The Visualisation of Diverse Intelligence

Abstract

At last year's NATO workshop "Massive Military Data Fusion" held in Norway 2002, it was agreed that there is an increasing need for visualization of data. This need has increased because the military now receives more data coming from more sensors and more sources. In the intelligence context, the fusion of information is a multi-layered process. First, raw data are collected and filtered and brought to archives. The analysis of the data is the most time-consuming process, since it can be automated only in a limited range. Thus, there is still a need for a human-in-the-loop. For humans, the best way to analyze large amounts of data is through their pattern recognition abilities, thus using powerful algorithms of visualization. In this paper, the authors present their approaches to visualization on different levels. First, they describe data modeling in the intelligence context, using the MEDAV archive as an example of a data model. Then they define various approaches to visualization, and later on show various approaches to visualization for different information retrieval tasks. Fourteen briefing charts summarize the presentation. (1 table, 10 figures)