Global Connection Project in Presents:
Potentially Pretty Pretty Pictures
and Ponies
Ted Morse
Momentarily Mesmerizing Monitors
Common Operating Picture
People need to collaborate and share
information quickly and effectively
Intra/Inter-disaster relief group
communication needs to be improved.
What if Google Earth were used as a virtual
whiteboard to share images and
information?
Google’s Good Gift
Google Earth is a virtual globe browser
supporting custom overlays and data
through KML.
External content can be brought in through
Network Links.
Common Operating Picture, cont’d
Google Earth has two technologies that
allow near-instantaneous communication:
1. Incremental Change API for KML.
A way of changing, adding and deleting items to
an existing KML document.
2. Simulating server-push with a Network Link.
A way of loading additional content from a
network.
Common Operating Picture cont’d
Client
Server Client
Client
Disaster Image Overlays
There is no good way of knowing what
Disaster imagery is available in a timely
manner.
Solution: Bring in imagery from different
sources and place into Common Operating
Picture.
Gigapixel Panorama Sharing
Gigapan: Panorama Capture Device using
consumer camera
Ruby on Rails: MVC web application
framework written in Ruby.
Gigapan + RoR = Gigalicious
Future Work
Utilize other image sources for disaster
imagery besides Digital Globe.
Improve UI/Security of panorama sharing
site.
Cellphones combined with GPS to provide
geo-tagged ground photography.
Questions?