Article Entry
07 Apr 2010
Comments:5
Should The Warfighter Be Given Access to Raw GEOINT data?
Added by USGIF Category: Daily Intelligence Brief, General
One of the biggest challenges facing the GEOINT community is providing the ability to share vital information with the right people at the right time. And with the proliferation of GEOINT information gathering technologies, and drone data, there is no shortage of live video and other data streaming from air- and ground-level sensors. And what comes with this challenge is that analysts need to assess the data, then share it with the warfighters in a timely fashion. According to this recent Defense Systems article, the pendulum is swinging toward giving warfighters greater access to raw data, even as the debate continues over how to make that information useful. Along these lines, check out this DoD Buzz article that highlights how a new program called Valiant Angel aims to sort and move the massive amounts of still and video imagery collected by dozens of aerial drones and other aircraft orbiting around Afghanistan. What do you all think of this trend of providing raw data to the warfighter? The role of analysts is critical in compiling the right intelligence, which can minimize error. But if there is too much of a lag time, the intelligence is moot. Very much of a double-edge sword.
Tags: Data Dump for YouTube Troops, DoD Buzz, GEOINT, geospatial intelligence, got geoint?, Raw GEOINT Data, USGIF United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, Valiant Angel
Troops in the field need real time geospatial information if they wish to be able to conduct missions from “sneek and snipe” to predicting the location of IEDs. The friendly fire problems are often the fault of geospatial information which is not up to date.
well done.
Actually, there are quite a number of ways of looking at this issue. Much of the routine GEOINT data provided to our user community is similar in both form and application to the data one pulls up from Google Earth, Droid Navigator or an iPOD. THIS type of information, call it routine foundation, should in my opinion be available to our users in the same sense the aforementioned are at home. More complex analyses – Activity characterization for example, certainly require intercessory support from an analyst, but I like the idea of getting information into the users hands quickly and efficiently wherever appropriate and possible. Furthermore, over time, analytical methods for certain data types (e.g. ladar point cloud to 3-D model) will be automated, and this data should also be put in the users hands.
[...] to the Friday’s Food for Thought post from got geoint? Earlier this week we did a post about providing raw GEOINT data in real time to the warfighter. And, based on reader comments, this [...]
Geospatial data has to be turned into geospatial intelligence at some point. The question is, at what level? Supplying the warfighter with up to the minute geospatial data is useless if it takes him 30 min. to turn that data into intelligence.
I think the answer is a constant supply of geospatial intelligence can provide a warfighter the context to quickly and accurate interpret small bits of raw geospatial data.