From IA to GA - and Everything in Between

February 27, 2009 By: Cyrena Respini-Irwin

The story of BAE Systems' SOCET GXP (Geospatial eXploitation Products) software package began five years ago. That's when the company began combining aspects of its existing photogrammetry and image analysis (IA) packages — SOCET SET and VITec — with GIS, multispectral, targeting, and other capabilities necessary for geospatial analysis (GA) and production. Dan London, vice president of sales and marketing for BAE Systems, explained that "the goal is to span the entire IA–GA market; [to create] a single user interface that addresses the entire market."

In addition to addressing the needs of organizations that work "in the middle" — performing both IA and GA — BAE Systems also sought to reduce the number of software packages that users need to perform their jobs. To that end, developers incorporated capabilities such as engineering calculations and multispectral/hyperspectral that would otherwise require an ENVI or ERDAS software package, said London.

Consolidating functionality is especially important in the military, London explained, because an individual might work for just eighteen months as an information analyst before being rotated out of that position and into another. This frequent circulation of personnel results in high training costs, so decreasing the amount of time spent on learning software generates "a tremendous cost savings," he said.

Working with GIS Tools

In addition to spending fewer hours on training, users can also save time by performing a greater variety of tasks themselves. Instead of calling down the hall to get an orthophoto from another department, said London, users can employ the "Ortho On-the-Fly" tool to orthorectify imagery themselves. That tool joins digital elevation model creation, triangulation, integration with Google Earth, and other functionalities that are now commonly used by IAs.

Although SOCET GXP covers more GIS territory than BAE Systems' previous packages, London said the company isn't competing with GIS firms like ESRI — just augmenting their offerings. According to London, the IA community traditionally hasn't had GIS capability, but spatially enabled exploitation enables IAs to connect to an ESRI geodatabase, pull off ESRI information built by another user, and layer that GIS data onto their own work.

In addition to gathering existing information from an ESRI geodatabase, SOCET GXP users can also populate the database on the fly when drawing vectors on a satellite or aerial image. Previously, said London, workers would analyze imagery and prepare an intelligence report, which was passed up the chain of command. "But at the end of the day, the stuff they wrote on that image just drops on the ground." Now, with that information stored in the geodatabase instead, users can mine it to gain more insights, more quickly. "We're all visual," said London. "I get so much more information if I can see it visually rather than having to read fifteen different reports."

Building on the Past

Rewriting a software package from scratch is never easy, but London noted that both development tools and hardware have advanced considerably since the company began work on SOCET SET: "If you look at how far things have progressed in the last fifteen years, it's a quantum leap." In particular, modern computer speeds — which are much faster than back in the "caveman" days, he joked — have made product development much easier.

But of course, development challenges don't end there; there's also the user to consider. "SOCET SET itself is a very, very complicated product — when building a new product, you can't have that same paradigm," said London. For SOCET GXP, the "paradigm" includes many automated functions, preferences that can be set by users, and an intuitive interface. To create that uncluttered user interface, BAE Systems looked to Microsoft's "Office Fluent" approach, which uses a customizable ribbon to make more tools visible — and therefore accessible to less-experienced users. The tools are also context-sensitive; for example, when a user starts working with terrain, the program automatically brings up terrain-specific tools. This keeps the relevant tools visible, without taking up a lot of screen space or slowing down the program.

That tool management is essential, since SOCET GXP version 3.1 (which is due in August), will include still more capabilities. It may also garner a wider variety of users; although there's not much IA work currently being performed outside the government, London expects civilian and commercial use to grow in parallel with increasing satellite resolution. He predicts that we'll see more applications like San Diego County's, where inspectors look for construction projects under way so they can check for proper permits.

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