Introduction to ArcGIS Excalibur: Web-based Imagery Exploitation

hello and welcome to esri user conference 2020. i am jamon johnson the product manager for archie excalibur presenting with me today is matt calamino the lead product engineer together we would like to share with you how our chat excalibur is transforming the way analysts perform their daily tasks i would like to start this presentation by giving a very brief overview of the extensive imagery capabilities of arcgis this diagram summarizes how arcgis is a comprehensive imagery platform arcgis supports all forms of content from different sensors formats and modalities that you may have accumulated in your organizations it also comes with great content from the living atlas and entry partners the content can be managed and made accessible through the image management component this primary uses mosaic data sets to manage large collections that can be made accessible as image services the map production capability focuses on tools to generate derived products from imagery such as author photos digital terrain models or 3d mesh the analysis and ai capabilities provides the tools to extract information from imagery such as change detection machine and deep learning and finally our presentation is focused on visualization exploitation which provides a wide range of tools to enable human interpretation of imagery resulting in the creation of information products the evolution of imagery and geospatiatory craft represent more than advancement of technology according to edgarshine culture is the most difficult organizational attribute to change outlasting products services leadership and all other physical attributes of an organization therefore to influence change these highly skilled professional working with imagery and geospatial data must continue to evaluate antiquated processes embrace technology and recommend newly improved analytical techniques well that's easier said than done majority of these professionals work on separate systems unique workflows and dissimilar data for example imagery analysts rely heavily on photogrammetry skills to identify activity or derive information from imagery while geospatial analysts use imagery as layers to support traditional map making workflows data used to create both information products are treated differently and stored in separate databases although a special symbiotic relationship has existed between gis and imagery from the earlier days of lewis and clark only recently had these tradecraft have been brought together in an integrated experience to promote the integration of these desperate tradecraft esri developed arcgis excalibur a web application allowing users to search discover and work with imagery and focus workflows to solve simple or complex problems the results are shared as imagery derived reports or dynamic layers to key stakeholders archives excalibur provides image exploitation capabilities that are relevant across many industries for example females conduct flood risk assessments department defense analysts can quickly create products that supports the intelligence preparation to the battle space framework departments of homeland security provide situational awareness to many events that they are responsible for while the intelligence community can use this web application to provide indications and warnings or actionable intelligence and the department of agriculture can use a caliber to support analytic workflows and farming forestry rural and economic development regardless of the organizations industry specialists or all source analysts use excalibur to discover view and perform simple visual analysis create basic annotations and share final results to decision makers imagery analysts can extract precise measurements from oblique images to provide information to consumers for planning or conducting structured observation management and activity-based intelligence while imagery or geospatial managers can monitor observation collected by single or multiple users for downstream analysis or perform metric assessments to identify ways to improve workflows within their organizations or to capture best practices so how do analysts or managers use excalibur an integrated imagery web-based application that is transforming the way analysts perform their daily tasks excalibur provides a quick way to search and discover imagery analyst users organize projects to simplify image workflows they can also exploit autorectify on oblique imagery side by side and share the results as image derived reports or dynamic layers we will now take a deep dive into the individual components many of our users often spend too much time looking for imagery or when they find the imagery of interest they often save those images on disk for example five analysts will have five different copies of the same image on their local hard drive which creates a data management problem for the entire organization using this caliber analysts can quickly gain access to imagery by simply accessing an image service url or they can access imagery from their organization image layer similar to an integrated imagery library or they have the ability to perform an interactive search and select available imagery from an enterprise image catalog service in which they can search by map extent or an area of interest results can be filtered by date ranges cloud cover nearest obligatory or image names within a search and discovery workflow you can also preview full frame images have access to the image metadata at your fingertips or cue those images for further use so let's see what that looks like arcgis excalibur a modern web application for arcgis enterprise makes it easy for users to search discover and connect to imagery from the connect view the default view of the application i have a variety of ways to identify imagery for use one way to leverage imagery is by connecting directly to an imagery web service after entering in a url it is validated and when successful enables me to connect either to the canvas where i can view and exploit the imagery layer or can connect to the catalog where i can search and filter the imagery layer for specific images using an imagery layer url is a quick way to explore imagery that may be public and owned outside of your organization so a common question many users may ask is what imagery do i have within my organization one of the easiest ways to answer this question is through the my available imagery view where i can gain an immediate understanding of what imagery layers are available to me within my organization each card in this view represents an imagery layer portal item type that you have permissions to access i can easily search for an existing imagery layer where the view will dynamically update with corresponding results these cards also have information such as name description and the permission properties for each of these imagery layers using the more about this imagery layer option allows me to see additional details about this layer including information from the portal item as well as from the service endpoint to inform me about the properties and methods on this layer in addition to gaining a full understanding about the imagery layer each card in the my available imagery list also provides the same options to either connect to canvas or to connect to catalog where i can interrogate the imagery collection for specific images so let's take a closer look at the image catalog experience where users can perform an interactive search and selection of imagery the imagery catalog search will zoom me to the imagery layer extent where i can use my search settings to set adjust and apply filters directly to my search to help refine my results once my filters are set i can run a search to retrieve only those images that meet my specified criteria as my cursor moves over each image in the search results list the corresponding footprint is highlighted in the map i can select an image to view the complete metadata for this specific image or i can view the full resolution image in the search map in addition i can also dynamically preview the entire image in its native perspective to perform instant visual inspection on this image this perspective allows me as an analyst to view the image in the way that it was captured off the sensor the metadata for this image is just a click away from this view and can be copied directly to your clipboard for dissemination once i determine the appropriate images or set of images that can be helpful to my task i can add them to the queue where i can create a new imagery project or can connect directly to the canvas where i can begin exploiting my images of interest analyst often uses multiple software applications to complete a single imagery based task or they may become overwhelmed with the abundance of tools available for exploitation ultimately spending more time on antiquated processes instead of spending that time on analysis in excalibur we introduce a concept called imagery projects an imagery project is a dynamic way to organize and reference resources that are required to complete an image-based task in a single location the way in which projects are organized helps to modernize a collection of resources from a local repository of information to those that can extend across an organization's enterprise using shared services and resources as part of the webgi's pattern these projects include images reference layers exploitation tools and even the questions that are being asked i believe imagery projects are more impactful if you see them in action arcgis excalibur allows for users to conduct a wide variety of image-based workflows including those that are pre-planned a pre-planned workflow can be accomplished through the notion of an imagery project an imagery project is a way for users to assemble and organize all resources required to complete an image-based task in a single location i can view a list of imagery projects within my organization that are available to me to gain an initial understanding about each project such as a title a description who created the project when that project was created and what type of project it is a project type helps tell the application which tools to surface for the user to have a more focused and streamlined workflow to fulfill their imagery task i can also view additional information about each project by viewing its project details this provides information as what imagery is associated to the project what observation layers are being utilized and what web map is being leveraged within the imagery project as the project owner i can add or remove capabilities to my imagery project at any given time this includes making textual edits to the name instructions or summary or even adding or removing observation layers based on my task at hand so let's open up this observation imagery project type focus around construction activities and take a closer look a set of instructions helps guide users through the image based task and can be recalled at any given time in this instance i'm tasked with collecting and recording observations of any active construction occurring within the highlighted area of interest reference layers are overlaid on top of the image to give the user additional supporting information which can be toggled on or off or interacted with at any given time this capability helps unify the traditional geospatial and imagery views into a single view experience for the user the orange area of interest helps me as the analyst stay focused to a specific area as opposed to spending time scanning the entire image i can utilize the time slider to view any previous observations that may have been collected in my area of interest this helps to make any future observations by knowing what was previously collected since my task is to collect and record on any active construction within the highlighted area of interest i can utilize my observation tools to begin my work a palette of icons displays based on the observation type and in this instance based on construction status after identifying active construction within my view i can click directly on the palette and click directly on the image to collect my observation the observation gets collected in both the image space and map space for further frame of reference a form display is allowing me as the user to manually add additional contextual information about the observation domains and drop-downs are utilized to simplify the user's workflow in addition to the manual fields there are a set of fields that get auto populated for the user which are key to observation-based workflows these fields help connect the observation to a specific image to allow for traceability of observations within an organization therefore this observation is now tied to this specific image within this imagery project it was collected at this date and time by this user at this location at this specific map scale now as an organization i can nearly recreate the environment from when an analyst made an observation for traceability purposes once all information is filled out i can submit the observation which gets written to the system of record and can be utilized by others within my organization in downstream analysis an example of this is utilizing an operations dashboard where the observations that have just been collected are immediately updated and available to reflect their current status as you can see the observation just collected over the one facility is now immediately displaying in my operations dashboard and can be utilized for further analysis many users are often challenged with using multiple application when completing an imagery based task for example analysts often use one application for geospatial reference and another for image exploitation excalibur allows you to integrate geospatial layers with your visual imagery analysis by using authoritative geospatial data to understand conditions and contexts on the ground you can gain more informed insights from your imagery for example you can extract information from oblique imagery and store that information directly into your enterprise database without the need to duplicate that entire workflow on rectified imagery and other gis applications users can also view images and map space by author rectifying them on the fly or you can view them in image space without distortion fully integrated with arcgis enterprise you can share observation within the organization or with external stakeholders for example you can add your observation to future services they can access through the web you can also use other arcgis applications and solutions to create products like image observation reports dashboard and active briefing products or simply share results as dynamic layers let's take a look at how the tradecraft of image exploitation and geospatial analysis is fully integrated in a web-based application arcgis excalibur enables users to view and analyze their focused imagery layer in the imagery exploitation canvas a set of tools allows you to work directly with the imagery service and includes features to enhance the display of your image exploit your image through markup and measurement and export the current view of your imagery for use in reports the image metadata table at the bottom of the canvas allows you to see information about your imagery and interact with each image the table contains metadata about each record and based on the imagery format and type you can view selected imagery in a side-by-side mode on the left hand side is the connected image in map coordinate space that is the image is being orthorectified on the fly to match the image to the ground aligning it to map space viewing highly oblique imagery in map space often results in visual distortions on the right hand side you will notice the same image as top up so it is optimized for the user to perform image analysis this is referred to as the image coordinate space where the image is being displayed in its native perspective this side-by-side capability helps unite the separate map centric and image centric views into a single view experience for each analyst the image coordinate space allows for analysts to work with the image such as enhancing the image for display menstruations and markup i can apply enhancements to this image such as dra or gamma to adjust the image on the fly to only those pixels within my current view this also includes changing band combinations on the focused imagery layer once all enhancements are applied i can utilize the menstruation tools to dynamically measure objects in my area of interest the measurements are calculated based on the underlying sensor models and results are returned on the fly saving time and enhancing these types of exploitation workflows i can use the markup tools to highlight any areas of interest on my image for instance i noticed some cargo loading occurring on this specific image in this port i can highlight these cargo loading areas i can add a label and can connect this label directly to my callouts further highlighting this area of activity at any time i can save my work as an imagery project where i can easily open my work back to the state it was when i saved this work is being saved as an imagery project an imagery project is a dynamic way to organize resources required to complete an image-based task in this case the imagery instructions display settings and markup will be automatically saved in their current state lastly once my work is complete i can export my current view as a report which can be utilized by my organization i can define my report extent i can enter a title any analyst comments and a file name i can also include additional options such as using the dark mode including a title slide and uploading a copy of my report to my portal account after clicking create report i will be notified when the report has finished creating as you can see from the final product the settings i requested such as dark mode a title slide and the defined extent are all in the output product lastly since i requested to upload my report to the portal i can drag and drop the report directly into arcgis excalibur and upload that report which i will then be notified when this has been uploaded successfully to my content since the imagery project is dynamic i can continue to work with my imagery such as utilizing additional comparison tools to see if these ships have had any previous activity at this port before i can toggle off my markup and can utilize some comparison tools to see if these ships had any previous activity after some quick visual inspection it's clear that this ship down at the bottom was not here prior i can continue to utilize my imagery project to make more observations and save my work other individuals within my organization can also leverage my imagery project if i take a quick look at my imagery projects list you'll notice the cargo loading imagery project that was just created is now available to others in my organization we've explained how the key components of arcgis excalibur provides image exploitation capabilities that are relevant across many industries now we are going to bring those components together as a complete end-to-end workflow by uploading imagery from a local drive conduct exploitation and share the results to key stakeholders as part of the upload process a new imagery layer will be created within the organizations that can be utilized as web enabled image services for shared analysis arcgis excalibur enables users to conduct end-to-end image-based workflows through modern and intuitive web experiences a major need many users have is to make available and utilize any recent imagery without having to rely on a gis admin to publish arcgis excalibur enables me to take file based imagery and immediately publish to web enable this data such as a new image i received from a full motion video collection where i can ultimately collect observations on any new activity observed within the area of interest i can use the publish a hosted imagery layer guided workflow to provide basic information about my new imagery layer such as a title a summary and tags the next step in the guided workflow is to choose how the new imagery layer is configured based on my source imagery i can choose a single image layer an image mosaic layer or an image collection layer based on the single snap that i received from the fmv collection i will choose the single image layer option where one imagery layer will be created from this single source image the next step is to select the data source that will be used in the publishing workflow i can utilize the shared network folder that my organization has set up to quickly browse for and select the images that were just captured i can see the summary of files i selected and can continue to the last step in my guided workflow where i can click to publish and create a new imagery layer knowing that this process can take some time based on the amount of imagery i'm uploading and publishing and my network connection excalibur offers the ability to navigate within the application to continue day-to-day workflows through the notices feature i will be proactively notified when my imagery layer has finished the publishing process as you see from the badge my imagery layer has finished publishing so i can go ahead and clear this notice and take a look at my new imagery layer the imagery layer details view displays information about the layer from both the portal item details and the service endpoint providing me with a full understanding about my new imagery layer i can immediately open this new layer in my canvas to begin my analysis of this new imagery layer now that this layer is in the canvas view and publish as an image service i can utilize the power of the image server to manipulate the imagery to my liking such as adjusting the dra or gamma utilizing my image display tools knowing that my goal is to ultimately analyze this image to collect observations on activity of interest i'm going to save my work as an imagery project where i can add capabilities to this project as part of the project instructions i am going to collect observations on any new activity identify once the project has been created i can edit the details of this project to include not only textual edits but also the ability to add capabilities to my project excalibur provides me with the flexibility to alter this project based on my needs these capabilities include the ability to change the web map of a project or to include an observation layer to the project knowing that my organization has a web map with contextual layers based around the area of interest i can add that to my project in addition i can also add an existing authoritative observation layer to my project to allow me to collect on any activities that are identified in my image once all capabilities have been added i can reopen my project in the canvas to begin exploiting my image the first thing we notice is my image is now overlaid on top of my organization's web map that includes reference or context layers for any other activities that may have occurred around the area of interest you will also notice that the existing observation layers are also overlaid within my view i can use the time slider to view any previous observations that were collected within my area of interest this will help in collecting any future observations to ensure i'm not collecting on the same type of activities that have already been observed i can now use a set of observation tools to begin collecting on any activity i see within my view a palette displays a list of icons per observation type and in this instance based on the activity type after identifying activity within my image i can click on the corresponding icon and click directly on the image to collect my observation a form displays allowing me as the user to manually add additional contextual information about the observation in addition to the manual fields there are a set of fields that get auto populated for the user which are key to observation-based workflows these fields help connect the observation to a specific image to allow for traceability of observations within an organization so these observations are tied to this specific imagery project and this specific image they were collected at this date and time at this specific location by this specific user and at this specific map scale now as an organization i can nearly recreate the environment from when an analyst made an observation for traceability purposes once all my observations have been collected i can add some markup to further call out these areas of activity to be used in my daily report i can utilize the markup tools to add these annotations to my image i can add a label and can connect that label directly to my callout now that this has been accomplished i can save my work and i can use the create report tool to sketch the area of interest that i want to be included in my report i can provide a title any comments and a file name in addition i can choose from several options such as utilizing dark mode including a title slide and even uploading a copy of this report to my portal account after clicking create report i'll be notified that my report has now been created this report will include the options that i had requested such as the dark mode a title slide and including the specific sketched area of interest knowing that i also requested to have this uploaded to my portal i can go ahead and drag and drop this report and upload it directly to my portal i receive another notice letting me know in informing me that this report has been saved successfully and is now available in my content of the portal the observations that we just collected can also be utilized by others in my organization in downstream analysis for instance utilizing an operations dashboard which now directly reflects the new observations i've just collected on the personnel and the vehicle activity that i've observed on my new image arcgis is a comprehensive imagery platform that works with all types of imagery to deploy this capability you need arcgis enterprise 10.7 or later arcgis image server and arcgis excalibur a licensed web application so where are we headed next with excalibur we are looking to integrate deep learning models for enhanced observation collection workflows support rna imagery layers and imagery projects so thank street side photos or inspection images improve imagery project management with quality control and quality assurance workflows evolve support for artificial intelligence and machine learning support web-based motion imagery exploitation workflows and continued focus integration with raster analysis services to expand our advanced analysis capabilities i want to point you to some resources about arcgis excalibur and about the imagery and remote sensing capabilities in arcgis our website contains our product overview benefits and how to get access to excalibur our documentation page provides detailed information regarding installation procedures and step-by-step guides our team can be contacted at the list email address we also have some general imagery and remote sensing resources available first the imagery workflows website provides resources best practices to tools and downloadable tools to simplify common imagery workflows second visit our geonet community to ask questions participate in discussions and find events and resources related to imagery and third use imagery hands-on learn lessons to address interesting and real-world problems finally please fill out our survey so we can learn more about what you want to see from imagery and arcgis thank you you

Channel: ArcGIS

Views: 1,380

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Esri, ArcGIS, GIS, Geographic Information System, ArcGIS Pro, imagery, imagery analysis, intelligence, all source

Id: CykKkj_jViw

Length: 39min 25sec (2365 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2020