TEC demonstrates geospatial intelligence interoperability

Published April 10, 2013
This image shows mountains (green squares) and ranches (purple squares) extracted in a single query from the U.S. Geological Survey data in the United States and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency data in Mexico.

This image shows mountains (green squares) and ranches (purple squares) extracted in a single query from the U.S. Geological Survey data in the United States and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency data in Mexico.

 “It’s all about breaking down data silos, providing geospatial intelligence from multiple sources that is accessible, timely and tailored for analysts,” said ERDC-TEC Physical Scientist, Doug Caldwell. He is describing ERDC’s recent participation in the Open Geospatial Consortium’s (OGC) Web Services Phase 9 Testbed.

ERDC demonstrated a Single Point of Entry Global Gazetteer with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, showcasing an interoperable, standards-based approach to accessing multiple geographic names databases with a single query.

This research addressed the issue of geographic names data that is currently held in two separate databases.  For historic reasons, the USGS maintains data on names in the United States, while the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) stores data on names in foreign countries.   If geospatial analysts need geographic names spanning the United States and other countries, they have to query the two databases, as well as understand the differing terminology used by the differing systems.  For example, Caldwell said, “They need to know that mountains are coded as ‘Summit’ in the USGS database and ‘MTN’ in the NGA database.”

The ERDC-USGS-funded research tackled this problem with technology, using Open Geospatial Consortium geospatial standards and semantic mediation to create a single interface to the USGS and NGA databases.  With this approach, analysts could issue a single query and access data from both databases.  Both analysts and agencies will benefit from this research. Analysts will no longer need to query the two databases and learn two sets of terminology, reducing the amount of time needed to access geographic names data.  Agencies can leave their databases in their current forms, eliminating the necessity for expensive redesign and deployment.

The Single Point of Entry Global Gazetteer was developed jointly by companies in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States in nine months and demonstrated at an OGC meeting in Redlands, Calif., January 2013.  The demonstration used simulated NGA and USGS Web Features Service - Gazetteers (WFS-G) for an airplane crash scenario along the United States-Mexico borderline, where the names data was used to assist in rescue planning.

“The successful demonstration showed that geographic name interoperability can be achieved, extracting data from USGS in the United States and NGA for foreign countries, all from one interface in a single query,” said Caldwell. 

Project participants used a Symantec remediation software tool, which incorporates a directory of terminology from each agency’s databases.  The software ‘understands’ how to map to the other databases’ terminology, thereby creating a single point of entry for the gazetteer user. 

“The virtual gazetteer demonstration successfully resolved the terminology differences and the rescue team located the airplane crash site,” said Caldwell.

 

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