IGI&S 2009: Getting Back to Basics and Our Roots

Earlier this month I attended the Defense Installation GeoSpatial Information and Services (IGI&S) conference in Dallas. Although not a large conference, it is tightly focused and aimed directly at the GIS community that supports military installations. The conferences were initially started by the Air Force, but attendance by other branches has grown since they all have common issues and many have joint chains of command. The first keynote speaker was Lora Muchmore, director of Business Enterprise Integration, Office of the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Installations and Environment. She addressed the historic difficulty that DOD had keeping track of buildings, equipment, and personnel. The problem was exacerbated because each branch had their own inventory systems that were not interoperable with systems of other branches. Mrs. Muchmore concluded by emphasizing the increasingly important role that IGI&S is playing to improve the Department’s real property inventory, literally transforming the way resource and management decisions are made at the highest levels.

David LaBranche, the Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastucture (DISDI) program manager, addressed how DISDI is working with the National GeoSpatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) to put IGI&S data and systems in place that are complimentary but of course different from intelligence community needs. They are working toward interoperability between the joint services and encouraging greater use of unclassified, shared, off-the-shelf products to build “installation situational awareness” without the expense of custom products and services.

The complexity of joint bases, base realignments and closures (BRAC), environmental issues, and interrelated activities with other federal agencies such as Department of Homeland Security (DHS), DEA, CDC and others highlighted the need for interoperability and shared spatial data. However, the opposite has occurred as systems grew in size and complexity. So the overarching theme of the conference was getting back to basics with standards and consistent base-to-base data and systems.

This concept of snapping back to where we started reminded me of a dysfunctional ship that I was assigned to early in my Navy career. The ship was a mess with poor morale, poor performance, and a very unhappy crew. A new CO arrived who made no immediate changes but instead carefully studied the ship for two months. He then called us officers together in the wardroom and gave us a very simple order. He told everyone to get a copy of the ship’s SORM, read it and put each division and department back in line with it. The SORM stands for Standard Organization and Regulations of the U.S. Navy. The long standing but continuously updated Navy manual is a guide that clearly identifies how a Navy ship should be organized and operated. It was created through decades of lessons learned and practical experience. Our new CO explained how any organization will morph over time away from it roots. Sometimes the changes grow out of operational necessity and some changes are driven by the personalities and talents of crew members. Regardless of the source, these changes can ultimately twist the organization into dysfunction.

As a junior officer, I was somewhat skeptical that this would have any major effect but I was wrong. Within three months the ship was functioning like a fine watch and there was actually harmony in the wardroom and among the crew. Of course this wasn’t the only change; the CO was a very gifted and uplifting leader with a superb memory. In that same three month period, through his “management by walking around” he learned the name, home town and family situation of every member of the 300 man crew. The CO became so respected and admired that eventually any crewmember would walk off a cliff for him. Getting back to the SORM roots certainly helped.

Many of the conference sessions addressed the same themes of interoperability and cleaning up the basics. The Marine Corps GeoFidelis program was highlighted by David LaBranche as a model, built with a focus on interoperability while also addressing the institutional issues of data handling and organization. Frances Railey, the GeoFidelis GIO, explained the details of the Marine Corps system and how it was designed to meet customer needs including a very detailed Data Access & Release Guide. Peter Len, the Gi&S manager for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Pacific, explained the unique challenges he faces with facilities scattered across the Pacific including Guam and the Marianas. He discussed how GIS was used for encroachment planning and other base management issues.

The conference also included 22 vendors who demonstrated new products and services that also addressed the conference themes of interoperability. AutoDesk, which is one of the leaders in BIM modeling, had personnel demonstrating new tools that bridge the gap between CAD and GIS into the BIM environment. Bentley, another leader in BIM modeling, demonstrated BIM solutions that addressed life cycle facility management including energy and lighting. Their OGC compliant systems work with many different BIM model formats. NGA staffers demonstrated Palanterra, a Google-like online system used by emergency management people such as DHS for special event planning and response.

Woolpert demonstrated a new capability that can quickly create 3D building interior models from video clips taken from different view angles. I’ve seen this done with laser point clouds but this was the first time I saw video used to build 3D models. Kaya explained their GIS services including web engineering applications for facility and installation management as well as tools to build real property master plans. Pictometry demonstrated a new image service that will be launched this summer. Through the web service federal users will be able to view or download all Pictometry imagery, both ortho and oblique views, through secure portals. The service will be very affordable because imagery is accessed only when and where needed. This should be a boon for emergency responders.

ERDAS demonstrated web services that reduce a series of complex image/spatial analysis functions to simple and intuitive user tools and products. This screen capture below is an example intended for use by a tank commander. In one operation this service combines slope data, image analysis vegetation data, and feature data to build “drive/no drive” zones. This is very similar to work many of you have done using ESRI’s Model Builder with Spatial Analyst, but the ERDAS system is faster and takes full advantage of their 30 years experience in image analysis. “Wiping” the image shows the drive/no drive areas over a topo map.

ERDAS Apollo – WPS in Action.

The one nagging concern I had that seemed to need more attention was emergency preparedness. When I addressed the topic with attendees and presenters they talked about how their IT people had remote backup systems for installation data and how backups occurred regularly. I have this little gut twitch that occurs when I hear that IT people are backing up my data. Please take this first hand experience from someone who almost lost 10 years of GIS data because of an administrative error.

In a previous assignment our agency had a catastrophic server farm failure that resulted in the total loss of our entire SDE database. Backup? There was no backup. Some IT personnel view GIS data, especially imagery, as a huge data set that doesn’t need to be backed up often, if at all. They don’t see GIS data in the same light as financial data and may treat it differently so, through a misunderstanding, the IT people were not backing up the SDE database.

Luckily, a year before the loss, we placed all our GIS data and imagery on portable hard drives as part of our portable emergency GIS we set up in support of regional disaster preparedness and mutual aid. One set of those hard drives was in our emergency GIS locker in our office; the other set was 25 miles away in a secure location (see my January 2008 Geointelligence Insider column, What Can You Do for Your Country). At the risk of sounding like a broken record, or for those of you born in the post-vinyl period, “a continuously looping file,” I say what many others have said: “back up your data.”

Stepping down from my soap box, I can say that this conference was an exceptional conference that was rich in information and not overwhelming like some of our mega-conferences. For the vendors many good leads were generated and for the participants a lot of useful information was presented.