“The story of BAE Systems’ SOCET GXP (Geospatial eXploitation Products) software package began five years ago. That’s when the company began combining aspects of its existing photogrammetry and image analysis (IA) packages — SOCET SET and VITec — with GIS, multispectral, targeting, and other capabilities necessary for geospatial analysis (GA) and production. Dan London, vice president of sales and marketing for BAE Systems, explained that “the goal is to span the entire IA–GA market; [to create] a single user interface that addresses the entire market.”

In addition to addressing the needs of organizations that work “in the middle” — performing both IA and GA — BAE Systems also sought to reduce the number of software packages that users need to perform their jobs. To that end, developers incorporated capabilities such as engineering calculations and multispectral/hyperspectral that would otherwise require an ENVI or ERDAS software package, said London.

Consolidating functionality is especially important in the military, London explained, because an individual might work for just eighteen months as an information analyst before being rotated out of that position and into another. This frequent circulation of personnel results in high training costs, so decreasing the amount of time spent on learning software generates “a tremendous cost savings,” he said.