Geospatial Trends in Government
March 2011 | Volume 3 | Number 3
Intuitive Intelligence -- On Demand!
If you are a GIS expert, studying sophisticated mapping and imagery is second nature. But what if you are not an expert?
You may intuitively know that GIS information could be very helpful in your job. But it’s hard to glean the information you need from a two-dimensional flat map or satellite photo. And forget about understanding complicated military maps. Plus there is little or no budget for GIS in your agency.
 Enter Intelligence on Demand from Lockheed Martin, a web portal developed in collaboration with Pictometry International, Corp. that delivers a complete library of imagery and analytical tools for a flat monthly subscription fee.
“When you look at a flat map or you look at a complicated military map, most folks looking at that don’t get it right out of the gate. It’s not intuitively useful for them,” Dan Whalen, Senior Product Manager Lockheed Martin told OTFL in a recent interview.
Using Intelligence on Demand the images are immediately intuitive, because they are taken by an airplane from a 40° angle at the side, as opposed to a straight down shot where all you are looking at is rooftops, Whalen explained.
“When you take it from the 40° angle at the side, it allows operators to immediately get use out of it. And when you combine that with the fact they can get imagery credentials by logging on to a website, either from their PC, iPad or iPhone, it becomes immediately and intuitively useful because it looks exactly like what they are actually seeing on the ground.”
The Rest Of The Story
Radio commentator Paul Harvey had a trademark saying: “And now the rest of the story”. When it comes to using Geospatial data, with Intelligence on Demand now "it’s the rest of the picture".
It’s a given that Intelligence on Demand is a great tool for GIS professionals. But it is also a great tool for those who Whalen describes as “needers”; those within an agency or a bureau who have a need for GIS technology, but they don’t really have access to the technology currently.
You can do any type of land management directly from this tool because you have the ability to measure heights, distances and area. You can bring in any GIS overlays that you can have and import them directly into the tool (including Google and ESRI imagery) according to Whalen.
“We’ve had folks using Intelligence on Demand and they say,’ you make a right here, that’s this shop, that’s that shop, that’s what this is’.
They immediately understand what the area on the ground is; whereas if you show them a straight down image, especially one that’s not as high resolution as what we are offering anyway, and they are like, ‘that’s really nice, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that’."
If you are an agency that has physical assets out in the field -- real estate, real property and other assets -- you need this so that you can manage that property effectively. And if you are a poor geospatial person, having access to a better data set than you’ve ever seen in your life, obviously is going to make you as a GIS professional more effective asserted Whalen.
But for many of the organizations within these agencies, it’s not practical to purchase and maintain a multi-million dollar server infrastructure to house terabytes of high-resolution imagery.
“We provide a mechanism by which we can size the solution to really any agency’s needs.”
On Demand At Work At The Border
Within the southern border area, Intelligence on Demand covers about half of the current US/Mexican border with greater emphasis along the California border, the eastern Texas border as well as touching into major city areas within northern Mexico as well, Whalen explained.
What this does is “by having high resolution imagery of the border areas as well as Mexico, it allows one to identify potential routes of entry, potential locations where criminal activity could be occurring.”
“The 360° perspective as well as the straight down orthogonal perspective allows no-one to hide as far as their location and their activities. There’s no area where one can’t see as long as it’s exposed to the air, which provides you a tremendous ability to plan.”
Also these models can be dropped into gaming engines to allow agents to operate in a virtual environment for mission rehearsals. Thus, if the US and Mexican governments were going to do joint activities in Mexico, they would be coming from many different locations.
“Before this even happens the US government, the US agents and the Mexican agents can operate within this virtual environment and do mission rehearsals figuring out the lay of the land,” said Whalen.
“They can figure out how they would operate in this space before they are even in the country, no less on the ground. So that’s all within a gaming engine which comes out of the same data that we collect and make available within Intelligence on Demand.”
360◦Under Buildings
Collection for the tremendously high resolution imagery used by federal, state and local governments is done by airplane. All collected data is shipped to the Lockheed Martin data centers where it is uploaded on to servers and available from the web.
The imagery is on average updated about every 18 months. The driver for the collection of the new imagery is normally a paying customer explained Whalen.
“So when one customer out of the community asks a question, whether it’s an insurance company, whether it’s a local government, whether it’s the federal government, it doesn’t matter. The default results are that that imagery will be available in the system for all existing customers. So if the city of Phoenix does a new collection on Phoenix, or San Diego, then everyone within the community who has a subscription will get access to that imagery.”
And the imagery is extremely accurate compared to what you would normally get from a satellite.
“If you compare it to what you would normally get via other sources, such as overhead satellite you are talking 18 inches to 2-3 feet,” said Whalen. “You aren’t talking 4 inches of ground from space. That’s just not happening.”
Whalen also noted that that by collecting from a 40° angle as opposed to straight down you are able to see inside buildings. “You are able to get a sense of the structure. It’ll look under bridges, it’ll determine, really a full 360° to include the nature and activity and character of a building.”
You also get the ability to measure in three dimensions. “You will see not only the X-Y axis being on the ground, but the difference in the height of buildings, the height of bridges or the depth of canyons. These things can be measured and measured accurately within this tool.”
Intuitive To Use
Like anything else, the more you use Intelligence on Demand, the easier it becomes.
“You can figure out how to use it to some degree right out of the box. As you get towards the most advanced capabilities, sometimes it can be a little challenging,” Whalen remarked.
“Initial training probably takes about 10 minutes. Fairly complete training takes about 2 hours. And we conduct regular training for all users at least once a month by Webinar. And then our team is available at any time to answer any questions anyone might have."
But the point is the core – how to operate the program and calculate height, distance and export images – can be learned in 10 minutes. “So out of the box, most folks will be able to get good use out of it. Most of the time within 10 minutes they’ll have all their questions answered and for a complete knowledge user within a couple of hours.”
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Intelligence on Demand
Instant, Secure, Affordable Access to the Geospatial Intelligence You Need
Dozens of U.S. government agencies rely on sophisticated mapping and imagery to support their operations. But for many of the organizations within these agencies, it’s not practical to purchase and maintain a multi-million dollar server infrastructure to house terabytes of high-resolution imagery.
For organizations looking for affordable, instant access to imagery, Lockheed Martin offers Intelligence on Demand, a new web portal developed in collaboration with Pictometry International, Corp. that delivers a complete library of imagery and analytical tools for a flat monthly subscription fee.
· Access a library of more than 100 million high-resolution images for a flat monthly fee
· Log in from any web browser and download the imagery you need, when you need it, from anywhere
· Conduct advanced analysis and exploitation with built-in tools
· Save money by paying as you go – no need for large capital investments in servers and image libraries
· Get updates instantly – new imagery and features are available instantly on the network; no need to download or manage a software baseline
For more information on Intelligence on Demand, phone 877-385-3581 or visit http://www.dlt.com/brands/intelligence-on-demand. |
