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Tag: USGIF

  • Despite ceremony cancellation, USGIF honors 2020 award winners

    USGIF Awards Program logoThe USGIF Awards Program annually recognizes the exceptional work of the geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) tradecraft’s brightest minds and organizations pushing the community forward.

    Award winners are usually recognized at the annual GEOINT Symposium. This year’s event, scheduled for April 26-29 in Tampa, Florida, was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “Unfortunately, you will not see the awardees recognized on the GEOINT Symposium stage this year,” said Kevin Jackson, chair of the USGIF Awards Subcommittee. “So please take a moment to read their accomplishments and join me and the USGIF in congratulating the 2020 USGIF Achievement Awardees and the runners-up.”

    Award winners are nominated by their colleagues and selected by the USGIF Awards Subcommittee.

    “The 2020 USGIF awardees reflect the importance and the significance of the outstanding work that occurs daily in the GEOINT community,” Jackson said. “You will see how the GEOINT community always rises to the occasion to face head on the world’s toughest problems and this year is no exception.”

    Academic

    James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury Institute

    On Dec. 7, 2019, after denuclearization negotiations between the United States and North Korea collapsed, North Korea reversed commitments made in Singapore and resumed engine testing at its Sohae Satellite Launch Center. Using new technological opportunities offered by high-cadence moderate resolution satellite imagery and flexible high-resolution satellite image tasking provided by Planet Labs, analysts at the CNS, through the use of open-source GEOINT, detected and correctly identified preparations for the engine test 39 hours before it occurred. Announcing in advance that North Korea was preparing to violate an international nonproliferation commitment.

    Community Support

    NGA Expeditionary Operations Office

    NGA’s Office of Expeditionary Operations provides deployed personnel and technology to support GEOINT activities of worldwide U.S. military operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts, and other national security objectives. The team’s world-class workforce seamlessly enables trusted global GEOINT capabilities today, while developing programs and processes to meet emerging challenges. Robust partnerships with DoD and IC allies fuel innovation and expertise, helping U.S. and foreign partners build programs that anticipate their needs, expanding the GEOINT community and optimizing meaningful consequence across the GEOINT enterprise.

    Government

    Mark A. Skoog and Loyd R. Hook

    Implementing digital terrain solutions for safer aviation has been a career-long goal for Mark Skoog and Loyd Hook. As true innovators and lifelong proponents of using digital terrain data, Skoog and Hook lead the development efforts of NASA’s award-winning Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto GCAS), which prevents imminent collisions with the ground. Auto GCAS is the culmination of a decades-long effort to bring geospatial intelligence to aircraft safety. This work involved traveling the world, evaluating myriad digital terrain from Sweden to Hawaii. The team extensively tested the system to ensure against every category of controlled flight into terrain mishaps—and found it would have prevented every one, which resulted in ten lives saved thus far in the USAF operations.

    Industry

    Lockheed Martin Space GATR Team

    Globally-scalable Automated Target Recognition (GATR) is an artificial intelligence system that finds objects of interest in satellite imagery on a worldwide basis. It was developed by a team of scientists and engineers from Lockheed Martin Space who combined state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms with scalable high-performance computing in a cloud-based framework to achieve high-speed global automated target recognition (ATR). Unlike other ATR systems, GATR searches extremely large geographic regions with accuracy and speed. The GATR team, led by Dr. Mark Pritt, includes Tyler Bartelmo, Gary Chern, Dr. Austen Groener, Michael Harner, Andy Lam, Stephen O’Neill, Ryan Soldin, and Steve Wozniak.

    Military

    RS/GIS CX, The GRiD Team

    David Finnegan and the Geospatial Repository & Data Management System (GRiD) program provide the Department of Defense (DoD), intelligence community and geospatial community with a centralized repository for the storage, discovery, and dissemination of critical terrain and 3D data. Prior to the GRiD program, the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG) lacked a centralized mechanism for the storage and discovery of this essential content. Historically, the data was subject to local storage, limiting visibility and resulting in retasking collection assets for previously characterized areas, putting military personnel and equipment at risk. By partnering with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the DoD, the GRiD program is now the community standard and enterprise solution for 3D/elevation data discovery across the NSG.

    USGIF, the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, is dedicated to bringing together the many disciplines involved in GEOINT to exchange ideas, share best practices and promote the education and importance of a national geospatial intelligence agenda. For more on the awards program, visit the USGIF website.

  • USGIF awards $126K in scholarship funds to GEOINT students

    logoThe United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) awarded $126,000 in scholarships to individuals studying geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) and related topics.

    According to the foundation, this is the largest amount it has distributed to date. The scholarships are distributed annually to doctoral candidates, graduate students, undergraduate students and graduating high school seniors.

    In addition to the scholarships, two awards are funded entirely by USGIF organizational members: the $10,000 Reinventing Geospatial Inc. (RGi) Scholarship for Geospatial and Engineering and the $10,000 Ken Miller Scholarship for Advanced Remote Sensing Applications. The RGi Scholarship is awarded to an undergraduate student pursuing engineering and geospatial disciplines who demonstrates financial need, and the Ken Miller Scholarship is awarded to a graduate student studying remote sensing who plans to enter the defense intelligence workforce.

    “Scholarship winners were selected following a highly competitive, multi-tiered review of applications by GEOINT professionals who volunteered their time as part of USGIF’s Scholarship Subcommittee,” said Dr. Camelia Kantor, director of academic programs at USGIF. “We were impressed with the quality of applications and very pleased to see the next generation of GEOINTers—from the high school to doctoral level—already tackling major world challenges not just by using state-of-the-art technology, but also by applying creativity, logic, attention to detail, innovation and ethics.”

    The 2018 USGIF scholarship winners include:

    RGi Scholarship for Geospatial and Engineering

    • David Runneals, Northwest Missouri State University

    Ken Miller Scholarship for Advanced Remote Sensing Applications

    • Joshua Michael Turner, North Carolina State University

    Doctorate

    • Katherine Cavanaugh, University of California, Los Angeles
    • Jaclyn Guz, Clark University
    • Carolynne Hultquist, Pennsylvania State University
    • Christopher Olayinka Ilori, Simon Frazier University
    • Scott Pezanowski, Pennsylvania State University

    Graduate

    • Jacob Fuson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
    • Cesar Jhonatan Garrido Lecca Rivera, University of Redlands
    • Travis Meyer, Pennsylvania State University
    • Andrew Ryan, George Mason University
    • Sarah Spalding, University of Texas at Austin

    Undergraduate

    • Jake T. Burstein, University of South Carolina
    • Milovan Dakic, Indiana State University
    • Margaret Hackney, Mercyhurst University
    • Haley Kathryn King, George Mason University
    • Candice Lee, University of Georgia
    • Pearl Leff, Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College & Lander College for Women
    • Claire Mercer, Ohio State University & Sijal Institute
    • Rachel Pierstorff, University of Denver

    Graduating high school seniors

    • Alexander Chrvala, Towson High School in Towson, Maryland; now attending the University of Mary Washington
    • Srijay Kasturi, South Lakes High School in Reston, Virginia; now attending the University of Maryland
    • Madyson Larson, Xenia High School in Xenia, Ohio; now attending the University of Cincinnati
    • Christopher Lee, Dripping Springs High School in Dripping Springs, Texas; now attending the University of Texas at Dallas
    • Keelin O’Hara, Albermarle High School in Charlottesville, Virginia; now attending the University of Mary Washington
    • Adam Wallace Potter, Oak Park River Forest High School in River Forest, Illinois; now attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Brandon Staple, Longmont High School in Longmont, Colorado; now attending the University of Colorado Denver
    • Maxwell Thorpe, David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri; now attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison

    Since the USGIF Scholarship Program began in 2004, the foundation has awarded more than $1.2 million to students with aspirations in GEOINT. USGIF is a nonprofit educational foundation dedicated to promoting the geospatial intelligence tradecraft and developing a stronger GEOINT Community among government, industry, academia, professional organizations, and individuals who develop and apply geospatial intelligence to address national security challenges.

  • USGIF extends partnership with DigitalGlobe Foundation

    USGIF’s 14 accredited collegiate programs granted DigitalGlobe imagery access

    The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) has furthered its partnership with the DigitalGlobe Foundation.

    Together, they will grant 14 schools under USGIF’s Collegiate GEOINT Accreditation Program access to DigitalGlobe’s satellite imagery archive and cloud-based service Basemap.

    USGIF-Accredited_Schools_generalThrough the agreement, students and faculty at USGIF’s 14 accredited schools will have DigitalGlobe imagery at their fingertips, with access to high-resolution, high-accuracy imagery and better answers to their research questions.

    USGIF’s Collegiate Accreditation Program prepares students with the necessary knowledge and skills for entering the professional geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) workforce.

    USGIF-accredited GEOINT programs include Fayetteville State University, George Mason University, James Madison University, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Northeastern University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Utah, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the University of Missouri of Columbia, the University of Redlands, the University of South Carolina, the University of Southern California and the U.S. Military Academy.

    “DigitalGlobe Foundation’s partnership with USGIF on promoting the geospatial tradecraft creates a force multiplier in our common objective to reach out to educational institutions worldwide,” said Kumar Navulur, DigitalGlobe Foundation president. “Under this partnership, students in USGIF-accredited academic institutions are now able to access DigitalGlobe’s vast library of processed global imagery.”

    “Imagery access helps faculty, researchers, and students map and analyze trends in infectious disease, threatened ecosystems, crop yields, or archeological sites,” said Camelia Kantor, USGIF’s Director of Academic Programs. “Our collaborative efforts bring the academic community into a new era of innovation in which high-quality imagery products will allow students enrolled in GEOINT programs to make educated decisions and provide solutions to a wider range of problems.”

    USGIF has had a long-standing partnership with DigitalGlobe Foundation, and USGIF CEO Keith J. Masback is a member of DigitalGlobe Foundation’s Board of Directors.

  • GEOINT 2018 features top US defense speakers

    The GEOINT Symposium, hosted annually by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), returns to Tampa, Florida, April 22-25.

    The annual symposium gathers the defense, intelligence and homeland security communities as well as other users and producers of geospatial information for keynote speakers, panel discussions and breakout tracks offering the opportunity to learn from senior leaders and subject matter experts.

    Confirmed keynote speakers include:

    • Robert Cardillo, Director, NGA
    • The Honorable Susan M. Gordon, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence
    • Dawn Meyerriecks, Deputy Director, CIA Science and Technology Directorate
    • Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, Commander, USSOCOM

    A complete list of GEOINT leaders who will be speaking throughout the event can be found here.

    GEOINT 2018 is expected to draw more than 4,000 geospatial professionals and well in excess of 200 exhibitors. For complete symposium details, visit www.geoint2018.com.

  • USGIF, Hexagon Geospatial grant software to 14 colleges

    The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) has partnered with Hexagon Geospatial, a USGIF organizational member, to offer software licenses to 14 colleges and universities under USGIF’s Collegiate Accreditation Program.

    Hexagon Geospatial will provide students and faculty at each of USGIF’s 14 accredited programs with three-year licenses for its desktop and cloud-based Smart M.App software.

    The software is designed to benefit and assist students, professors, and scientists in building geospatial cloud applications.

    Smart M.apps are interactive map applications that combine content, analytics, workflow, and presentation to solve a specific business problem.

    “As a company with roots in universities across the world, Hexagon Geospatial has always valued students and academia as an investment in the future,” said Jason Sims, Hexagon Geospatial’s chief channel and marketing officer. “This is why we are so happy to announce our partnership with USGIF, providing access to our software and platforms. We look forward to seeing the way instructors, researchers, and students influence how location information will be used to innovate and shape smart change.”

    USGIF’s Collegiate Accreditation Program prepares students with the necessary knowledge and skills upon entering the professional geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) workforce. USGIF-accredited GEOINT programs include Fayetteville State University, George Mason University, James Madison University, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Northeastern University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Utah, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the University of Missouri, the University of Redlands, the University of South Carolina, the University of Southern California, and the U.S. Military Academy.

    “We’re excited about this partnership to collaboratively issue license grants to faculty and students teaching at and attending USGIF accredited institutions,” said USGIF Director of Academic Programs Dr. Camelia Kantor. “USGIF’s accredited programs have a track record consistent with excellence in preparing students for work in the GEOINT profession. Such partnerships bring academia and industry together to ensure the preservation of standards, to encourage innovation, and to enable faculty and students to teach, learn, and conduct research using software from industry.”

  • Exhibitors at GEOINT to launch range of new products

    Exhibitors at GEOINT to launch range of new products

    A number of geospatial intelligence companies are exhibiting at the GEOINT 2017 Symposium, which is taking place June 4-7 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas.

    Hosted and produced by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), the annual GEOINT Symposium is the nation’s largest gathering of industry, academia, and government to include defense, intelligence and homeland security communities as well as commercial, federal, civil, state and local geospatial intelligence stakeholders.

    The event annually attracts more than 4,000 attendees from all over the world, with more than 250 exhibiting organizations and more than 50 hours of training sessions for attendees.

    The theme for GEOINT 2017 is “Advancing Capabilities to Meet Emerging Threats.”

    Companies planning to exhibit:

    TerraGo will be demonstrating its R3 mobile app, customized for the missions of reconnaissance, response and recovery and built entirely using TerraGo Magic, a zero-code platform that enables customers to build apps tailored to their unique operations with web services, custom map products, imagery, forms and workflows.

    TerraGo’s exhibition will be located at Booth 1567. Attendees can schedule a live demonstration.

    Red Hen Systems will showcase its surveillance technology. The company’s Digital Mapping Reconnaissance Toolkit Exportable (DMRT-EX) and MediaMapper Mobile Android app have been used by law enforcement military and civilian members around the world for anti-narcotics operations, vegetation management and other surveillance missions.

    Visit Booth 333 at GEOINT to see the company’s equipment in action.

    Descartes Labs Inc., a cloud-based geospatial analytics company, will unveil its global-scale machine learning platform. The platform powers geographic and temporal analysis of remote-sensing data to identify objects, forecast change and deliver high-performance intelligence solutions.

    GEOINT attendees can learn more about Descartes Labs at booth #1325 in the GEOINT Exhibit Hall. Descartes will also present a Lightning Talk at GEOINT Forward on Sunday, June 4, and a training workshop on Tuesday, June 6.

    The Polaris TLS by Teledyne Optech

    Teledyne Optech will showcase the advanced capabilities of the award-winning ALTM Galaxy T1000, now featuring a 1-MHz laser PRF, PulseTRAK and SwathTRAK technologies for a universal sensor that surpasses larger systems with consistent, ultra-dense data and measurement precision and accuracy.

    In addition, visitors will see the new Polaris Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) for ground-based survey applications. With an integrated high-resolution camera, inclinometers, compass, GPS receiver, and weather-proof housing, the Polaris can be deployed in many environments and orientations.

    Visit Booth 1767, where sustaining USGIF Member Teledyne Optech will be joined by Teledyne DALSA, Teledyne Imaging Sensors, and Teledyne Brown Engineering to represent a broader range of Teledyne’s capabilities and solutions for GEOINT/ISR applications, including lidar, EO, IR and hyperspectral imaging.

    Esri will be showcasing mission-focused enhancements using the ArcGIS platform for defense, intelligence and national security workflows.

    ArcGIS provides high-performance 2D and 3D analysis for defense, intelligence, and national security. It is a complete and open platform for managing, analyzing, and sharing data and data products. ArcGIS leverages big data, web technologies, and integrated apps to make location-based data easy to use, more accessible, and collaborative.

    “GEOINT and geographic information system [GIS] technologies have never been more important to the intelligence community,” said Ben Conklin, Esri head of industry, defense, and intelligence. “We are looking forward to the annual GEOINT Symposium, since it gives us a great opportunity to demonstrate the latest advances in GIS technology. The event also gives analysts access to tools that provide quick, responsive, and interactive experiences for increased productivity and support of decision-making and operations at every level.”

    Esri will offer the following demonstrations at Booth 615:

    • Advancing The Science of Where
    • Reveal Deeper Insight through Analytics
    • Unlock Your Data with Apps
    • Open Platform for Intelligence

    The Esri Presentation “Geospatial Intelligence Using a Web-Enabled GIS” takes place Tuesday, June 6, 2 p.m., 007C River Level.

    East View Geospatial (EVG), a provider of content-rich cartographic products, continues to enhance the accuracy of automated feature identification using its newly developed training data sets in supervised machine learning applications. The early results pertained to automated recognition of building structures in an ongoing pilot project in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

    “Our goal is to create a state-of-the-art process that produces the highest quality training data available for the users and developers of supervised machine learning technology,” said Rod Buhrsmith, business eevelopment at EVG. “In just a few months, we have made significant progress and expect to push the accuracy even higher.”

    EVG will be available to discuss the PNG pilot in private meetings at GEOINT (contact Rod Buhrsmith at [email protected] or Mark Knapp at [email protected] or call 1-952-252-1205.)

    Sample data sets are being offered at no charge.

  • GEOINT 2017 keynote speakers announced

    The GEOINT 2017 Symposium, sponsored by the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), will take place June 4-7 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. The theme of this year’s symposium is “Advancing Capabilities to Meet Emerging Threats.”

    Confirmed keynote speakers for GEOINT 2017 include:

    • Robert Cardillo, Director, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
    • James Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
    • Todd Lowery, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI)

    USGIF will host GEOINT Foreword, its pre-symposium science and technology-focused day, on June 4. GEOINT Foreword brings together government, academia, and industry to discuss innovation and advances in the GEOINT tradecraft. The 2017 GEOINT Foreword agenda includes presentations, poster sessions, a live unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) demonstration, and keynote addresses by:

    • Stacey Dixon, Deputy Director, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA)
    • Peter Highnam, Director, NGA Research

    GEOINT Foreword requires separate registration to attend. More GEOINT 2017 speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

    The GEOINT Symposium is hosted annually by USGIF and offers the defense, intelligence and homeland security communities and other federal and civil GEOINT users and producers the opportunity to learn from senior leaders through an agenda of keynote speeches, panel discussions and breakout tracks.

    GEOINT 2017 will feature an extensive exhibit hall with more than 200 organizations showcasing new technologies, solutions and services. Exhibitor and sponsorship opportunities are still available.

  • GEOINT 2016: The growing GEOINT revolution

    A few weeks ago, I attended GEOINT 2016. It was quite different from my first GEOINT in 2007. Back then, GIS and imagery were the focus of most exhibitors and presentations, with points, line and polygons plotted on paper being the norm. This year the tradecraft seems to have evolved exponentially to a broad and significantly more sophisticated collection of technologies both on the EXPO floor and in most presentations.

    New terms have solidly entered the geospatial lexicon: big data, big data analytics, exploiting social media, machine learning, activity based intelligence (ABI), predictive analytics (see my column last month), the internet of things (IoT) (see my January column), small sats, object based intelligence (OBI), cyber, human geography, open source, deep learning, machine to machine tipping & cueing, survivable space assets and the list continues to grow.

    I was pleased to hear something I believed for quite a while. There is a growing consensus that Cyber attacks need to be displayed as events with geospatial components (location of servers, nodes, networks, etc.). That kind of visualization should provide valuable insight into these growing and complex attacks.

    Keynotes

    National Intelligence Director James Clapper.
    National Intelligence Director James Clapper.

    The 75-year-old Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper poked fun at himself indicating that this would be his last year as DNI and he was counting down the days. He said that he was taught to always respect his elders but finding one was getting increasingly difficult. He also highlighted the same feeling I had that the GEOINT community has gone through some significant changes.

    Computers have evolved from IBM’s 1997 Deep Blue winning only one of four chess games against Gary Kasperov to the recent contest of Google AlphaGo against the world master of the much more complex Chinese board game “Go.” AlphaGo won four of five games primarily with moves that experts called inspired genius. It did that because it was programed not to just play but to learn as it played. So “machine learning” was a frequent topic at GEOINT with it becoming a real game changer in national intelligence work.

    Even imagery, the long standing bread and butter of GEOINT, is going through a revolutionary change. Citing NGA Director Cardillo, DNI Clapper indicated that we will soon evolve from limited overhead imagery available in certain locations at certain times to imagery of every spot on the globe every day of the year. You can watch Director Clapper’s full keynote.

    NOTE: More than 127 GEOINT related videos are posted on the USGIF website from the 2016 conference and the previous year with additional videos posted almost weekly. https://vimeo.com/trajectoryonlocation/videos/page:1/sort:date
    https://vimeo.com/trajectoryonlocation/videos/page:2/sort:date

    USGIF Award Winners

    The five USGIF award winners for 2016.
    The five USGIF award winners for 2016.

    Five awards were presented for 2016. Two of them had special interest for me — the Industry award winner ABACO Group shown in the EXPO section below and GeoHuntsville. Here is more information about the five USGIF award winners.

    Community Support Achievement Award for the GeoHunstville Exemplar City program

    GeoHSV
    The GeoHunstville Exemplar City program helps cities deal with disasters using new technology. Shown receiving the award for the GeoHunstville team are Chris Johnson and Joe Francica.

    I was thrilled to see my adopted geospatial city, Huntsville, win the Community Support Achievement Award. The GeoHunstville Exemplar City program which assists local governments in preparing, responding, mitigating and avoiding natural and manmade disasters using new technology.

    The system leverages geospatial tools including the new NGA open source collaboration environment GeoQ, UAVs and a broad array of internet accessible sensors through the IoT.

    Exhibit Hall Expo

    The conference attendance was over 4,000 with 250 exhibitors on the EXPO floor. You can view the full list of exhibitors at the GEOINT2016 website or by downloading the GEOINT 2016 smart phone app. The app has more information about the exhibitors including descriptions of their technology, contact info and website links. Here are samples of booths I found especially interesting.

    ABACO Group: ABACO of in the United Kingdom and Italy, was given the 2016 USGIF Industry Achievement Award. ABACO received the award for their augmented reality (AR) “Farm Visor,” to help farmers access big data. One aspect that caught a lot of attention was their very elegant “X-ray” tablet viewer. The user holds the tablet up and adjust the “Transparency” of the wall they are viewing and it looks like you are looking through the wall. In reality you are viewing a geo-registered image of the surrounding area that seems like you are looking through the wall. Because of exhibit hall lights and screen reflections the

    CYVIZ: CYVIZ builds easy to configure tactical operations centers that can display mixed media both classified and unclassified content in a common environment.

    DIFFEO: DIFFEO is an automated search assistant that uses proprietary algorithms to speed searches of Big Data even if the operator does not know what key words need to be searched.

    Hewlett Packard Enterprise Software: HP had a virtual off road driving experience. IT was not as enjoyable as Birdly, a little sickening in fact. I was told by one of the users that the reason was poor synchronization between the goggle imagery and head movement.

    International Spy Museum: The International Spy Museum, currently located on F Street in Washington DC will soon be building a much larger facility just south of the mall. They have also received considerable new material and collections for their exhibits.

    Lead’Air: Lead’Air shows several hardware configurations to capture lidar, ortho and oblique imagery.

    LizardTech: LizardTech highlighted the new ability to handle LiDAR data and display it in various ways including DEMs.

    PitneyBowes: PitneyBowes was showing their latest lossless imagery compression tools along with extensive business intelligence data.

    PLW Modelworks and Birdly: Most users consider PLW Modelworks the gold standard of digital 3D models. The PLW booth combined their superb 3B models with a virtual reality “flying machine” called Birdly. The machine uses Occulus Rift goggles with earphones for sound and even a fan blowing wind in your face to create a fairly realistic urban flight experience. The user can bank and turn or soar by flapping the wings. I tried it and it was nice.

    SigmaSpace: SigmaSpace was showing their single photon LiDAR. Their system is supposed to do a much better job discerning first and second level returns so collecting true ground elevation under a tree canopies is faster, more accurate with greater point density. Being a green laser it may also prove more effective in littoral work.

    TerraGo: TerraGo was demonstrating Edge as a tool to simplify data collection in the field using mobile devices.

  • Harris, Esri partner to modernize foundational data production

    Esri and Harris Corporation are embarking on a broad strategic relationship to develop modernized foundation GEOINT data production, apps and tools within a WebGIS environment, for federal agencies.

    The partnership will advance the state-of-the-art in automated GEOINT (geointelligence) production methods leveraging commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)-based solutions.

    The collaborative effort will help programs across multiple security domains to meet the expected surge of commercial imagery from small satellites, unmanned aerial system (UAS) platforms and open-data sources.

    Visit Esri and Harris Corporation at GEOINT Symposium 2016 this week: booth 828 Harris; Booth 600 Esri.

  • USGIF reveals 2016 award recipients, lifetime achievement winner

    The five USGIF award winners for 2016.
    The five USGIF award winners for 2016.

    The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) today announced the five recipients of its 2016 Awards Program. Winners were recognized on the main stage at USGIF’s GEOINT 2016 Symposium, held May 15-18, at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

    This year’s recipients are The Geospatial Semester at James Madison University; Exemplar City Inc.; the Santa Clara County Fire Department’s iMAP Team; ABACO SpA’s Research & Development Team; and Gunnery Sgt. Jesus M. Bocanegra, Marine Special Operations Company, U.S. Special Operations Command.

    The USGIF Awards Program annually recognizes the exceptional work of the geospatial intelligence tradecraft’s brightest minds and organizations pushing the leading edge. The five award categories recognize GEOINT achievements in academia, community support, government, industry, and military. Award winners are nominated by their colleagues and selected by the USGIF Awards Subcommittee.

    “The number and diversity of the nominations received for the 2016 USGIF Awards Program was outstanding,” said Kevin Jackson, USGIF Awards Subcommittee chair. “From year to year the quantity of nominations may vary, but the number submitted this year sets an all-time record, and the competition in all the categories was fierce. However, some things do remain constant. Underneath the outstanding achievements of the individuals and teams that we honor each year at the Symposium, are people of great character and commitment, each with a true sense of purpose.”

    USGIF also announced at the symposium the Honorable Martin C. Faga, former director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), as the 2016 recipient of the Foundation’s Arthur C. Lundahl-Thomas C. Finnie Lifetime Achievement Award.

    Faga is the 12th individual to receive this prestigious award and was recognized during USGIF’s GEOINT 2016 Symposium general session. (Read more about Faga below.)

    2016 Winners

    Academic Achievement Award

    The Geospatial Semester, James Madison University
    The Geospatial Semester is a dual enrollment partnership between James Madison University (JMU) and school districts across Virginia. Participating students learn about geospatial technologies and apply them to local and global problems. The class culminates with an extended, in-depth local project. Students can earn up to six credits at JMU, which are transferable to the school of their choice. Since its inception in 2005, nearly 3,000 students have participated and gone on to a variety of careers using geospatial technology, including intelligence. JMU faculty members are regular visitors to the high school classrooms to interact with teachers and students as well as to provide technical and project support.

    Community Support Achievement Award

    Exemplar City Inc.
    Exemplar City, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit established by Huntsville, Ala., Mayor Tommy Battle, assists local governments in preparing, responding, mitigating, and avoiding natural/manmade disasters through planned resilience. Exemplar City’s peer-to-peer collaboration brings municipal stakeholders together to build safe, secure, and sustainable communities. Exemplar City partners with Geo Huntsville, focusing on geospatial technology applications for public safety and homeland security. Together, they use technology instruction and field-based data gathering, and interface with geospatial technology experts to bring geospatial technology advances to governmental officials throughout the nation. In 2014, the Blueprint for Safety (BfS) pilot was launched to increase multi-jurisdictional information sharing and enhance situational awareness among agencies to improve rapid disaster response and sustained recovery. Through BfS, a concept emerged allowing shared lessons, code sets, and case documentation using Exemplar City to create a multi-city collaboration.

    Government Achievement Award

    iMAP Team, Santa Clara County Fire Department
    The Santa Clara County Fire Department’s iMAP Team developed an enterprise GEOINT system used to manage all fire and medical service operations throughout Super Bowl 50. Together with its partner Intterra, the developers were able to integrate 911/computer-aided dispatch information, map special events throughout the region, monitor resource availability, view GIS layers to include near real-time imagery, and analyze data trends. This system provided the Santa Clara County Multi-Agency Coordination Center with a true GEOINT decision and situational awareness platform. It allowed decision-makers to keep informed on current activity and make decisions faster than ever before. The iMAP team created dynamic situational awareness of all Super Bowl 50 events, providing valuable insight for first responders, resulting in a safe environment for fans and players.

    Industry Achievement Award

    ABACO R&D Team, ABACO SpA
    ABACO SpA, based in the United Kingdom and Italy, specializes in advanced geospatial intelligence data processing and portrayal techniques. In 2016, its R&D team designed a new augmented reality (AR) “Farm Visor,” to help the farming community easily access big data. Integrated with an advanced 3D processing server, Farm Visor facilitates location of plots, visualization of attributes, and consumption of services to manage farming activities. The AR solution can further benefit from a new agricultural portal, Project groundSITE, which supports decision-making, farm agenda management, controlled chemicals spraying, and water consumption control. The R&D Team members awarded are: Oreste Tommasi, R&D director; Alberto Bignotti, software factory manager; and Alessandro Zilocchi, product owner.

    Military Achievement Award

    Gunnery Sgt. Jesus M. Bocanegra, Marine Special Operations Company, U.S. Special Operations Command

    Gunnery Sgt. Bocanegra deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve from July 2015 to January 2016. During the deployment, Bocanegra increased operational allocation of ISR assets by more than 300 percent. In total, he acquired more than 3,500 hours of ISR collection supporting six different units spanning an area of more than 200,000 square kilometers. Bocanegra created and disseminated more than 100 specialized imagery and topographic products in support of deliberate targeting efforts. He continually mentored the six units in the utilization of measurement & signature intelligence in order to leverage ongoing national technical means collection efforts in support of intelligence preparation of the environment. As a result, the units struck 25 deliberate targets and created 30 additional developmental targets for follow-on actions, maintaining pressure on ISIL.

    Lifetime Achievement Award

    Faga was unable to attend the Symposium and accept the award in person, but he instead recorded an on-camera interview about his career and how it feels to receive this recognition.

    “It’s hard to express how much the award means to me,” Faga said. “I actually knew Arthur Lundahl—he was retired by the time I knew him but he was very active in mentoring people in the field… To receive an award in his name is a special privilege for me. As exciting as the last almost 50 years has been, I look forward to what’s happening in the future, particularly in the processing of imagery and the ability for anybody on a laptop to do almost anything they want. As the same goes, 20 years from now people will look back and say they haven’t seen anything at that point.”

    Faga was the 10th director of NRO, where he most notably led the declassification of NRO’s existence following more than 30 years of secrecy. He revolutionized NRO support to the military, downgraded the classification of NRO products, and appointed a deputy director for military support. Faga also initiated the transition of NRO’s separate Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. Air Force, and Navy programs into functional directorates in signals, imagery, and communications.

    Faga retired in 2006 as president and chief executive officer of the MITRE Corporation. Prior to his promotion to president and CEO in May 2000, Faga served as executive vice president and senior vice president and general manager of MITRE’s Center for Integrated Intelligence Systems. Since retiring, Faga has been elected to the board of directors for Electronic Data Systems, GeoEye, and Orbital ATK.

    Before joining MITRE, Faga served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space from 1989 to 1993, simultaneously serving as director of NRO. Faga received many awards and distinctions throughout his career, including the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the DoD Distinguished Public Service Medal, the Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, and in 2004 was awarded the Intelligence Community Seal Medallion. President George W. Bush appointed Faga to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 2006 to 2009 and to the Public Interest Declassification Board from 2004 to 2009.

    “The Honorable Martin C. Faga — patriot, thought leader, visionary, trailblazer — has been at the forefront of the GEOINT tradecraft for five decades,” said The Honorable Jeffrey K. Harris, Chairman of USGIF’s Board of Directors. “Whether serving in government or industry, Marty has always focused first and foremost on the GEOINT mission. We are proud to recognize his leadership, technical acumen, and political savvy.”

    The Lundahl-Finnie award recipient is nominated and voted on by the USGIF Board of Directors. This distinguished award is named after Arthur C. Lundahl and Thomas C. Finnie, celebrating their accomplishments — in imagery analysis and mapping, respectively — and their legacies within the GEOINT Community.

    Lundahl is known as the father of modern imagery analysis and imagery intelligence for being the founder and first director of the National Photographic Interpretation Center. Finnie was the Defense Mapping Agency’s (DMA) director of management and technology, and was one of the primary architects of DMA’s evolution to the digital era.

    To learn more about the USGIF Awards Program and past award recipients, visit USGIF.org.

     

  • Introduction to the 2016 USGIF GEOINT Symposium

    Geointelligence Insider’s Art Kalinski is reporting live from the GEOINT 2016 Symposium, which is being held May 15-18 in Orlando, Fla.

    Hosted and produced by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), a non-profit, non-lobbying educational organization, the annual GEOINT Symposium is the nation’s largest gathering of industry, academia and government to include defense, intelligence and Homeland Security Communities as well as commercial, federal/civil, state and local geospatial intelligence stakeholders.

  • USGIF GEOINT 2016 Symposium Introduction

    Geointelligence Insider’s Art Kalinski is reporting live from the GEOINT 2016 Symposium, which is being held May 15-18 in Orlando, Fla.

    Hosted and produced by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), a non-profit, non-lobbying educational organization, the annual GEOINT Symposium is the nation’s largest gathering of industry, academia and government to include defense, intelligence and Homeland Security Communities as well as commercial, federal/civil, state and local geospatial intelligence stakeholders.