Open Source Tool Helps US DoD Eye in the Sky To See

The US Department of Defense is awash in digital images and videos taken by a variety of sources including satellites, manned airplanes and unmanned drones. Going through all of that imagery by hand would take untold resources that the DoD just doesn’t have.

Instead the DoD has turned to a computer vision program to help sort through the imagery. The programs they use are supplied by Kitware and get ready for this – are open source! That’s right! the US Department of Defense is using open source computer vision solutions to help identify potential threats.

Kitware is a company that has been working with DoD and DARPA for many years in refining the software that helps keep us safe. I recently spoke with Dr. Anthony Hoogs, the Director of Computer Vision for Kitware. Dr. Hoogs joined Kitware in 2007 and started their Computer Vision group. They work almost exclusively with the government.

Dr. Hoogs is the Principal Investigator on the DARPA VIRAT and PerSEAS projects, with responsibility for overseeing more than twelve universities and nine commercial subcontractors. He has initiated and led multiple additional contracts in video and motion analysis, Predictive Analysis for Naval Deployment Activities (DARPA), Complex Activity Recognition in Video (DARPA) and various SBIR efforts in wide-area video.