INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: ERDAS

GIF 2009 Volume: 7 Issue: 5 (October)

 

A: Clearly, automated change detection and the extraction of features from overhead imagery have the potential of saving time and improving accuracy within the GEOINT process. Unfortunately, the limited efforts have failed to meet expectations as the community continues to look for the 100 percent solution. There are a number of time-saving tools within existing commercial software packages that analysts have failed to include in their workflow. For example, ERDAS Imagine provides both automated change detection and feature extraction, yet most analysts using the software are unaware that these tools exist.

Q: What can be done to increase awareness that these types of tools exist?

A: A dedicated effort is needed to promote these automated tools, to highlight workflows and imagery sources that take maximum advantage of their capabilities. Once there is extensive use in a real-world setting, direct feedback to the developer via their software maintenance programs provides the incremental improvements needed to take the product to the next level. By taking this spiral approach, automated analysis tools will continue to move toward that elusive 100 percent comprehensive geospatial solution.

Q: How can the adoption of enterprise/ service-oriented architecture [SOA] technologies help the GEOINT community in analysis and creation of GEOINT products?

A: The introduction of a true services oriented architecture will be as revolutionary for the imaging community as their movement away from light tables in the 1990s, and it will likely be just as contentious. Imagery analysts have grown comfortable with heavy desktop applications, local imagery folders and the processing power of their own machines versus some server on the network. What analysts have to realize is that an SOA will empower the end-user by opening up the production environment.

Q: How can organizations migrate GEOINT exploitation and production tools to enterprise/ SOA environments?

A: When a new capability is developed, it simply needs to be installed on the server for everyone to have access, versus a timeconsuming install on everyone’s local computer. Because of this simplicity, best-of-breed capabilities can be rapidly injected into the production workflow as they are developed. Analysts will not have to rely on multiple software applications to accomplish a task as key functions can quickly be componentized and plugged into a dedicated workflow. ERDAS fully supports this ability to plug-in functionality. Apollo Server is actually an open environment for implementing geospatial services authored by ERDAS Imagine spatial modeling tools. While this SOA environment will be much more dynamic than existing desktop technology, the user interface to all these SOA capabilities is based on Web technology, and can be quickly tailored for the analyst and speed production.

Q: Have standards, such as those developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium [OGC], been a critical part of GEOINT technological development?

A: The primary advantage of a SOA environment is the potential to rapidly plug in bestof- breed capabilities as they are developed by a variety of both commercial and government programs. Standards, such as those developed by the OGC and included within ERDAS software, ensure the interoperability between our products and other solutions. The GEOINT community needs to insist on the adoption of interoperability standards by all commercial software developers. Not doing so leads to a situation where one solution dominates the production environment. While this onesolution limitation works for the stand-alone desktop model, it is highly restricting for enterprise and negates all its advantages. The OGC has clearly proven the value of interoperability. Organizations, such as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, must then enforce these standards as they move forward with their enterprise solution.

Q: What then does the GEOINT community need to do?

A: The need for automated geospatial exploitation tools, the migration toward enterprise, and the adoption of interoperability standards have all been identified as important steps for the GEOINT community, but what benefits are expected if these three measures are implemented? The answer is a highly adaptive GEOINT production environment that takes full advantage of commercial driven technology that is tailored for the needs of the analyst. Unlike a costly desktop environment, the implementation of an SOA greatly supports the spiral development of advanced technology and its rapid integration into a usable workflow.

The firm adoption of OGC standards ensures interoperability between all developed solutions, thereby promoting competition among developers versus the stagnation that results through the adoption of a single dominant vendor. The enterprise environment reduces implementation and maintenance costs, opens up new levels of computing power for various applications, and organizes the management of geospatial data so that solos of information accessible by a single individual become outdated. It definitely is time for the GEOINT community to reembrace the enterprise and build the future system for the next generation of geospatial analysts. ♦

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