GEOINT 2009

The place to be if your job is intelligence and why what is where.

By Art Kalinski

When I was in graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Dr. Jerry Ingalls shared a succinct description of the “new” geography. He stated that old geography was merely the study of where everything was. However, new geography, with its spatial analysis tools, had significantly expanded the field of the study to “why what is where”  and knowing why we can start predicting new “wheres” based on known facts. That, of course, is where geospatial intelligence is today, and some of those tools and techniques identified the location of Iranian nuclear facilities long before they became public knowledge.

Learning about the latest tools and techniques is the primary reason for conferences, and there is agreement in the geospatial community that GEOINT is the place to be. Organized by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), attendance at the San Antonio conference was the highest it has ever been, according to USGIF President Keith Masback. Even with a weak economy, the over-arching opinion of all attendees was that the intelligence business will continue to grow regardless of world politics. By its nature, this conference really had many more “chiefs” than “Indians,” and many exhibitors spared no expense at the conference, knowing that they were reaching key decision makers.

USGIF, a nonprofit educational organization created by the geospatial intelligence community, is the organizing force behind the conferences. There is heavy participation by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and other intelligence agencies, so the conference attracts top executives in the geospatial industry. The speaker and attendee list reads like a who’s who of the geospatial and intelligence fields.

General Clapper, the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, was a keynote speaker. He stated his belief that regardless of geopolitical decisions, he sees no decrease in the need for intelligence in Afghanistan and many other locations around the world. He further addressed the need for much faster turn-around of actionable intelligence and cited the joint efforts between the SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) and GEOINT (Geospatial Intelligence) communities.

General Clapper discussed some of the work of the ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) Task Force, which is seeking new technology and the Holy Grail of intelligence, automated target identification in complex environments. He also spoke about the benefits of commercial imagery sources and its use in an impressive NATO Fusion Center he toured.

The second keynote speaker was Representative C. A. Ruppersberger, D-MD, chairman of the House Technical/Tactical Intelligence Subcommittee. The congressman addressed his concern that the U.S. is in danger of losing its preeminence in space because regulations are hampering development. He specifically addressed a need to overhaul International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR) that are hurting the U.S. commercial satellite industry. He also stated the need for additional research and development funding like the ones that built the U.S. space program and a greater emphasis on technical education. A troubling statistic he cited is that China has 440,000 engineers compared to the USA’s 65,000.

Vice Admiral Murret, head of NGA, then spoke of his agency’s support not only for the military but humanitarian assistance in natural disasters such as flooding and earthquakes. He talked about the new NGA facility at Fort Belvoir and about how one third of his agency now works in St. Louis.

In the exhibit hall close to 200 exhibitors demonstrated their latest efforts. Some highlights include:

Cogent3D and Lockheed Martin demonstrated the release of GeoSketch, a plug-in for Google Sketch Up.  GeoSketch permits military users to build 3D models using the easy to use Google Sketch Up software. The tool permits users to import military UAV video imagery, oblique imagery, and other photo sources to rapidly build 3D models even if geo-referencing data or camera models are missing. The models can then be exported in common formats such as Google, Multipatch, or OpenFlight.

Digital Globe announced the successful launch of its newest high-resolution satellite, WorldView 2. Imagery from the new satellite will be available in a few months, doubling Digital Globe’s image-collection capability, including multi-spectral imagery.

LEXISNEXIS news open source highlighted the tremendous wealth of data that it makes available to intelligence analysts. Appistry and NJVC had extensive information on cloud computing and their ability to deliver mission-critical data, including legacy data, to users around the world.

Pictometry and Lockheed Martin announced their alliance and creation of a new service, Intelligence on Demand (IOD). IOD promises to be a game changer. (See October’s column for details.)

Every conference I attend there is always a new technology that really catches my eye.  Ball Aerospace was demonstrating such a technology, Flash LIDAR. Flash LIDAR has been a laboratory curiosity for a while but Ball Aerospace has made it a functional tool. Most current LIDAR collections use a laser to scan the ground with the return being sampled resulting in a collection of points on the ground that provide elevation data from which a DEM or contour lines are created. Although this is a rapid process it is sequential and not instantaneous.  The resulting data can be very coarse or fine depending on the sampling interval.

Flash LIDAR is what the name implies; an entire area is imaged in one nano-second flash. The laser is diffused over an area and flashed once. The resultant image is a broad but dense sample taken at the same instant rather than through a scanning process. Since the image is taken from the same point at the same instant, the data can be used to create accurate 3D models. Those models can then be draped with photographic images or even video frames. The process is so fast that 3D models can be created almost in real time.

The below images are a practical demonstration of the Ball Aerospace process using Flash LIDAR combined with a live video camera. As each frame of the video image is taken, a simultaneous Flash LIDAR image is also taken from the co-located LIDAR unit. The photo shows the live video and point representations of the Flash LIDAR 3D surface and the resultant 3D image draped on the moving 3D model.

It’s hard to tell from these still 2D photos but seeing this system in operation was impressive since the Flash LIDAR and resulting 3D models were continuous and perfectly registered. The only limitation of this demonstration was that human flesh is not a good “Reflective Surface.” Note that in the photo the Ball representative was very animated. This stop-action screen-capture shows him as he jumped up.  In all cases the Flash LIDAR kept up with the dynamic movements.

Point cloud.

Point cloud.

Point cloud.

Wire-frame image.

This was an impressive conference that suffered from too much in too short a time.  Two tools that were very helpful was a daily newspaper, the Show Daily, that recapped the previous day along with the current day’s schedule. It was published, printed, and placed under our doors as we slept. The other useful tool was a daily video show with key presentations and interviews for those that were unable to be in two places at the same time. It was available at several break locations and on our in-room TVs. This has been done at other conferences but not as well as the execution of USGIF.

The USGIF team deservers a “Well Done!”