SUPERIOR SITUATIONAL AWARENESS
GROUND, COVERED
One of the applications in ERDC’s Enhanced Terrain Processing tool set can take two satellite images of an area— one from the summer and one from the winter—and rapidly process them to create a detailed land-cover map that highlights the location of various features such as water, vegetation, deciduous and evergreen trees, wetlands and built-up areas. (Images courtesy of ERDC)
GROUND TRUTH When planning an operation, military leaders must quickly know that the information on their maps hasn’t changed. For example, a grove of trees may no longer be present, what was once agricul- tural land may now be overgrown, or a dry plain may have been overtaken by a flood. However, extracting this information from newer satellite imagery is a lengthy and complicated process.
ERDC’s Enhanced Terrain Processing effort is developing a series of tools to solve this problem. Tese tools allow Army geospa- tial engineers to rapidly process new remotely sensed imagery from a variety of sources and use it to analyze current terrain conditions. (Te official name of the program is Tactical Geospa- tial Information Capabilities – Enhanced Terrain Processing. Enhanced Terrain Processing is one of four projects under that larger umbrella and also the name of this tool set.)
Within minutes, geospatial engineers can produce a land-cover classification map that highlights the location of a variety of features, such as vegetation, evergreen or deciduous trees, wetlands, farms and built-up areas. Other tools rapidly identify the location of forests and water, tree density and crown diam- eter, terrain ruggedness and optimal mobility corridors, among many other features.
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“Creating foundational geospatial data, such as land-cover maps, takes time—anywhere from a few hours to a few days depending on which technique you are using, what you’re trying to produce, and the size of your area of interest,” said Nikki Wayant, research geographer at ERDC’s Geospatial Research Laboratory and task lead for the Enhanced Terrain Processing effort.
YOU NEED IT WHEN? ERDC is providing several tools that automate these processes— producing information that is more accurate and of better resolution, and doing it more quickly than with traditional meth- ods. Tey can also combine information in new ways to provide analysis products that depict optimal cross-country terrain routes, available helicopter landing zones or areas of cover and conceal- ment, just to name a few.
“In the past, people had a couple of days to put something out,” Wayant said. “Te fact of the matter is, currently, the geospa- tial engineer does not have the days they would need to create a very well-thought-out geospatial product. Teir commanders do not always understand the amount of time it takes, so they are like, ‘I need this in 30 minutes.’ And the geospatial engineers are just doing the best they can with the tools they have, and it’s not always the most accurate. And so they have to give it with a
Army AL&T Magazine Winter 2023
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