LizardTech, Smartronix Provide U.S. Military Imaging Support

LizardTech is partnering with Smartronix to enable the U.S. Air Force to access to imagery in support of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, reducing turnaround time from months to weeks.

Smartronix, a consultant to the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), was tasked to provide the Air Force a faster means to serve out imagery to support war efforts in the Iraqi and Afghan theaters. Previously, AFSOC employed a process for storing and serving imagery, however the delay time was typically in excess of three months from image acquisition to deployment, according to the companies. After implementing LizardTech’s Express Suite, AFSOC was able to compress their imagery to Multiresolution Seamless Image Database (MrSID), a wavelet-based image encoder, viewer, and file format, reproject it, load it into Oracle, and have it ready to serve to the field in less than three weeks, reportedly four and a half times faster than before.

“Using the LizardTech Express Suite family of products we were able to save the Air Force time and money,” said David Streed, spokesman for Smartronix, Inc. “Our requirements for storage dropped from terabytes to gigabytes, which kept equipment costs down, allowed a significantly smaller footprint, and saved our client in excess of 1,700 man hours – all while providing the imagery they needed in a timely manner.”