Overwatch Systems

Wondering why the name "Overwatch" Systems.... I did too. Seems to me, the most likely reason for the company's name is the way the word "Overwatch" is used by the U.S Military. Overwatch is the term used when one unit provides support for another unit. Usually the support is of covering fire and looking out for enemy movement. Guess, in that context, Overwatch is an appropriate name for a company that is into providing tools for intelligence gathering as well as use in the field for the war-fighter. According to Wikipedia: In modern warfare, overwatch is the state of one small unit supporting another, while they are executing fire and movement tactics. An overwatching, or supporting unit has taken a position where it can observe the terrain ahead, especially likely enemy positions. This allows it to provide effective covering fire for advancing friendly units. The term overwatch originates in U.S. military doctrine.

Visual Learning Systems (VLS) gets acquired by Overwatch

On friday, April 28, 2006, Visual Learning Systems (VLS), the company that I work for got acquired by a New Jersey based intelligence company called "Overwatch Systems". Overwatch Systems has been on a buying spree for some of the best tools used by intelligence agencies all around the world. It has tools such as RemoteView, used for analysing satellite imagery, as well as tools used for monitoring communications. VLS having been acquired, I guess is a testimony to all the great work that we have been doing here and also to the quality of our products FeatureAnalyst and LidarAnalyst. Most importantly, I think that this acquistion will have the following meaning for our customers: "nothing". We will continue to work and operate just as VLS did for the past 6 years. VLS even gets to keep its name and r&d will stay here in Missoula. I guess a formal announcement will be made on May 1, 2006. Here is a summary about Overwatch from their website. (www.OverWatch.com) "Overwatch Systems provides a suite of integrated software tools that enable analysts to generate relevant, actionable intelligence faster and more effectively for the warfighter, first responder and policy maker. Using capabilities from the Overwatch Intelligence Center to counter current threats, we deliver fieldable collection and analysis capabilities in months where the traditional approach is measured in years." Overwatch Systems develops and markets intelligence analysis products and develops custom intelligence systems as specified by our Government customers. Overwatch Systems develops multi-band single feed SATCOM systems for DOD/HLS customers and have significant communications experience directly related to satisfying intelligence systems communications requirements.

RSAC conference 2006

I am heading to Salt Lake City on April 24th, to attend the Remote Sensing Applications Center 2006 conference. I am presenting a paper on LIDAR Analyst. Find me, let me know if there are features you would like to see in the next version or tell me how you like (or dont like) the current version http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/rsac/RS2006/ I also presented a paper on terrestrial LIDAR at the International Lidar Mapping Forum 2006 at Denver. This one was on the current research we are doing with side-sweep lidar data http://www.lidarmap.org/program.html

Aspect Algorithm used in ESRI Spatial Analyst

Technical Articles - ESRI Support http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.techarticles.articleShow&d=21345

C# converting bytes (byte arrays) to other data types

C# converting bytes (byte arrays) to other data types There are basically two ways to do this: 1. Use the BitConvertor class. To use this class, you need to keep track of where you want to read in the byte array 2. Use BinaryReader This is the method I prefer, though it might be just a little bit slower than using the BitConvertor class (I am not sure of that though!) Basically you can load your byte into a MemoryStream object. Then feed the memory stream to a BinaryReader object. After that you just need to call the appropriate methods for conversion. Best of all the BinaryReader object keeps track of where in the stream you currently are reading from. Makes for some nice clean code. Just the way I like it!

GeoTiff Specifications

GeoTiff Specifications PDF http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/IAS/handbook/pdfs/geotiff_spec.pdf Web page: http://home.earthlink.net/~ritter/geotiff/spec/geotiffhome.html GeoTiff Tags: http://search.cpan.org/src/EXIFTOOL/Image-ExifTool-6.00/html/TagNames/GeoTiff.html http://www.remotesensing.org/geotiff/spec/geotiff6.html#6.2.1

25 Top Jobs for 2005-2009

25 Top Jobs for 2005-2009: A survey of what will be the top jobs for the next four years. Software engineers, software analysts and geo-scientist are in there, a combination of which is what I consider my job to be!

Center for LIDAR Information Coordination and Knowledge - CLICK

http://lidar.cr.usgs.gov/ The goal of CLICK is to facilitate data access, user coordination and education of lidar remote sensing for scientific needs. A national repository for LIDAR data.

SUPER - A video convertor

SUPER � .: " A GUI to ffmpeg, mencoder, mplayer, x264, ffmpeg2theora & the theora/vorbis RealProducer plugIn. If you need a simple, yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file, without reading manuals or spending long hours training, then SUPER � is all you need. It is a Multimedia Encoder and a Multimedia Player, easy-to-use with 1 simple click. SUPER � is totally FREE to download and to use. It plays & converts very fast full length movies to any other format with NO time limitation."

Debugging .NET Assembly loading problems

from Benjamin Guineberti�re : debug .NET Assembly loading: Create a text file named fusionLog.reg Edit it with notepad and add the following content: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Fusion] 'ZapQuotaInKB'=dword:000f4240 'ViewerAttributes'=dword:50b00149 'LogFailures'=dword:00000001 'LogPath'='c:\\log\\Fusion' 'ForceLog'=dword:00000000 'LogResourceBind'=dword:00000001 create a folder c:\log\fusion double click the fusionLog.reg file and accept adding info in the registry Each time an assembly fails to load, a log file is created in c:\log\fusion folder In order to also see successes, change ForceLog to 1"