Satellite Analysis and Geographic Exploitation tool

The Warfighting Support Center Regional Analysis Division of the Naval Oceanographic Office supports its customer, the warfighter, by generating map and text products that exploit remotely sensed data for information in the littoral zone. The Satellite Analysis and Geographic Exploitation (SAGE) database and tools were developed to enable imagery analysts to extract, store, and manipulate image-derived features in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. The application links Earth Resources Data Analysis Systems Imagine, the primary imagery analysis software used in the department, with an Environmental Systems Research Institute Librarian database. SAGE enables the imagery analyst to extract previously stored features from the database and overlay them on more recent imagery for a one-to-one comparison. Traditionally, Oceanographic features, including hazards like wrecks and fish traps, have been annotated on imagery projects, but have not been stored in a manner conducive to further analysis. With the implementation of SAGE, analysts are now able to access historical image-derived features within a few minutes and, consequently, are better equipped to provide in-depth analysis to the warfighter. During the development of SAGE, a methodology was set up to identify and define attributes for each feature type. When possible, GIS attribute standards were implemented so features could be shared between different branches of the Office, as well as the Department of Defense (DoD) community. Attributes, such as image date, image type, and other image and text-derived information, enable these features to be of greater use to the analyst and future customers.