Good Morning,
The DLA Map Catalog team will be holding a Users Conference on August 5-6, 2004 in San Diego, CA. If you're interested in attending send an email to: DLAMCUC@DLIS.DLA.MIL by April 1st. Why so early? DLIS has to arrange the facilities, speakers, etc. If they get enough interest from the east coast they may try to move it to a more central location. They also need to be sure they have enough space in San Diego. Interest does not commit you to attend - they realize that schedules change, etc.
NGA has posted all the USGS DOQ's on the Gateway Data Navigator (GDN) in MrSID Format with a limited capability to reformat them in GeoTiff format. FalconView 3.2/3.3 can display GeoTiffs and FalconView 3.3.1 will display MrSID. Today you can use data you download from the GDN, albeit only on SIPRNET/JWICS. In the longer term the Air Force's 480th Intel Wing is working to convert all the DOQ's into 1 Meter CIB (they've just delivered 1 Meter AF-CIB over the Utah Test and Training Range produced from DOQ's). What areas are covered by DOQ's? The AirPhoto USA Website has a graphic that also includes some information on the age of the imagery (NGA didn't purchase the data from them, so none of the "extras" listed on the webpage are included). The 480th is working to get their CIB production certified by NGA so they can be an authorized CIB producer like any other contractor. When that happens all the "DOQ CIB" will be made available by NGA as it's produced. How much CIB are we talking about? Over 1,700 CD's - make sure your Service Reps know you're ready for DVD's!
NGA's "DAFIF next (effective 18 March) is posted on the NGA website at https://164.214.2.62/products/digitalaero/index.cfm. If you want to download the files you need to update your DAFIF in PFPS 3.2/3.3 click here.
Last time I mistyped the AFSOC SIPRNET Mission Planning website. The correct url (as some of you figured out) is http://www.afsoc.af.smil.mil/do/doxc/
Mission Planning Tip: FalconView Route Rehearsal
Mission Planners and Commanders have always tried to visualize how an evenings worth of missions would flow. At the unit level the focus may be on a single multiship package, at the Wing/CAG the focus shifts to how the different packages interact and at the AOC level the focus shifts to visualizing the entire air war. In the "old days" the planners stood around with a series of small items (normally coins) placed on the map. As the highest ranking person read the "time" the other planners pushed the items along their routes - not exactly high tech. Today FalconView automates the process using the Route Rehearsal Tool.
The first step to using the Route Rehearsal Tool is to gather the routes. You'll need a method to "publish" routes after planning is complete - for example saving the finished routes in a network folder or emailing them to a central POC. This is much easier for those of you with PFPS 3.3 - you can email a FalconView Mission Package (.fmp file) containing your routes directly from FalconView. Once you have the routes open you'll need to turn the Route Rehearsal on. On the Route Editor Toolbar you'll see an icon (second from the bottom) that looks like an airplane:
Click on the button to bring up the active route's Rehearsal properties:
When you turn Route Rehearsal on you'll see your selected symbol at the beginning of the route:
You can turn on and off a label that will move with the aircraft, change the symbol style and size, and display a Range Ring (to help judge distances) that moves with the aircraft. To declutter the map you can hide the Route Legs and Points on the "General" tab:
You'll need to turn on the Route Rehearsal for every route. You can use the Overlay Manager to change the order of the FalconView Overlays (you can only change the properties for the route that's "on top"):
An easier way to bring a route forward is using CFPS. Clicking on a route tab will bring it to the front of CFPS and FalconView:
To start Route Rehearsal bring up FalconView's Playback Control by clicking on the clock button:
The Playback Control works like an MP3 player - you can use the buttons to play, pause and jump to the beginning or end of the track. You can also "grab" the slider to change the date/time. The playback date/time is displayed in the Playback Control's title, but if you check "Display time on map" you'll turn on a larger date/time display in the corner of the map:
If you click "Details" you'll see a Timeline of the Route Rehearsal Missions:
Click the play button to start playback. You can preview the mission at 1x ("realtime") all the way to 99x. You'll see time advance and the symbols move around the map:
It don't look so good for the home team! How does it look in SkyView?
As you can see, the Route Rehearsal symbols also move around in SkyView - but they're all F-16's. As in real life, the F-16's are hard to see. Without "callouts" (labels pointing down at a moving symbol) Route Rehearsal for multiple aircraft in SkyView is mostly a "gee whiz" kind of thing.
You can tie SkyView to a route in Route Rehearsal to preview what the route
will look like. Right click on the Route Rehearsal symbol:
You can get information about the Route Rehearsal:
or snap the SkyView Symbol to the Route Rehearsal Symbol:
Hopefully you can use Route Rehearsal to increase your SA before you step. Better to know where to look then to wonder "who the heck is that?"
Paul