Geospatial Intelligence Standards Working Group (GWG)

GWG DISR Activities

What is the DISR?
The DoD IT Standards Registry (DISR) is a single, unifying DoD registry for approved information technology (IT) and national security systems (NSS) standards and standards profiles. The Registry contains only standards citations and pointers to the location of the standard, indicating where a user can obtain it. No standards are contained in the DISR.

The DISR is maintained and populated by the Department of Defense (DoD) Information Technology Standards Committee (ITSC), which is the governing group responsible for developing and promoting standards interoperability in support of net-centricity within the Department of Defense (DoD). Criteria for the selection of standards and processes for the recommendation, selection, and maintenance of standards in the DISR are governed by the operating procedures of the ITSC.

The Services and other DoD organizations participate, through subject matter experts (SME), in the standards selection process. Configuration management (CM) of the DISR is done by submitting and adjudicating change requests (CRs). The DISR Calendar identifies the schedules and meetings used in the CM process.

Access to the DISR

The DISR is housed in the DISRonline, a web-based application that provides configuration management support for the standards in the DISR.

You must have a PKI Certificate or CAC card to request a DISRonline account. Access to the DISRonline is also limited to those who are directly involved in the development or support of projects, programs, or systems that make use of the DoD IT Standards Registry (DISR). Government contractors are required to provide their current contract number and identify a military or government point of contact (POC) that can verify their justification for DISRonline access.

You can request a DISRonline account by going to DISRonline and selecting Request an Account.

GWG's DISR Responsibilities

The GWG is a Technical Working Group under the ITSC, and as such has the responsibility to:

Identify new GEOINT standards to propose for inclusion in the DISR
Elevate emerging GEOINT standards to mandated status once the selection criteria contained in the DISR have been met
Update an existing GEOINT standard to reflect its latest release
Tag as sunset a GEOINT standard identified as being near the end of its lifecycle or for which a replacement is in progress or a trigger event identified. The tag requires both an event that must take place as well as an estimated date.
Retire a GEOINT standard that is no longer essential to net-centric interoperability and is not necessary to enable interoperability of existing systems.
Identify, develop, and maintain standards profiles that facilitate a net-centric environment.
Provide a forum for the evaluation, acceptance, and status changes of GEOINT standards and standards profiles contained in the DISR.

The GWG carries out these responsibilities by identifying GEOINT subject matter experts within its membership community, coordinating standards identification activities, and facilitating the change request processes for recommending and maintaining GEOINT standards for inclusion in the DISR. The GWG conducts three polling sessions throughout the year to coincide with the DISR update schedule.

For more information on the DISR, DISRonline, and how to access GWG information on the DISRonline, click here .

GEOINT Standards in the DISR

The GEOINT standards under the purview of the GWG are defined within the following three DISR Service Areas:

GEOINT: Geospatial - Geospatial includes dictionaries, definitions, models, metadata, and formats to facilitate mapping, analysis, exploitation, portrayal, and exchange of geospatial data.

GEOINT: Motion Imagery - Motion Imagery includes the tasking, collection, posting, processing, storage, exploitation, discovery, retrieval, and exchange of motion imagery, associated metadata, audio and other related media types whether generated from electro-optical (EO), infrared (IR), or other motion imagery sensors.

GEOINT: Still Imagery - Still Imagery includes the tasking, collection, posting, processing, storage, exploitation, discovery, retrieval, and exchange of digital imagery and gridded data associated with geospatial intelligence. The standards in this service area address imagery and gridded data topics such as formatting, compression, support data, metadata, graphical and textual annotations, image quality, and imagery-derived data and products. Applicability includes EO, IR, overhead non-imaging IR (ONIR), synthetic aperture radar (SAR) phase history data, SAR (complex and detected) imagery, multispectral imagery (MSI), hyperspectral imagery (HSI), ultraspectral imagery (USI), Polarimetric Imagery (PI), Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IFSAR), Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), raster maps and charts, and Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI).

The Pocket Guide to GEOINT Standards provides a complete current list of GEOINT standards in the DISR and can be found on the NSG Standards Registry.

General Schedule for GWG's DISR Update Activities

The DISR is updated three times a year, and the GWG's DISR activities follow the schedule set by the ITSC. A general schedule for DISR baseline releases and the corresponding GWG activities that support updates to the GEOINT standards in the DISR are shown in the table below. Watch for upcoming announcements on specific GWG DISR update activities.