When we think of geospatial intelligence in the context of national security, we usually think of maps and Earth imagery. But much of the intelligence needed for defense and domestic security involves the inside as well as the outside of facilities and structures of all kinds. Such geospatial technologies as geographic information systems and earth imaging provide us with views and analytical capabilities related to the gross external boundaries and characteristics of natural features and human structures. But if intelligence activities require information about structural details (internal, external, underground, and underwater), different tools are needed.

Structures are human-designed geospatial features, and structural designs are usually documented. Digital design drawings, construction documents, and as-built and occupant records provide relatively precise data that can support geospatial intelligence for event simulation, searches, evacuations, security patrols, rescues, mobilization planning, logistics, and fire and flood mitigation and response.

In some cases (certainly in most in-building operations in war zones), no building documents are available to provide such intelligence. Digital information about building interiors must be collected by personnel who enter the buildings using notepads and memory or measuring and recording devices such as video cameras, scanning laser rangefinders, and inertial motion trackers. In-building location and tracking systems using "time differential of arrival" of radio signals (rather like a self-contained local Global Positioning System) can report locations of tags moving about a building. Tiny flying reconnaissance robots with Web-connected sensors will someday play a role.

The technologies mentioned here are beyond the scope of this article, though most are already in use. (Patient-care facilities are using radio frequency identification tags and sensors at known locations to control patient/asset movement and proximity to physical service access points.) This article focuses instead on cases in which building documents are available and discusses efforts to make them easier to discover, access, and use.

It will be helpful to stop thinking in terms of documents (even if they are digital) and start thinking in terms of data released from the practical confines of the idiosyncratic and legacy-imposed internal structures of documents and files. How can software systems communicate with each other to provide integration between architecture/engineering/construction (AEC), computer-aided design (CAD), and geospatial data? How can geospatial data models and their approximate CAD equivalent (building information models, or BIMs) be harmonized so that software can readily manage both? How can agencies get this information, and how can they integrate different geospatial and CAD systems and data to optimize their intelligence value?

Intelligence requirements for quick discovery and seamless access to building information are well aligned with day-to-day business and other requirements. This is just as true for aerial photos, satellite images, GIS data layers, and transportation information. When seconds count, security depends on robust interoperability among all the systems that provide information about the world to bus drivers, electricians, and everyone else.

Information-Sharing Obstacles

Public- and private-sector security and emergency response organizations (and municipal planners, real estate developers, engineers, architects, builders, utility contractors, permitting agencies, building managers, and maintenance contractors) all need information about buildings and building-site infrastructure. Most of these people create new information on top of information provided by others.

Unfortunately, much of the information that has already been collected by others is not available, so it needs to be collected again — redundantly. Data could often be reused, but architecture, building, and real estate professionals typically develop data, deliver it to those who pay for it, then file the data away. Such information is eventually discarded, like old tax data. The data do not get registered in an online catalog and stored online behind an access control system, where they could be discovered and accessed by anyone who has a need and a right to access them. Why not? Because until now, implementing shared library systems for building information just hasn't been a practical goal (except in limited situations). In our legacy technical and institutional environments:

• Integrating data from different types and brands of software has been difficult and has required batch conversion of files with significant manual intervention. Batch file conversion still dominates, but it's rapidly giving way to direct communication between networked software systems. This progress is enabled by the advent of a unified Internet and Web services infrastructure and open software interfaces and encodings that are developed in open standards consortia and then widely implemented by vendors.
• Different data producers have used different and incompatible BIMs that define, for example, the encoding of "window" or "water main." But that is changing as organizations such as the American Institute of Architects and National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) in the United States, and the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) internationally, work together as part of Facilities Information Council technical committees and other forums to develop Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) and BIM standards. (BIM standards and IFCs are related, but BIM standards are not restricted to using IFCs as the data source.)
• Appropriate data sharing and archiving policies have not been put into place because data coordination has simply not been a high priority for the organizations that need to be involved. This is true with geospatial data and it is true with facilities data and building data. Long-term data-management policies need to be agreed upon by different agencies' high-level policymakers, and many of these policymakers may not understand such issues or be accustomed to working together on them. Middle managers may drag their feet to protect their data fiefdoms, fearful of being made irrelevant by modern information systems. People need to be assigned to do the work, which takes money out of already strained budgets. Institutional barriers and inertia submit slowly to data sharing and system interoperability initiatives, even when it's obvious that data sharing and interoperability will save time, money, and lives. But old ways are yielding to financial drivers, as business requirements make data sharing a requirement.