Homeland Vector
Search and Referencing Solutions Aid Hurricane Preparation
MetaCarta, a provider of geographic search and referencing solutions, and partner ArdentMC have provided a location-based situational awareness solution for the Department of Homeland Security National Operation Center (NOC). The solution was used during the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and during Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike to combine information from open news sources and DHS intelligence on a map so that watch standers could visualize what was happening in a specific geographic area as real-time events occur. During crisis situations, “on-the-ground” information comes from a variety of sources such as the news, citizen blogs and various government organizations, and must be combined to provide a complete picture about a particular location. This information is shared at all levels through the Homeland Security Information Network and helps DHS officials coordinate the appropriate response for a particular incident. The solution used the MetaCarta Geographic Search and Referencing Platform (MetaCarta GSRP). MetaCarta GSRP identifies places and points of interest in text documents, news feeds, e-mail, reports, Web pages and blogs, and assigns latitude and longitude coordinates so that the content can be searched, retrieved and visually displayed on a map.
Web Application Helps Non-Experts Make Actionable Maps
Maker! from FortiusOne is an easy-to-use Web application that enables non-technical users to create actionable maps using their own data and GeoCommons open source data. More than 80 percent of all business data maintained by organizations around the world has a location component. FortiusOne’s GeoCommons enables you to leverage massive amounts of valuable data to detect trends, risks and opportunities, resulting in a complete view of your business information and revealing new opportunities to enhance profitability. Maker! was jointly developed by FortiusOne and the cartographers of Axis Maps. Spun out of the University of Wisconsin’s award-winning cartography program, Axis Maps specializes in bringing visual mapping applications onto the Web. Maker!, along with previously released Finder!, an application for finding, organizing and sharing geographic data, form the foundation of the groundbreaking GeoCommons platform. GeoCommons provides non-technical users the ability to view multiple datasets on a single map, draw conclusions, make decisions and solve problems.
Spatiotemporal Rules Engine Supports Mission Planning
ObjectFX, a provider of geospatial platform solutions, has released SpatialRules version 3.0, its spatiotemporal rules engine. This new software brings a significantly higher level of insight and flexibility to support mission planning, situational awareness, all-source analysis, asset-tracking and battlefield visualization. SpatialRules 3.0 is a dynamic, service-oriented middleware component designed to manage and analyze large volumes of spatiotemporal data, transforming that data into usable information. Designed for enterprise government organizations, and particularly valuable for intelligence, defense and homeland security initiatives, SpatialRules 3.0 works with an infinite number of user-defined rule layers, enabling the user to track moving objects or real-time events through automatic system-generated notifications. Version 3.0 adds three-dimensional features, support for 3-D calculations, dynamic cluster detection to determine when objects or events within an area reach a specified density threshold, track creation and monitoring, intersection of complex geometries such as weather patterns intersecting with moving protection zones, and built-in support for a broad range of input formats, including Open Geospatial Consortium, Geography Markup Language, ESRI ShapeFiles, Google Earth KML and GeoRSS.
Visualization Platform Offers Comprehensive View
Microsoft Single View Platform (SVP) is a collaboration and data visualization platform that provides government agencies with solutions for one comprehensive geospatial view of critical data. Microsoft SVP provides a single, geographic view of complex information and data sets across multiple roles, locations and user interfaces, which can vastly improve agency communication, collaboration and decision-making, and significantly increase the success of government missions. Several agencies are beginning to use Microsoft SVP to meet evolving data visualization and decision-support system requirements in areas such as communication to citizens, command center operations, emergency response, facility management, information sharing and business intelligence needs, as well as in overall program management. The geospatial intelligence gleaned through Microsoft SVP solutions allows agencies with diverse missions to access imagery of critical locations and overlay existing data sets to create a holistic view of situational requirements by bringing together Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and its Virtual Earth mapping software to harness the power of geographical visualization.
Search and Referencing Solutions Aid Hurricane Preparation
MetaCarta, a provider of geographic search and referencing solutions, and partner ArdentMC have provided a location-based situational awareness solution for the Department of Homeland Security National Operation Center (NOC). The solution was used during the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and during Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike to combine information from open news sources and DHS intelligence on a map so that watch standers could visualize what was happening in a specific geographic area as real-time events occur. During crisis situations, “on-the-ground” information comes from a variety of sources such as the news, citizen blogs and various government organizations, and must be combined to provide a complete picture about a particular location. This information is shared at all levels through the Homeland Security Information Network and helps DHS officials coordinate the appropriate response for a particular incident. The solution used the MetaCarta Geographic Search and Referencing Platform (MetaCarta GSRP). MetaCarta GSRP identifies places and points of interest in text documents, news feeds, e-mail, reports, Web pages and blogs, and assigns latitude and longitude coordinates so that the content can be searched, retrieved and visually displayed on a map. ♦
* Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
