—Roger Brown, ERDC Geospatial Research and Engineering Division
Immersive environments contain data, information, knowledge, plus decision flow for planning and conduct of military operations. Both soldiers and commanders attain timely sharing of situational awareness by persistent surveillance networks, including soldiers with handheld sensors that carry information from sensing at a standoff distance. Current mobile and server Geographic Information System technology already exists within some battle command systems that handle military terrain and weather data. The US Army Geospatial Center produces baseline tactical image-map products to aid mission planning and operations. Links to popup GPS-Photos on the ground can be added into image-maps that contains overhead images. Using image-maps with direct links to ground photos taken by soldiers on patrol improves geographic situational awareness within military operations by giving a combined overhead plus terrestrial photo view of the situation and by adding additional interactive annotation to the image-map.