Ground Guidance Desktop

Off-Road Navigation Software for Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Vista

Videos

• Ground Guidance Routes to Sniper's Location
  11 Jul 08
  

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Screenshots

• Google Earth
  31 Jul 08

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Comics

• Avoiding Lakes
  29 Jul 08

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Additional Information

• Datasheet: Ground Guidance Desktop
  Learn how Ground Guidance Desktop integrates with Falcon View to assist soldiers plan fast and concealed routes.
• Datasheet: Ground Guidance Handheld
  Discover how Ground Guidance Handheld integrates with a Microsoft Windows Compact Edition (CE) devices to provide guidance along an off-road route.
• Presentation: Ground Guidance
  Learn how Ground Guidance operates in the field and improves upon existing routing systems such as the United States Army's Force XXI Battle Command - Brigade and Below (FBCB2) and Movement Tracking System (MTS).
• User Manual: Ground Guidance
  Learn how to plan fast and concealed routes using Ground Guidance Desktop and Ground Guidance Handheld.  
• Testimonial: Future Tactical Systems
  Review the United States Army's assertion that Ground Guidance has "high potential military utility in the near-term."
• Patent: Routing Soldiers Around Enemy Attacks and Battlefield Obstructions
  Read how Ground Guidance routes soldiers around combat obstacles.
• Patent Application: Generating and Presenting Off-Road Travel Routes
  Assess Ground Guidance's techniques for analyzing land cover and elevation data and generating off-road routes.

In areas without roads and trails, the best path from one point to another is often unobvious and depends on the lay of the land and the obstacles lying between. Ground Guidance is route planning software that shows the best path in these areas where convenient roads and trails simply do not exist, like national forests and parks. When you click the map, Ground Guidance shows you the best path between your clicks. Ground Guidance, like MapQuest and Google Maps, can plan routes along roads and trails. However, Ground Guidance works best in areas devoid of roads and trails, areas that render MapQuest and Google Maps useless. Ground Guidance Desktop installs on Windows XP, displays aerial imagery much like Google Earth, and overlays the routes you plan on that imagery.

Ground Guidance Desktop was originally developed for soldiers who needed to plan routes for nightly missions. Until recently, hunters, hikers, geocachers, and even soldiers have been limited to using software that plans simplistic straight-line routes that often cut right through obstacles like cliffs or marshes, causing tedious and dangerous rerouting. Ground Guidance analyzes the elevation and vegetation to plan routes that weave between and around obstacles. This cuts down on having to unexpectedly re-route out in the field, which can be difficult and dangerous. Think of it this way: trying to find your way while driving is tough enough, but there you at least have roads and signs to aid you. In rugged off-road terrain, that luxury rarely exists, and it is much easier to get lost without a well-planned route. Ground Guidance provides you that route.

Ground Guidance Desktop can operate as a standalone application or Falcon View plug in.

Key features:

• Route planner automatically generates on- and off-road routes. Like existing route planners, Ground Guidance Desktop enables users to plan routes along roads and trails. What makes Ground Guidance Desktop unique, however, is its ability to plan optimal routes in the absence of roads and trails. These off-road routes avoid manmade and natural obstacles such as lakes, marshes, cliffs, buildings, and dense forests. Ground Guidance Desktop also enables users to plan multiple routes to a destination and easily switch among them while navigating. Ground Guidance Desktop also enables a user to easily modify a route by inserting waypoints, placing cordons, or hand-drawing segments.
• Detailed maps enable surveying a destination before arriving. Pan and zoom while viewing detailed aerial photos, topographic maps, road maps, and trail maps in two- and three-dimensions.
• Moving map enables real-time tracking while navigating. If your computer has an internal or external global positioning system (GPS) receiver, Ground Guidance Desktop presents a moving map that shows your location updating in real time.
• Turn guidance directs you along an on- or off-road route. Ground Guidance Desktop provides turn-by-turn guidance along routes. It also estimates an arrival time and indicates the distance to the next turn.
• Handheld compatibility enables interfacing with GPS devices. Transfer routes, tracks, and waypoints to and from Garmin and Magellan global positioning system (GPS) receivers.
• Unlimited map downloads makes it easy to prepare for your adventure. Before embarking on a journey, download the maps for your destination. Ground Guidance Desktop enables you to download as many maps as you like.
• Map printer enables users to print maps to take along. After planning your trip, print a map with route overlays for yourself or to share with others.
• Transportation modes enable users to plan routes in vehicles or on-foot. Ground Guidance Desktop enables users to plan routes optimized for a given transportation mode such as on-foot, all-terrain vehicle (ATV), Jeep, or marine. A marine route, for instance, maximizes use of lakes and rivers while avoiding portages.
• Search and rescue features support first responder operations. In addition to planning fast routes on- and off-road, Ground Guidance Desktop support generating parallel sweep and expanding square routes with a specified sweep spacing. Ground Guidance Desktop also tracks coverage along these area search routes to ensure that searchers do not overlook an area. Ground Guidance Desktop also includes a unit prediction feature that predicts future locations of a lost individual given a transportation mode and duration.
• Military features support defense operations. Ground Guidance Desktop supports both geographic (i.e. latitude and longitude) and military grid reference system (MGRS) coordinates. In addition, it supports displaying grid lines. Ground Guidance Desktop also presents go/no-go maps for a given transportation mode. These maps show fast areas in green, slow areas in red, and impassable areas in black.
• Intervisibility analyzer enables users to determine line of sight from a location. Ground Guidance Desktop enables users to click a point on the map and see what is visible from that location. This view shed is used to determine cell tower coverage or to select an observation point.
• Route check identifies dangerous sections in hand-generated routes. Like spell check in a word processor, route check identifies potential errors in a hand-generated route such as sections that are impassable due to a cliff or marsh.

Ground Guidance Desktop is ideal for anyone who navigates off-road including geocachers, hunters, hikers, boaters, first responders, search and rescue personnel, all terrain vehicle (ATV) riders, snowmobiler, and 4 by 4 drivers.

Copyright © 2008 Primordial, Inc.