Enterprise Information Pipeline Transformed with the Speed of Life

Imagery: The Essential Cornerstone Shaped by Application Needs

Our information pipelines, fueled by imagery data, transform raw data into informed, justifiable, and sustainable decision-making. Every day, we process and validate information through our experiences. Just like members of a philharmonic orchestra, we each specialize in our own areas with individual intent. We then collaborate with others who share similar specialties and team up with those who have different specialties to create a synergistic effect, supporting the conductor’s interpretation of the composer’s vision.

In the enterprise, data pipelines function like orchestras, where information specialists work together to transform raw data into wisdom, enabling informed and justifiable decisions. These decisions need to be correctly informed for the present and also build a foundation for the future. Organizations handle a lot of information from many sources, at very fast speeds, and in new ways to help them understand their business, make decisions, and analyze it. The data pipeline is the practiced process of moving, transforming, storing, and analyzing information to meet the needs of the enterprise’s information consumers. Harmonized information makes it possible to create informed, justifiable, and sustainable decisions. But how dynamic is this process?

Just as orchestra conductors harmonize specialists to produce each symphony, enterprise leaders must align information specialists to publish each application. Orchestras organize departments of experts who practice in advance to meet the demands of the composer and conductor. For example, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” requires a large ensemble of 80 to 110 musicians, including cannon fire, while Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto” needs only 10 to 12.

Similarly, enterprise information pipelines (our orchestras) provide decision-makers with information tailored to specific applications. These pipelines consist of complex systems of interconnected subsystems that deepen our understanding of our areas of interest. This deeper understanding empowers us to take actions that are informed, justifiable, and sustainable, ultimately shortening the time it takes for the enterprise to achieve value. As the value increases, usage rates also rise, creating a positive feedback loop where the time to achieve value decreases as more value is established.

The imagery data pipeline is a foundational asset that optimizes this process, putting time back into the enterprise’s schedule. Time and applications are crucial for this transformation!

Five Pillars of the Imagery Data Pipeline

The imagery data pipeline is structured around five essential pillars, each with organized sequential steps, much like the sections of a symphony that come together to create a harmonious performance.

1. Content Collection: The process starts with gathering imagery content using sound photogrammetric principles, tailored to the specific application needs, just as an orchestra begins with each musician practicing their part.
2. Knowledge Extraction: This step involves creating digital derivative products that accurately map the reality defined by the applications, similar to how an orchestra combines individual parts to form the initial structure of the symphony.
3. Knowledge Refinement: We refine the extracted knowledge through the analysis of observations of the area of interest (AOI). This is akin to the conductor’s role in fine-tuning the performance, ensuring each section is in harmony.
4. Transformation to Wisdom: We transform the refined knowledge into the beginnings of wisdom, which is essential for making informed, justifiable, and sustainable decisions. This transformation is like the final rehearsal where the symphony reaches its full potential.
5. Comprehensive Integration: The imagery content comes from both visible sources, such as RGB, and invisible sources, such as LiDAR, thermal, and SAR. To serve the right uses within a certain time frame, the imaging pipeline must be a complete, scalable, adaptable, and integrated system of systems. It should be like an orchestra that must be well-organized from the first note to the last.

Application, Application, Application!

Every GIS relies on remotely sensed content as its foundation, much like a symphony relies on the quality and variety of its instruments as the foundation to create a harmonious performance. When this imagery is integrated with other data, we gain a deeper understanding of the world around us, reducing the time to realize value for all data owners. This integration helps us identify key issues and red flags, guiding our actions and decisions.

To properly unlock the knowledge and relationships between the data, we must ensure that the right data is used for the right application, meeting them in the specific context of their requirements. Key issues to understand include:

• Contract Data Specifications: Clearly defined terms and conditions of data owners, tailored to the application’s needs.
• Security Requirements: Compliance with standards such as FedRAMP, CJIS, and others, ensuring the data is secure for the intended use.
• Staff Bandwidth: Ensuring the availability and expertise of the team to meet the specific demands of the application.
• Analysis, Publishing, and Sharing: Identifying who the producers and consumers are, whether they are remote sensing scientists or business users, and how the data will be used in the application.
• Expected SLA: Service Level Agreements that set clear expectations for performance and delivery, aligned with the application’s timeline.
• Content Libraries: Cataloging and managing the size, type, and cloud optimization of the content to ensure it meets the application’s requirements.
• GeoAI/ML/DL: Utilizing advanced technologies for automatic feature extraction, tailored to the specific needs of the application.
• Number of Services: Determining the required number of services to support the application effectively.
• Timelines: Establishing and adhering to clear timelines for each step, ensuring the application is delivered on schedule.

By addressing these issues in the context of specific applications, we ensure that the imagery data pipeline is finely tuned, much like the instruments in an orchestra, to deliver the highest value and most harmonious results.

Transformational – what’s in a word?

Just as finely tuned instruments in an orchestra come together to create a powerful and dynamic performance, the enterprise information pipeline must transform to provide a system of record that offers insight and wisdom, engaging people to take informed, justifiable, and sustainable actions. Imagery is the cornerstone of this process, much like instruments are the foundation of a symphony. To meet the demands of GIS at the speed of life, we must embrace the transformation of these pipelines, integrating the power of location into our daily experiences.

This transformation is not just about the data itself but also about how we use it. By automatically conditioning our thinking with time, validity, and history, we bring a real-time “now” factor to enterprise information pipelines. This real-time integration is crucial for developing and applying artificial intelligence (AI). AI can then analyze and predict with greater accuracy and responsiveness. In this scenario, AI acts as the conductor. It orchestrates the data to create a cohesive and smart performance that guides our decisions and actions in real-time.

The Symphony of Data and AI

Just as a conductor ensures that each instrument plays its part at the right time and in harmony with the others, AI ensures that our enterprise information pipeline uses data effectively and in context. By leveraging AI, we can automate the extraction of meaningful insights from vast amounts of data, making the process faster and more efficient. This automation allows us to focus on higher-level decision-making, much like a conductor focuses on the overall performance rather than the individual notes.

The real-time “now” factor, combined with the power of AI, transforms our data into a living, breathing system that operates at the speed of life. This system not only provides immediate insights but also continuously learns and adapts, ensuring that our actions are always informed, justifiable, and sustainable, keeping us in tune with the ever-changing speed of life.