A Geospatial Information System (GIS) describes any information system that collects, integrates, stores, edits, analyzes, shares, and displays geographic information. GIS systems are fundamental to today's information networks and inherently encompass techniques that transform "raw bits and bytes" into "actionable, fused information", also termed InfoFusion. GIS applications incorporate tools that allow users to create interactive queries (user-created searches), analyze spatial information, edit data, maps, and present the results of all these operations. In the commercial sector, GIS systems are used in cartography, remote sensing, land surveying, utility management, geographical strategic natural resource planning, photogrammetric science, geography, urban planning, emergency management, navigation, and localized search engines. Today, Defense & Security applications, such as Unmanned Ariel Systems and Airport Security Systems, are aggressively transforming from basic sensor collection systems that "take pictures" to fully-capable GIS systems that incorporate multi-sensor collections, perform advanced processing and correlations in real-time, initiate sensor cross-cueing, and allow multiple users to rapid retrieve and disseminate information. GIS is critical to defense and security providers in order to enable satisfying emerging demands and rapid access to information for situational awareness and forensic back-tracking missions.

New to this year's conference, a specific topic on uncertainty with geospatial data has been introduced. This will provide researchers across multiple disciplines that handle uncertainty in subtly different ways (e.g., computer vision, photogrammetry, remote sensing, GIS, medical imaging, physics, and statistics) to share their insights- with the goal of demystifying concepts and terminology, relieving anxieties, and promoting best practices related to handling uncertainty in geospatial data. The term 'handling' is meant to imply portrayal AND exploitation AND preservation of geospatial data integrity and quantifying the associated uncertainty information. Methods for exploiting uncertainty information in geospatial data are particularly lacking in the literature, and are highly encouraged for this track.

This conference provides a central collaboration point for industry and academic InfoFusion leaders of GIS systems and technologies to share their advancements, learning, and new solutions. The emphasis for this conference is on expanding the awareness of advanced architectures and enabling technologies that address emerging and adaptive security threats. Technical and scientific papers related to advancements in Architectures for GIS Collection Sensors, Data Processing Algorithms and Techniques, the Uncertainty in Data from Collection through Exploitation, Information Dissemination, Serving, Search, and Query Methodologies, and Information Visualization Solutions that push beyond the scope of the state-of-the-art in industry are solicited.

Topics include:

Architectures for Multi-Sensing Geospatial Collection
Sought papers will be limited to those discussing sensor architectures, with an emphasis on papers that discuss the methods and approaches where multiple sensors are used together to characterize a scene or event with higher fidelity than with the individual sensor. Papers regarding only specific sensor design and performance are encouraged to seek submissions into other DSS conferences.

electro-Optical
infrared
LIDAR/LADAR
polarimetric
sonar
acoustic
RF/signals
radar
spectrometers
data to decisions using net-centric systems
wide-area persistent surveillance and full motion video architectures
field survey results and newly identified technology gaps.



Geospatial Information Application Needs and Challenges

GIS program updates, challenges, and results
defense and security requirements, unmet needs and objective goals
field survey results and newly identified technology gaps.

Geospatial Data Processing Exploitation and Visualization

vector processing
spatial processing
temporal processing
social and cognitive-based methodologies
data compression and data reduction techniques
cross-sensor cueing and data fusion techniques
xparse representation for geospatial analysis of multisensory datasets
assisted, automated multi-target tracking using features, plus other GIS data
field survey results and newly identified technology gaps
data management open-standards, formats, organization, and data storage
semantics/ontologies
search and retrieval controls and methods
dissemination techniques (chipping, serving, client-server interaction)
human-machine interfaces/human factors
mission configurable interfaces.

Geo-registration and Uncertainty Handling in Geospatial Data (New topics this year)

Papers are sought that address some of the fundamental challenges of uncertainty handling in geospatial data such as 1) promoting the use and efficient visualization of uncertainty metrics; 2) exploiting uncertainty information in fusion applications; 3) extending the use of standard error metrics when integrating heterogeneous data types; 4) developing new standards for uncertainty that can address a broader set of needs for commonly used geospatial processes; 5) promoting standards for data provenance that can better enable uncertainty handling. Example application areas include:

geopositioning
mensuration
registration and conflation
fusion
analytical human geography
provenance.