In 1996, the Engineer Research and Development Center, Topographic Engineering Center (ERDC-TEC) developed the Urban Tactical Planner (UTP), a software product created to fill the warfighter's growing need for up-to-date geospatial information describing the urban environment. UTP analyzes, maps, and displays layers of urban area information. The data set is kept as simple as possible so that low-end PC note-book and NT platform with CD-ROM running ArcView can provide the intended services. Users can display and manipulate (both terrain and cultural) information with the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.'s commercially available Arc-View® software.
The program displays the urban environment as an aggregate of features that affect urban area operations, e.g., building form and function (broken out as polygons of like-building types), building height, vertical obstructions, terrain features, bridges, lines of communication, key cultural features, landmarks, etc. These features are shown as themes or layers that the user can toggle on or off. Attribute tables provide additional information, e.g., building data, vertical obstruction data, road and bridge data, and are linked to these layers. Users can click hot-links to view ground photos of the terrain and building types, and architectural drawings or site plans, which are displayed on top of a map or image base. Fly-throughs can be viewed through Skyline software Systems TerraExplorer® 3D visualization system.
The program can show the urban area at varying degrees of detail. A user can show an overview of the area (showing relief and major routes for example), zoom into an urban view or larger scale, or zoom down to a one square kilometer view of a selected site. The product can be tailored to specific customer requirements. The data is deliverable via Intelink, Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET), Open Source Information System (OSIS), CD-ROM, and/or in hard copy output. Users may submit new requirements requests to the HQDA DCS G2. TEC can provide completed data sets (images, maps, GIS files, etc.) upon request directly to customers for their own analysis. A library of UTPs is available for access using Arc Internet Map Server and TerraExplorer on SIPRNET and on the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS).
UTP can exploit many data inputs such as digital terrain elevation data, commercial imagery, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) topographic products, and intelligence sources. Rapid response requirements are addressed by providing only mission essential data for valid Department of the Army requirements. Consequently, the UTP data set is not inclusive nor strictly an intelligence data set in the traditional sense, but is a terrain analysis data set that can be produced to operate at the unclassi-fied level by using the appropriate data sources for that level (such as imagery, maps, and ground photos). |
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