic intelligence, or mariners and pilots, they all depend on your foundation data and analysis. But what about international and partner support?

A: We work with international and coalition partners in military and humanitarian operations across the globe, for example the earthquakes in Haiti and Pakistan; the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan; and coalition operations in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Q: You mentioned assistance to first responders of natural disasters is important for you as well. What has changed in the way you provide GEOINT? 24 | GIF 11.7

A: In disaster response, we have made great strides in meeting our goal of online, on-demand access. Consider our support to FEMA for the Colorado floods. We deployed two analysts and launched our analysis and collaboration tools to support search and rescue efforts and provide flooding and damage assessments.

Our unclassified disaster event web page served as a hub for GEOINT. Responders could submit information requests, access products that illustrated damage areas, and share information. This tool was first used after Hurricane Sandy and now is a standard element of our disaster-response service. By streamlining processes and making products available on-demand, we can focus analyst time on the complex problems.

Our GeoQ system integrates imagery and analysis from all sources—including news reports and publicly available social media streams—for analysts to review simultaneously. This results in much faster assessments and helps focus and prioritize limited resources. And by tracking search-and-rescue operations via GPS logs, and graphically depicting completed searches, we helped prevent duplicate searches and overlooking damaged structures.

We have made tremendous progress, but we will continue to innovate to provide even better support.

Q: Everyone wants integration of the intelligence community but what are the steps to get there?

A: In our drive to lead the community toward integration, I believe we share three imperatives. This transition requires a highly skilled, diverse workforce that understands not only intelligence analysis, but especially intelligence integration. And they must have the skills and passion to make it our new reality.

First, in general, we need a diverse, agile workforce with critical skillsets in big data analytics, visualization and advanced sensors. In particular, NGA needs world-class experts in geomatics, global GEOINT content, emerging technologies and advanced analytic techniques.

Second, our stakeholders need to encourage policymakers to support and resource intelligence integration. It is the DNI’s highest priority. It is the only way we can keep a step ahead of our adversaries in our complex future.

Third, there needs to be support for NGA’s vision of GEOINT as the catalyst for intelligence integration. The work of every intelligence discipline is anchored in GEOINT. Every signal emanates from someone or something, somewhere. Every cyber network has an infrastructure of real people, places and things. Every human source, every human activity happens somewhere, sometime.

Q: Any closing thoughts?

A: NGA is not only willing to lead—we are leading intelligence integration. We have built our program and budget toward that end.

Together we must tackle these imperatives and accelerate the pace of change. We must bring a sense of urgency to our imperatives and take real actions now to make a real difference.

The demand for GEOINT knowledge, information and data continues to grow, and it is our responsibility to meet this demand when and where it is needed. By realizing this vision, we will propel our nation ahead of our adversaries by ensuring that we can—see what they cannot, know what we should not, and act first. O www.GIF-kmi.com

Companies supplement government programs to develop people with the skills to “think like an analyst.”

Working under pressing deadlines to understand a deluge of data, successful intelligence analysts need a daunting array of skills. They must be able to form multiple plausible hypotheses and judge all possible hypotheses against all-source reporting, while mastering the use of the increasing flow of full motion video data as well as old fashioned human and signals intelligence.

Some may be born for the job, but for most, training is needed—not just in terms of technical issues or even the substantive facts about the area or people being studied, but also to inculcate effective ways to approach problems and “think like an analyst.”

Responding to the government’s demand for such skilled individuals, a number of companies are providing classroom, web-based, in-field and other forms of training, laying the groundwork for or supplementing intelligence analyst training offered by the agencies themselves. These providers are working with government organizations as well as individuals who have security clearances or could be cleared, and are seeking an intelligence career.

A common phrase says that what analysts need to be able to do is to “connect the dots,” finding links between seemingly disparate data. But many in the field, such as Karen T. Morr, training development and marketing executive at SAIC, find that conception far too limited.

“Throughout their careers, analysts are taught how to use analytic tools and methods appropriate for intelligence questions and how to identify and mitigate the effects of assumptions, biases, information gaps, and denial and deception,” said Morr, a veteran of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

As this issue went to press, SAIC’s national security business was becoming part of a company named Leidos, following 26 | GIF 11.7

By William Murray, GIF Correspondent

the corporation’s separation into two indeEducation Training Directorate at Riverside pendent, publicly traded companies.

Research, have been focusing on how to According to Darin Powers, vice reach the younger generation through president for DynCorp International’s working with higher education partners.

Intelligence Security Business Team, it is In response to this emerging workforce vital that intelligence analysts can genneed, Riverside Research has partnered with erate multiple hypotheses, Wilberforce University, the and also test these theories nation’s oldest private, hisagainst new data they come torically black higher eduacross. “Sometimes we rule cation institution, to teach out competing hypotheses a classified-level intelligence prematurely,” he said. gathering course through It’s no different than in its Engineering Department. law enforcement work, when Students are receiving secuinvestigators sometimes rule rity clearances through the out suspects prematurely, program, which began a he observed. In some cases, year ago, and these students Karen T. Morr intelligence analysts should could become future intelbe prepared to review more ligence analysts. Riverside data before settling on a parResearch has also partnered ticular thesis exclusively. with Northland Community Training for intelligence and Technical College in analysts helps students Minnesota, which provides understand the goal of proa three-credit full-motion viding the best information video analysis course for possible given the time and students. data available. “Intelligence In the trenches providanalysis bounds uncertainty ing intelligence analysis and helps decision makers training for more than 10 Darin Powers make the best decisions posyears during the post-9/11 sible on national security era, Riverside Research offiissues given the time and cials see their role as one to information available,” Morr “train the trainer” in intellisaid, adding that such work gence analysis, according to can be frustrating for those Yantko. “We’re not coming who more comfortable with in to replace anyone. We’re yes-or-no answers and 100 looking at gaps in capability,” percent confidence. and helping to meet those needs, he said.

Indeed, the military Workforce Issues Stephen Yantko already has extensive training resources for analysts, Another issue is that, like including Air Force programs at Goodfellow much of the federal workforce, the current Air Force Base, Texas, and the Army cadre of intelligence analysts is aging. As a Intelligence Center of Excellence at Fort result, people like Stephen Yantko, deputy Huachuca, Ariz. director for plans and programs within the www.GIF-kmi.com

In addition, ATIC provides 90- to 100In addition, Riverside Research officials hour, three-week Air National Guard trainare deploying distance learning to provide ing for the Global Hawk mission, for enlisted graduate level education for the Air Force personnel from mechanics to analysts. “Our Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson bread and butter is to provide customized Air Force Base, Ohio, using video capture training courses,” so that graduates are preand capabilities from education technology pared to adroitly battle the perennial chalprovider Blackboard, according to Shawn A. lenges that can emerge, Quillen said.

Kalis, research director for the company’s ATIC is the first non-Department of Education Training Directorate.

Defense organization asked to join the Riverside Research is not limiting its Defense Intelligence Training horizons to the United and Education Board. While States. “We’re trying to make that reflects the high regard training available to students that IC officials hold for ATIC, in other countries, including Quillen acknowledges the Afghanistan, Iraq and Saudi organization’s limits. “We’re Arabia, through blended not interested or capable of learning,” which can include replacing agency training,” platforms such as Blackboard he said. and traditional face-to-face Another factor in the classes, Kalis said. training equation is the curA veteran of decades of Shawn A. Kalis rent federal spending limits.

Air Force training programs, “Sequestration has impacted the governKalis acknowledges that the rising generment position,” Quillen said, since there ation of tech-savvy young people tends to is less discretionary funding for trainapproach the problem of connecting the ing. “There’s a one-year moratorium for dots differently than their elders. “I see them contract positions.” fact-checking on Google during class” using ATIC claims an 80 percent placement smartphones and laptops, he said, despite rate for graduates of its 10-week analyst admonitions from their professors about boot camp. the need to pay attention in class and to use Wide area airborne analyst training is credible sources for information. another growing need, and it is more com“They’re inundated with information,” plicated to master such media than still Kalis said of the students. “It’s a lot easier imagery, according to Quillen. Rather than to connect the dots afterwards,” but not so have students focus only on information easy under heavy pressure from military and they learn in class, teachers want their stucivilian superiors demanding quick answers dents to isolate the key components within on tight deadlines. data, understand the “what” in each piece of evidence and draw their own conclusions Analyst Boot Camp using predictive analysis.

The company has seen its intelligence Another intelligence analyst training proanalyst training students go to work for the vider, the Advanced Technical Intelligence CIA, DIA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Center (ATIC), provides a 10-week intelAgency, NSA and military services. ligence analyst boot camp for entry level ATIC officials try to teach their students analysts. The course’s $10,000 cost can be and graduates to use technology effectively in covered by veterans’ education benefits. carrying out their work, according to Quillen.

ATIC also provides training for companies “You need to stay on top of it,” he said. and organizations.

In addition to being able to use the soft“There’s a steady steam of analysts who ware effectively to develop hypotheses and want to get a leg up over other analysts,” said to test them, intelligence analysts need to Chris Quillen, ATIC’s senior vice president effectively communicate their findings to and director of operations, and this desire to decision makers. Writing such intelligence be better motivates them to make the comproducts is not something that all intellimitment to complete the program. gence analysts do well, Quillen noted, so “We’re providing training across the students practice it in intelligence analyst globe,” he added, thanks in part to the training courses.

U.S. government’s loosening up of requireDynCorp’s Powers pointed to a need ments for international intelligence analyst for multi-lingual, cross-cultural training training providers.

28 | GIF 11.7

among intelligence analysts. “We have a heavy bias as Americans,” he said.

Bias within a dominant culture can be hard to perceive, since it is subtle, unchallenged and pervasive. “The better we understand it, the better we can understand our adversary,” Powers said.

DynCorp provides intelligence analyst training online, in the classroom and in the field. On average, about two-thirds of training is offered in a field classroom.

Pre-training to prepare for the course is also available, which makes delivery of the course more cost effective, given that home station time is precious for many intelligence analysts.

Best Practices In the area of core analytic tradecraft, SAIC/Leidos teaches critical thinking, writing and briefing, and best practices in community collaboration for intelligence analysts serving in the intelligence community as well as in the military and law enforcement communities. “We also teach specialized analytic training in denial and deception, targeting, warning, social network and open source analysis,” Morr said.

The company helps “augment up-todate subject matter expertise by providing courses and seminars in weapons of mass destruction, counterintelligence, terrorism, measurement and signature intelligence, human intelligence, geospatial intelligence, signals intelligence and formulating valuable collection strategies,” Morr said. “For supervisors of analysts, we provide a forum to examine and reach a common understanding of what is meant by a high-quality intelligence product for senior government leadership as well as a common vocabulary for applying quality standards in the review of intelligence products.”

There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy, she continued. “Because of unique missions and customers, each IC member is in the best position to determine its particular training and education needs, delivery strategy, and the most appropriate organizational model to oversee its analytic training programs, including the role of contractors.”

Contractors serve as part-time and fulltime resources to help government intelligence analysts, in some cases working on site, while others work on call. “These intelligence analysis training requirements change with the national security issues and threat environment, student throughput www.GIF-kmi.com

training and interactive tools to reach analysts around the world, keep their skill sets and knowledge current, and encourage collaboration on difficult threat issues.

“Areas such as cyber-threats, for example, require close to real-time updates by experts on the latest techniques used by hostile actors, their plans and intentions, lessons learned, and best practices that can best be delivered by leveraging the Internet and industry and academia best practices in contemporary adult education,” Morr said.

DoD is in the process of implementing various intelligence career field certifications. “Generally, certification will involve satisfying a mix of training and experiential assignments, such as participating on task forces, short tours of duty to the combatant commands or rotational assignments in the intelligence community,” she explained.

But certification is no guarantee for successful on-the-job performance by an intelligence analyst. “Certification helps define competencies and career paths, but it cannot guarantee successful on-the-job performance in the high-paced and demanding

work environment of intelligence professionals,” Morr said.

“Successful intelligence analysts are not only experts in their fields of study and well trained in analytic tradecraft standards, but they also have a passion for substance, intellectual curiosity, rigor and discipline, tolerance for ambiguity, objectivity, judgment, integrity and courage,” she added, pointing to issues of character and virtues that may not be susceptible to classroom instruction.

So while training can help an intelligence analyst perfect his or her craft, the key to success is a long-term commitment to study and practice. One can’t take a crash course and become an expert. “Their expertise is acquired over time and in many ways, including significant personal investment in study and practice,” Morr said. O

For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup. com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.

Image Courtesy of f the DoD.

requirements, the experience levels of the analysts, and budget resources,” Morr said.

The company uses adult learning tools and techniques, and provides graphic artists, multi-media specialists, and gaming and simulations experts as part of an integrated training team, according to Morr.

Such a creative approach may suit the needs of intelligence analysts better than a more traditional strategy, which takes less effort, she said.

“Training needs, both in terms of instructor expertise and delivery methods, are continually evolving because of the changing threat environment, the availability of larger volumes of data, and the growing demands of policymakers, warfighters, and homeland security and law enforcement officers for decision advantage in a complex world,” Morr noted.

Technology has a key role in providing effective training for intelligence analysts, she said. “Employing the latest and best practices in information technology can significantly scale and augment classroom training by leveraging web-based

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GIF 11.7 | 29

Compression Acceleration Transmitting huge geospatial images is getting faster, but speeding video imagery remains a challenge.

By Harrison Donnelly GIF Editor

After more than a decade of helping analysts work with and transmit geospatial imagery files, MrSID has gotten a makeover designed to speed performance and enable users to cope with the massive amounts of data being produced by aerial and satellite sensors.

MrSID—or multi-resolution seamless image database for those more formally inclined—is a file format provided

by LizardTech for encoding of orthophotos and other georeferenced raster graphics. Its key capability is to compress large data sets, such as aerial and 30 | GIF 11.7

“You can have images that might be satellite imagery, down to a very small file hundreds of gigabytes in size, and comsize while still keeping the visual quality press them down to around very high.

5 percent of the original file With support in all size, but the visual qualmajor GIS applications and ity is such that the human no major direct competitor eye can’t tell the difference on the market, MrSID has between the compressed become a de facto indusand the source image,” try standard for compresexplained Jon Skiffington, sion, and a key tool for LizardTech’s director of the National Geospatialproduct management. “We Intelligence Agency and call that visually lossless other organizations workJon Skiffington compression. ing with still imagery. www.GIF-kmi.com

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“That’s important because organizations like NGA are the largest users of aerial and satellite imagery in the world. The amount of data they collect, with the frequency of revisit times and the increased resolution of sensors, is huge. The MrSID format has been very popular for that, by making the imagery not only easier to view and work with, but also to send downrange. We can talk about how much bandwidth there is and how cheap storage is, and that’s true to a certain extent, but we’re talking about warfighters who are deployed at the last tactical mile, where there are slow bandwidth connections. So MrSID has been a very popular format for those users, because the decrease in file size makes the imagery much easier to work with and to send,” Skiffington said.

GeoExpress is LizardTech’s application for creating and manipulating MrSid files.

The company recently released GeoExpress 9, with improvements aimed at making processing up to four times faster.

“Over the past few years, we’ve been adding more and more functionality for things like image manipulation, and support for more bands for users collecting hyperspectral data. We’ve done a lot of things to add functionality for working with MrSID files. But one of the detriments of doing that is that the more processing you do to a file, the longer it takes,” Skiffington said. “For a long time, people have been saying the software is great, but needs to be faster.

That’s what we did with this release.

Everything we did was focused on performance. In many cases, customers will see performance that is four times faster than previous versions.”

Processing Speed A key strategy behind GeoExpress 9 is to improve performance by taking advantage of hardware improvements, especially the widespread adoption of multi-core processing. In recent years, major manufacturers have placed two or more central processing units, or cores, on their chips, thus increasing processing speed.

“The idea is that you can get better performance without drawing more power and generating more heat,” Skiffington said. “In a lot of cases, you can think of a core as another processor.

32 | GIF 11.7

For example, my laptop has one processor, but it has four cores. That means it can do four things at the same time. We take advantage of that, so that if customers have four processors and two cores apiece, they can now run eight jobs at one time with GeoExpress, compared with one in the past.”

That approach works not only for multiple different jobs, he continued, but also for tackling a single big problem. “What if you have one really big job? We addressed by taking that one job, spreading it across four processors, and getting substantially improved performance. A job that might have taken an hour will now take 10 or 15 minutes, so it’s a big performance boost.

The turnaround time from getting imagery to deploying it out is much faster than before. If they need to work on the imagery, for example by combining two data sets, they can do that faster than ever before.”

The new release also seeks to improve ease of use, for example by facilitating the use of automated functionality to crop portions of images for transmission. “We have a workflow that we called ‘optimizing,’ which provides a fast way of cropping out the image that didn’t result in any image degradation or the need to fully reprocess the image. It took advantage of the MrSID format to rapidly perform the operation,” Skiffington said.

“The problem was that it was confusing,” he added. “Most people didn’t know when they could do this and when they couldn’t. They didn’t necessarily realize the option was there within GeoExpress.”

Video Issues Assessing MrSID’s role in the marketplace, Skiffington observed that its only real “competitor” is JPEG 2000, an ISO compression standard that is similar to MrSID and is supported within GeoExpress.

“JPEG has really good compression for lossy data, so you can have high image fidelity even with small file sizes. It also offers lossless compression. But there are a lot more knobs, dials and switches compared with MrSID, which can give you good performance across different workflows, and you don’t have to be an image expert,” he noted.

“Depending on the options you choose, JPEG 2000 can give you better

performance than MrSID, provided you know what workflows to use it for, and the right options to select,” Skiffington continued. “Will you be panning across the image or zooming in on one small section? Will I be sending it over the Internet, or dealing with it locally? You can make a lot of changes to how you encode that image, and it can give better or worse performance depending on what you choose.”

For the future, Skiffington sees plenty of room for growth in the use of compression technology, especially as resulting from the expansion of use of unmanned sensors and the booming popularity of video imagery. In the latter case, however, there is still work to be done to achieve the full benefits of compression technology.

“There is still not a very good solution for how you work with video data, like there is with still imagery,” he acknowledged. “Photogrammetry and image analysis from still imagery—how you use it and manage it—are well understood.

Organizations have been doing that for a long time, but not many organizations have dealt with massive volumes of video data. How do you store it, retrieve it and find what you need in near real time?

That’s a problem that is going to need to be solved.”

Actually, video compression is in widespread use for the consumer and other markets, for example by the video site YouTube. “For our purposes, however, the question is how that translates into the geospatial field. There are a lot of issues with metadata that need to be figured out. For example, you want to know the geoposition of the device acquiring the data. But how do you find the geospatial positioning of what the device is looking at?

“While you can analyze where that object is, there isn’t a streamlined way of doing that, and then being able later to search quickly. It’s a data management problem more than an image compression problem. It’s something we’ve been looking at, but it’s still in the research stage for us,” Skiffington said. O

For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup. com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.

www.GIF-kmi.com

Intelligence community’s IT restructuring plan launches common desktop, applications mall and computing cloud.

By Harrison Donnelly, GIF Editor

so over time we will evolve every agency to use the same software The intelligence community reached an important milestone baseline, and in many cases consolidate that baseline to use centhis summer in development of a new information infrastructure, tral services. Instead of every agency building their with the initial deployment of a communitywide softown software desktop, as they do today, we will have ware desktop, the opening of an applications “mall” a common one for all, such as common collaboration and the launch of an IC computing cloud. services and email. The desktop is being produced by The steps on the path to creation of the IC the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Information Technology Enterprise (IC ITE) were Defense Intelligence Agency. made public during a recent press briefing by Al “The other concept that we are implementing is Tarasiuk, the IC chief information officer, who is leadan applications mall, with app stores in them. The ing the project. idea is to begin to rationalize the number of applicaLaunched nearly two years ago, the IC ITE began tions across the community. We can develop once and as an effort to reduce IT costs by consolidating have it used by many. We are basing the initial archiresources across the 17 members of the community.

Al Tarasiuk tecture for that on the Ozone Widget framework that But it has since transformed into a much broader NSA has used and proliferated across the community. So NSA is the effort to increase information sharing, security and effectiveness. provider, or governor as we call it, providing the apps mall, where As Tarasiuk explained, each separate aspect of the program every agency can have its own store. But we may decide to move to is being overseen by specific intelligence agencies with particular a central store for all the community,” said Tarasiuk. capabilities in that area. The CIA and NSA, for example, have been among the leaders in developing cloud computing capacity, and so were selected to provide the IC cloud.

Effectiveness and Security “The IC cloud is going to be privately hosted inside the IC, according to our security standards and security watch,” Tarasiuk Although originally proposed by Director of National Intelligence said. “We are moving toward a single desktop for the community, James Clapper in 2011 largely as a way of saving agencies’ IT www.GIF-kmi.com

GIF 11.7 | 33

spending, the IC ITE program’s goals have expanded to encompass greater integration and information sharing, made possible by ongoing improvements in technology.

“Our goals are about effectiveness, security and efficiency,” Tarasiuk noted. “In the past, these were mutually exclusive, but not anymore, because we believe that the price points at which we can obtain technology, and some of the things that we have invested in within the community with regards to security of data and other issues, now allow us to move down a vector that addresses all three at the same time.”

Another factor aiding the progress of the initiative is that it is not a major new program acquisition, but rather an effort to leverage investments already being made by the IC agencies. “Every agency invested in an IT architecture, heading on similar paths, such as cloud technology, thin clients, virtualization and focus on data rather than network protections. What we are doing in IC ITE is to harmonize those architectures, to establish over time a common architecture and platform for the community. So it’s not a gigantic program with a lot of milestones, with hard-set initial operating capability and full operating capability dates. It really is a series of projects that the agencies are already executing, which we are revectoring slightly to achieve commonality across the community,” Tarasiuk said.

In addition, the key combat support agencies—NSA, DIA, NGA and National Reconnaissance Office—had been heading toward consolidation of various pieces of the IT infrastructure already, Tarasiuk noted, and had done some work on developing a common desktop and consolidating networks.

But the most significant part of the effort, he suggested, is not so much in the technical architecture as in the business model used.

While agencies today provide for themselves, the goal is to implement a “service provider-based” model, where one or more of the big agencies are selected to become the providers of certain services to all.

Tarasiuk acknowledged that decisions remain to be made about how to pay for these services, either through centralized funding or by cost recovery from agencies. “We’re still deciding which will be which,” he said. “The ones where we need to manage user demand, such as cloud utilization, will be under a cost recovery model. Those that would be enabling services for the infrastructure, such as security, would be more the kind to be under central funding. But that’s still to be determined.”

The economies of scale provided by cloud computing will help with one of the key technical challenges facing the IC, which is to store, analyze and distribute the massive volumes of data generated by geospatial imagery and full motion video. But other steps will also help in that regard, he said: “We also have taken a look at how we move information once it’s collected, and bring it to where it needs to go for evaluation. We believe that there are opportunities for efficiencies, such as when there are multiple copies stored.”

Managing Change Looking back on 18 months of “feverish” work on IC ITE so far, Tarasiuk emphasized the cultural shifts needed to bring change about.

“It’s interesting that, even when you’re trying to provide an enhanced service to users, there has to be a typical cycle of change.

I’m not saying that there is resistance, but you would think that 34 | GIF 11.7

people who appreciate more the fact that you’re giving them new and better capabilities.

“The most difficult piece of this is managing the change. Trying to move multiple agencies toward a single path requires the leadership to be involved, including the directors of the agencies, who are tracking big actions and making sure that work is being done,” he continued.

But the effort involved has to be balanced against the benefits of the new system, including the common IC software desktop. “The desktop will have a common email system and common collaboration tools. It will also give us better access to data over time as we grow the data in the cloud. So as the community starts going in, with more users on the desktop, those users will then have collaboration capabilities to other agencies,” Tarasiuk noted.

“The beauty of what we’re doing is enforcing an IC standard for all data objects that go into the cloud,” he continued. “Today, agencies comply with security standards, but they implement them in different ways. This is where we believe we can improve information sharing over time, because when data is structured the same way from a tagging perspective, we will then be able to implement the concept that we call ‘tagging data, tagging users.’ We have automated systems that can determine if the user should have access to certain data. Today, if you sit in an agency and try to get information from a different agency, the data is locked down based on the way it was implemented.

“We’re trying to remove the technical roadblocks that keep that kind of sharing from moving the data. It’s not all going to be in one place, but it will be interconnected to the same styles and formats, so the automated engines can determine when a user can see the data or not,” Tarasiuk said.

In the coming year, officials plan to ensure the resilience of the current infrastructure instantiations, to make sure that they can move more production capabilities into it. Then they will scale up the number of desktops and the amount of data in the cloud, and bring in new services as well.

Although the CIO’s office is serving as overall systems integrator for the IC ITE, the project also includes substantial industry participation. Tarasiuk left this message for industry partners, which might also serve as guidance for all involved: “What I tell our industry partners is that they need to focus on the possibilities of innovation on this new platform. What does this new platform bring to the community besides a more efficient way of providing IT? It brings together data in a way that has not been possible in the past. We’ve done a lot with connecting data sets together, but nothing to this scale. This doesn’t mean that everyone has access to everything. All we are doing is removing technical barriers that potentially have caused us to duplicate data outside of firewalls, or maybe not get access because of the way it was locked in to legacy systems.

“We’re creating an environment where the mission elements of the community will be able to leverage in ways that they haven’t been able to do before,” he added. “I tell industry partners they may lose footprint from where they are today, because it’s inevitable that we are shrinking the amount of labor we will need to manage this infrastructure. The partners should worry more about how they can help mission take advantage of new capability.” O For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.

www.GIF-kmi.com

The advertisers index is provided as a service to our readers. KMI cannot be held responsible for discrepancies due to last-minute changes or alterations.

GIF RESOURCE CENTER

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Advertisers Index 2d3 Sensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 www.2d3sensing.com American Military University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 www.publicsafetyatamu.com/gif Aptima . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 www.aptima.com Astrium Geo-Information Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 www.astrium-geo.com BAE Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C2 www.baesystems.com/gxp Ball Aerospace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 www.ballaerospace.com DigitalGlobe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 http://geoint.digitalglobe.com DynCorp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 www.dyn-intl.com General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 www.gd-ais.com/cloud IHS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 www.ihs.com/geospatial LizardTech. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 www.lizardtech.com/tryit Lockheed Martin IS&GS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 www.lockheedmartin.com/mission-on-demand Pixia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 www.pixia.com PTFS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 www.ptfs.com Raytheon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 www.raytheon.com Riverside Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 www.riversideresearch.org TerraGo Technologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C3 www.terragotech.com/vision Worldwide Business Research Limited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 www.dgieurope.com

Learn more on page 12: Human-Centered Engineering

Showing to Tell www.aptima.com

Calender October 21-23, 2013 AUSA Annual Meeting Washington, D.C. www.ausa.org

March 23-28, 2014 Geospatial Power in Our Pockets Louisville, Ky. www.asprs.org/conferences

October 27-30, 2013 Imaging and Mapping for Disaster Management San Antonio, Texas www.asprs.org/conferences

May 5-9, 2014 SPIE Defense Security & Sensing Exhibition Baltimore, Md. www.spie.org/x6765.xml

October 29, 2013 SAP NS2 Solutions Summit Falls Church, Va. www.sapns2.com

May 19-22, 2014 Space Symposium Colorado Springs, Colo. www.spacefoundation.org

January 21-24, 2014 Defence Geospatial Intelligence London, U.K. www.wbresearch.com

October 5-8, 2014 GEOINT Symposium 2014 San Antonio, Texas http://geoint2013.com

February 10-12, 2014 2014 Federal GIS Conference Washington, D.C. www.esri.com/events/federal

December 2013 Volume 11, Issue 8

NEXT ISSUE

Cover and In-Depth Interview with

Lt. Gen. Raymond P. Palumbo Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Joint and Coalition Warfighter Support (invited) » Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise (DI2E)

» Military GIS » Geospatial Cybersecurity

» Feature Extraction

Bonus Distribution DGI 2014 January 21-24, 2014 London, U.K.

Insertion Order Deadline: November 8, 2013 • Ad Materials Deadline: November 15, 2013

www.GIF-kmi.com

GIF 11.7 | 35

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW

Geospatial Intelligence Forum

Rudi Ernst Founder and Chief Executive Officer Pixia Corporation Q: Tell us about yourself and why you formed Pixia?

A: I started my career at ABC Television and Walt Disney as a systems engineer focusing on multimedia data dissemination and visualization. I worked alongside brilliant technologists who were building solutions for multimedia content distribution and interactive media systems. The last major project I worked on for ABC Television was the Millennium show, where we virtually flew between various major cities around the world using commercial satellite imagery from Ikonos a couple of months after the satellite became operational in 1999.

At that time, the technical solutions were very expensive and it took weeks to render the animations from one city to another. We figured it out and it became a defining accomplishment in the history of media entertainment.

I left ABC/Disney in early 2000 to start Pixia with my brother Patrick. Our goal was to figure out how to store massive amounts of imagery and make it easily accessible using common hardware platforms. Although our technology is ideal for several industries, we decided to move to Washington, D.C., after the 9/11 terrorist attacks—we’re from New York City—to focus solely on supporting the DoD and intelligence community [IC]. We quickly discovered how the DoD and IC challenges of accessing massive amounts of geospatial data are almost identical to the multimedia challenges we overcame at ABC/Disney in the 1990s.

Q: You mentioned geospatial data access challenges; what are they?

A: In my opinion, the biggest challenge is [that] the infrastructure and backend that manages data tends to be an afterthought.

It’s natural to focus on the enduser applications in the infrastructure since they ultimately drive actionable intelligence. The problem is that the 36 | GIF 11.7

applications vary quickly, which causes the infrastructure and back-end to be almost the last thing considered.

In my opinion, apps will continue to come and go, but the back-end plumbing is the most critical enabler of all apps, which is where the government spends the most money. Building more high-bandwidth communications pipes will clearly help solve some of the challenges, but actually getting more out of the existing infrastructure and being more efficient with what you have will be more beneficial.

Q: So how does government overcome data access challenges to better operationalize intelligence?

A: Two ways. First, it’s critical to decouple the architecture to allow the IT requirements to be driven by the analysts and their screen resolutions, rather than the amount of data being collected by the sensors.

For example, if you needed more bandwidth coming into your home every time a satellite television provider adds more HD channels, that wouldn’t make sense. So why can’t we apply the same rationale to government’s management of geospatial data? The concept of streaming data on-demand based on a user’s exploitation or visualization tools is not the standard, but it should be. The current architecture is based on breaking up

large data into millions of files and then moving those files around the enterprise, which is slow, expensive and arduous to manage.

Second, government data access efficiencies can be improved dramatically by leveraging standard interfaces across the entire enterprise. The challenge is getting rid of the stovepipes. Cost and schedule are the main drivers for all program managers. Changing from old to new is never painless and usually comes with added costs and time. By mandating new standard open architecture interfaces at a senior level, and allowing additional time for that integration to occur, it is possible to achieve this goal. This should be the CIO’s responsibility, but they also need to be empowered appropriately. I believe CIOs should have enough power to actually mandate architecture and not merely recommend it.

So making data accessible and available to anyone around the world is how you operationalize intelligence. Keeping data hostage in stovepiped repositories, continuing to buy proprietary collection systems with unique data management constructs and formats coupled with archaic methods of moving data, simply does not make sense. If data owners focus on the plumbing, use standard open interfaces based on users’ screen resolutions decoupled from the collection platform architectures, then the data will have increased operational utility.

Q: What does the future look like in your industry?

A: The future of data access and management particularly for geospatial data will be amazing. The new sensors are incredibly capable. Persistent surveillance will be a reality and the technologists are finding new ways to fuse the data they now have, which I believe will be a game changer for activity-based intelligence.

I look forward to being a part of the innovations that fuse the types of data no one thought possible. O www.GIF-kmi.com

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