MrGeo, a tool that DigitalGlobe developed under the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s research and development program, is now available through source-code sharing site GitHub.
NGA Director Robert Cardillo, who took leadership of the agency in 2014, said he is leading a shift in NGA’s culture to be more open and to make better use of social media and commercial imagery.
Related: NGA: ‘Seismic Shift’ in Geospatial Intel
NGA is not a newcomer to GitHub; it opened its own page there in 2014. But the need to advance is becoming more urgent, Cardillo said during a speech in April at the 31st Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Event: Joseph Fontanella, director of the U.S. Army Geospatial Center, discussed this problem in detail during a June 3 C4ISR & Networks webcast. Click here for the program on demand..
“We have both a challenge and a warning,” Cardillo said in that speech. “We have only a limited time to transform our mindset and unleash the power of our people to leverage our enterprise and fulfill the potential that these massive changes offer.”
Related: NGA explores new ways to leverage commercial images
NGA also plans to take part this summer in Google’s “Summer of Code” for young developers, according to Reuters.
“Posting code to open source forums allows the private sector and others to examine the agency’s research up close, and potentially benefit from it through additional enhancements and applications. At the same time, the government can gain from related research advances,” said NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines, quoted in the Reuters report..
MrGeo, which is short for MapReduce Geo, provides raster-based geospatial capabilities.
