Visualization to support identification, exploitation, and fusion of data and information delivered from heterogeneous sources in ISR

In ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), heterogeneous sources deliver data and information having spatial and temporal attributes. Real time and non-real time data created for various purposes, present in different formats has to be exploited and fused. The Coalition Shared Data (CSD) concept makes the interoperable sharing of ISR data and information possible. The concept itself and a technical approach for it were developed within the multinational projects CAESAR, MAJIIC and MAJIIC 2 and tested in coalition exercises. The interfaces of software systems providing access to CSD data must allow the user to intuitively use the system and form a substantial part with regard to user acceptance. We describe different systems and approaches we designed and developed to access CSD data that can locate and present the data to the user based on his specific demands. Visualization forms an important part of these systems which share the common challenge of representing data and information with spatial and temporal attributes. The visualization of data and information has to be designed in a manner that supports efficient access, discovery and optionally additional processing (such as filtering and sorting). Given the large amount of data and information that may be available, visualization taking into account their quality and inherent uncertainty is an additional challenge. This publication provides an overview of the systems and approaches we developed to present CSD data and identifies challenges common to these systems. To tackle these challenges, we present new research results regarding visualization of data and information with temporal and spatial attributes