Army Developing Military-Grade ‘Google Earth’

The day is coming when people will forget paper maps ever existed. From Google Earth to MapQuest and Apple’s Siri, we now take for granted the right to examine, at will, almost any spot on the planet. For most of us, it’s a matter of convenience, a question of finding the best route to work, or admiring a Google-eye view of one’s house or neighborhood. But for the U.S. military, quick and accurate depictions of terrain are vital, whether for realistic training systems, mission rehearsal or outright mission execution. So no wonder that the Army wants to create its own version of Google Earth, a system “where they can zoom in everywhere from very high up to down on the ground,” says Bill Reese, lead engineer for the Synthetic Environment Core (SE CORE) at the Army’s Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI), in Orlando, Florida. “They want it to be there in the cloud, available immediately anywhere in the world, at the point of need, for various levels of devices, from handhelds to sophisticated simulators,” Reese said...more