Presentation(s)

1. Using GIS to Locate and Account for Employees [download]

   Locating and assisting employees in the event of sever weather is time consuming and difficult. How can we more effectively locate and assist our employees? How can we balance critical business continuity issues with the needs of employees who have suffered catastrophic loss? We have developed a Google Earth based solution that allows us to track weather in real time and assess the impact on employees and locations. This allows us to forewarn and plan for pre-event issues and more importantly, provide timely support to employees in these events. We have overcome challenges relating to real-time assessment, privacy and cost by using Off the Shelf solutions as a base, as well as using other tools that have been developed in house for other applications. We can now develop a near real time picture of events and activate the needed resources within hours instead of days.
    

   Presenters

   Chad Tillman

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2. Building and Dissemination of Geospatial Information Management Portals in the Cloud [download]

   Currently, organizations like the National Interagency Fire Center must be able to collaborate and share situational awareness with states, local, tribal and Federal stakeholders using geospatial views loaded with dynamic and static data from authoritative sources. Challenges include being able to broadly disseminate the data on a scalable, elastic and interoperable platform as well as strong organizational coordination and knowledge management.

   Next Tier Concepts has been working with Google Earth and Esri technology in an integrated environment that leverages cloud services for both platform and data as a service to deliver a portal capability to share data, imagery and applications efficiently using a low cost and high performing solution. Over the past year, we have implemented a portal using these solutions and meeting these criteria for the National Interagency Fire Center. Our progress has lead to a process for data/knowledge management and publishing data services that can be consumed in both Desktop GIS (Google Earth and Esri ArcGIS) as well as any Open Geospatial Compliant viewer. Working with cloud based, geospatial services and platforms such as Google Earth Builder and ArcGIS Server in the Amazon EC2 cloud, we have successfully made data and portal views available to wild land fire response communities who must share data and strategy while addressing significant wild land fire activity in multiple states.

   The return on investment has resulted in better communication and coordination as well as more informed, visual decision-making. It is important to note that while there are still many challenges to address, there has already been lessons learned ranging from data acquisition and sharing strategy to identifying what cloud based resources and solutions are available and affordable to meet requirements. Next steps include disseminating these resources out to the field environments using mobile capabilities such as Google Earth Portable and tablet based clients that are also able to connect and pull data from these cloud based environments and leverage them in disconnected, isolated environments.

   Presenters

   Rod Erickson

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3. Radio Frequency Propagation Modeling in the Luciad GIS Based Terrain Analysis System Supporting Mission Planning and Force Operations [download]

   Applied Data Trends (ADT) has developed the Terrain Analysis System to support advanced mission planning for military application. The Terrain Analysis System operates in a services oriented software architecture and provides high fidelity analysis services supporting maneuver planning, sensor planning, force protection planning, and communications planning. This presentation describes one particular service provided by the Terrain Analysis System, and that is Radio Frequency (RF) propagation analysis. RF propagation analysis using a realistic terrain model with man-made and natural terrain features and environmental factors, such as weather, is critical to developing better plans for military operations. Determining expected performance across a mission timeline of components such as communications terminals operating in mobile ad hoc networks, and RF sensors, such as radar systems deployed for force protection, require accurate RF propagation analysis. Applied Data Trends researched appropriate RF propagation models to cover the range of extreme environments in which military ground forces might be expected to operate. The models selected by ADT included accounting for wave propagation phenomena such as reflection, diffraction, atmospheric scatter, atmospheric absorption and refraction. For example the refraction model allowed analysis of super-refraction phenomena such as ducting. Weather and vegetation induced attenuation were also modeled. The Terrain Analysis System is based upon the Luciad GIS environment. The Luciad GIS provides the basic functions of geospatial data management and serves geospatial data to the ADT developed propagation analysis algorithms. ADT’s software was developed in the Java programming language and interoperates seamlessly with the Luciad software environment. ADT supported the extensive integration testing of the Terrain Analysis System by military representative users. The software is now ready for integration into current force operations.

   Presenters

   Glenn Weathers

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4. Response to Joplin Tornado disaster - The right thing to do [download]

   I have submitted a presentation for the conference that details how a successful rapid response unfolded for the Joplin Tornado Disaster. A class EF5 tornado struck Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011. Most lives lost in (documented) US tornado history: >150 ~7,000 homes destroyed, ~1,000 damaged Surdex provided a public service, free to all 1’ and 3” imagery flown ~36 hours after event Imagery products provided within 24 hours of acquisition LiDAR data flown four days after event Provided to numerous private and govt entities. Data made available through Internet Downloads (ftp) Web viewing and Web mapping services (WMS)
    

   Presenters

   Brian Stinson

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