Mapping overhaul needs industry

ORLANDO, Fla. — The government wants industry's help to change the way geospatial-intelligence is collected and to transform the agency doing the work, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's chief information officer said today.

The agency is advancing from two-dimensional maps and text to surveillance data and will continue to advance to digital, data-centric operations, said Scott Cragg, NGA's chief information officer. NGA, which has evolved from the Defense Mapping Agency and most recently the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, is in the midst of a transformation in gathering foreign geospatial data.

"We provide information at all levels as to where everything is," Cragg said, speaking today at the Information Processing Interagency Conference sponsored by the Government Information Technology Executive Council. "As we pull data together, we create layers of various intelligence and data