Building an integrated geoinfo/intel platform

Today a talk was given by a Dr. Barber from UK MoD, on the Defence Science and Technology Labratory (dstl)'s effort to build an integrated geospatial information/intelligence system for MoD.

The first step of building is to understand the requirement of the user.  The speaker used some quite humourous photos to illustrate the importance of understanding what one need from the very beginning.  To help better define requirements the MoD employed a database called Warfighter Environmental Information Requirement Database (WEIRD).  This database

contains the EIRs for a large range of platforms, sensors and systems across defence. It contains information on the products used to provide the EINF, and whether these products meet the requirements. Where possible, the database also holds information on the finer details of the requirements e.g. accuracy, resolution etc.

And it is hoped that this database can help standardise the environmental data collected by MoD and rapidly define information requirements for every kind of platform used by MoD and its servicemen.

The second step is to use a unified data structure to collect, convert and store geospatial data from multiple sensors and platforms, and provide them according to the requirement.  The development of such a structure, called GeoInt Integrated Reference Architecture (GI²RA) is conducted by Tenet Technology.  The aim is "allow procurement programmes within IPTs to specify a single definitive source of GEOINT, rather than specific stove-pipe sources of specialist information" (Tenet Technology website).

Once the standard geospatial data is obtained, it is to be processed by a common geospatial tool set and then delivered through technology such as Rapid Urban Imagery Demonstrator.  The goal is to rapidly provide secure, standard, and precise geospatial information/intelligence to the end users.  But not much technical details were given in the talk.

I find this project interesting mainly because as a civilian GIS user, I am often troubled by all those formats and processing software out there.  To obtain meaningful results I have to use multiple data sources but the format conversion and processing inevitably brings along data loss and of course consumption of time.  Now that MoD starts this project, the data and tool set standards has to be open.  It will have a lot of potential if the standards can be applied to civilian GIS products and data repositories, such as the one proposed by European Council and European Space Agency earlier this year.  The delivery and application of geospatial information data will also benefit from such a platform.