Advanced Visualization Support of Higher-Level Fusion Processes

Research in visualization of multi-int data to improve the fusion process has taken recently taken on multiple approaches. In particular, link analysis diagrams have become popular for visualizing relationships between friendly, threat, unknown and NGA entities. Link analysis diagrams, while powerful, are often difficult to input data, navigate, filter and visualize content. They often are not integrated with existing intelligence tools. This research will aid level 2 fusion by providing capability in the following areas: aggregation of entities from multiple perspectives, easy/dynamic grouping of entities, dynamic filtering and grouping, integration with existing intelligence data, and integration with existing intelligence products including maps. Techniques for aggregation based on features and attributes will include: Feature prediction, multivariate statistics, principal component analysis and resampling for validation. In phase I of this effort AIS will research and the best means for providing these capabilities, provide a prototype integrated with realistic or real-world data, provide a road map for transition of these capabilities into future efforts including FCS and DCGS-A. Phase II will result in the development of the prototype "Multi-INT Visualization Tools (MVTools)" that will be integrated and tested within an FCS application to demonstrate the effectiveness of the product.