Inview_FALL2017_Final_V2

FALL 2017
NEWSLETTER
MAPPING
SPACE AND TIME
Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
INSIDE:
A New Message from AGI
Correcting misconceptions
page 2
STK 11
It’s out of this world!
page 4-7
ComSpOC
The Commercial Space Operations Center
page 8
International Spotlight
Celebrating our customers’ success
page 15

AGI UPDATE
AGI UPDATE
A New Message
So what exactly does AGI do? We create
game-changing software that lets you make
the best decisions about things that move in
space and time.
I have been with AGI for more than 25 years,
and in that time, I’ve done just about every
job possible for the company. So, to me,
what AGI stands for, as well as the depth of
our offerings, has always been obvious. But
for some reason, Paul Graziani (our CEO
and co-founder) was constantly telling me,
“Frank, no one knows what we do. We just
aren’t doing a good job of articulating our
value proposition.” Again, it was so clear
to me what we did. Why can’t people get
it? Now, the funny thing is,
for the last 20 years, I have
overseen Marketing, so after
10 years of Paul’s badgering,
I was beginning to take his
comments personally.
We create software that changes the game.
What game? Well, in my eyes, the game is
simulating or watching the performance of
anything that moves around at any time.
Moves around what, you ask? Moves around
anything! Essentially, “anything that moves
around anything else at any time.”
So, for example, you could determine the
downlink radio frequency (RF) interference
for satellites moving around our Earth caused
by a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) moving
around a geographic region delivering
packages to the Jetson family of the
future. You could also simulate what the
Francesco Linsalata
Corporate Officer
From AGI
No matter what domain you’re working in–land, sea,
air, or space, you need to be able to analyze and
visualize objects across space and time; AGI can help
you get there. We feel confident that by applying
our technology, you can address the details of your
problems. Our technology is built to be open, flexible,
and scalable, giving you endless possibilities.
Flintstones’ town of Bedrock would have
looked like had we had UAVs back then.
And on top of that, you would be able to
see everything in a realistic 3D scene, from
space down to the ground.
These examples are centered around Earth.
But our software can even help you figure
out problems on any other central body. It
takes just a few simple turns of the knobs
and dials. Take, for example, our friends at
the APL (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics
Laboratory). Long ago, when their scientists
wanted to ask fundamental questions about
near-Earth objects such as the potato-shaped
asteroid Eros, they turned to AGI. With our
‘‘
software, they were able to determine how
to get to Eros and model orbits around it.
That is a pretty wide breadth of capability,
and that’s just in STK.
So why do so many prospective users still
think that satellite visualization is our only
forte? Well, you don’t have to be a marketing
genius to realize how that misconception
evolved. For one, our company only had only
one product–the Satellite Tool Kit–for the
first 20 years of our existence. And second,
we plastered cool STK graphics everywhere.
We couldn’t help ourselves.
Fortunately, we have always had really
smart customers. And these customers
started to apply STK in ways we had
never imagined. They helped grow our
capabilities and market.
The growth was truly a team effort. Our AGI
rocket scientists were also amazing computer
scientists, and they developed software
capable of solving problems bigger and more
complex than we ever imagined. They made
our space and time modeling capabilities
flexible, so that it could model not just things
in space, in the air or on the ground, but
anything in motion.
Truth be told, before we had a chance to
rename Satellite Tool Kit, our customers
had already started using it in new ways.
They were using STK to generate solutions
for common operating pictures (COPs),
simulate complex missile systems, conduct
RF analysis for ground antenna networks,
track Malaysian elephants, and send
explorers to Pluto.
Just like any other technology set, things
were converging. The distinction between
land, sea, air, and space systems was
becoming fuzzy. They all need to operate
harmoniously. And STK provided that
integrated simulation environment right out
of the box from day one. So after about 20
years of success as Satellite Tool Kit, it finally
We create game-changing software that lets
you make the best decisions about things
that move in space and time”.
happened. In 2012, our collective marketing
genius caucused for weeks to rename STK to
STK, to stand for Systems Tool Kit. For me, it
was a perfect solution. With the same initials,
we could minimize our rebranding efforts!
The renaming was an obvious, but long
overdue change to the reality that STK was
way more than just satellites.
Well, that pretty much got us to where
we are with STK, a revolutionary piece of
software that continues to make us proud,
solving problems all over the aerospace and
defense industry. But it still did not solve my
problem of having Paul come in my office
every week saying that the market does not
know what we do.
The problem was that AGI was starting to do
more stuff. The STK people weren’t just STK
people anymore. Everybody in the company
was coming up with great ideas. The
software industry was changing with
lightning speed. Meanwhile, I was only
changing in regular time. We were
witnessing rapid advancements in
all forms of hardware. Our R&D
team members were throwing
around concepts such as service
oriented architecture (SOA),
clouds, virtualization, and opensource.
These all just seemed
like crazy buzzwords to me.
Open-source? As if giving away
STK for free wasn’t generous
enough. Now we have to give
away the source code too?
But almost before I could order
new t-shirts with Systems Tool
Kit emblazoned on them, our
company had started creating
cost-effective enterprise solutions
based on our underlying software
libraries, and we began developing the
world’s leading open-source 3D globe
with Cesium. Then we launched the world’s
first and only operational commercial
space situational awareness (SSA) facility
and related services that monitor space
daily. The next thing I know, we’re starting
another group to help monitor the swarm
of UAVs coming our way.
Now I was starting to think that Paul had a
point. We have been doing more than just
STK (much more) and yet, most people still
haven’t figured out what STK can do. As it
turns out, the only thing harder than getting
people to figure out what we do is getting
people that think they know what we do to
learn that we do something different than
what they originally thought.
At the beginning of 2016, we decided that
AGI needed to do a complete rebranding.
For some companies, “rebranding” equates
to a new logo, a different color palette, and
maybe a new catchphrase. Well, we did all
that too. But what we really did was overhaul
our messaging. We distilled the language
about our solutions and our value proposition
down to the simplest terms possible. We
want to be sure that our market understands
us. Because no matter what product or
service we offer, our value to you is our core
technological and philosophical attributes
that we deliver to you.
It also became evident during the
rebranding exercise we went through last
year that our employees truly love what
they’re doing. Our engineers take the really
hard problem of figuring out where things
are in space and time and how they interact
with each other, and focus every day on new
improvements. We realize that these types
of problems will never be easy – but each
release is an effort to make things simpler
and more flexible. Complex questions
that previously took months to answer, if
they could be answered at all, now can be
settled in just a few minutes. Please enjoy
our InView that highlights thoughts from our
leading engineers and computer scientists –
and let us know if you think our message is
getting any clearer.
02
INVIEW
FALL 2017
03

STK UPDATE
STK UPDATE
STK 11 News
Throughout history, our advancement as
a species has been inextricably tied to our
ability to move goods and information
through space and time. The processing
power found in today’s smart phone greatly
surpasses that of a 1980’s era supercomputer.
However, for most of the twentieth century,
aerospace and defense software tools
remained the province of large mainframe
computers. The tools were limited by high
costs, complex designs, and lack of reuse.
This began to change as computing capacity
increased, and for the first time, scientists and
engineers gained access to powerful tools on
their own desktops.
Enter AGI and STK. The STK vision is to
provide solutions for the aerospace and
defense (A&D) community that simplify
their largest, most daunting problems and
revolutionize how they carry out critical
missions of moving goods and information
through time and space. Think of STK as
Lego ® blocks that you can use to build a
space station of infinite configurations. STK
provides a powerful collection of tools that
can be reused, re-purposed or reconfigured
for a wide array of mission types. Users
no longer need to worry about losing
EOIR Sensors: Stay Ahead,
Stay Prepared for Anything
Patrick North
EOIR Expert
When I heard
we were putting
together a
lunch-and-learn
scenario that
was going to combine Tom Neely’s new
Aviator work with phased array and EOIR
simulation I was intrigued, at the least.
We were going to have a blue aircraft
flying a routine mission when it is suddenly
detected by a red fighter. Missiles are
launched, defensive countermeasures are
taken, and–depending on the parameters
of the equipment being modeled–STK
will calculate whether our heroes in the
blue jet will survive this surprise attack or
not. It’s about as exciting a scenario as
you could ever hope for, a truly Hollywood
style Top Gun moment.
important corporate knowledge due to
unsustainable tools. STK provides a platform
whose requirements are driven by an entire
community to the benefit of every member.
The STK 11 generation of releases mark new
milestones in STK’s evolution. The primary
features take advantage of higher compute
power, whether locally or remotely deployed.
Key features include:
• 64-bit on Windows, Unix/Linux (STK Engine)
• Volumetric analysis to apply constraints and
execute calculations against a 3D grid
• Deck Access to calculate visibility intervals
from a single object in STK to a collection
of objects defined in an external file
• Communications and radar modules
now model and simulate performance of
phased array antennas configured with up
to 5,000 individual elements
• Streaming imagery and high-res terrain
for better visual and computational
accuracy
EOIR (electro-optical and infrared) leverages
the new 64-bit support to increase the fidelity
and flexibility of sensor configurations.
Improvements include the addition of a
I happen to love creating extreme and
exciting demonstrations because it’s a
great way to show our users the prowess
of our analysis capabilities coupled with
visual cues. But normally my day job is
balancing new requirements and software
improvements for EOIR with the number
of hours in the day to get them done, but
when I want to show others how important
those changes are, I need an exciting story
to tell so that they can really see why it’s so
important that we get things just right.
We all have our day-to-day jobs, and it’s
not every day that we get to save the
world, but I’d like to think that all of our
hard work is building up to the moment
when that time just might come. That’s
where combining accurate analysis,
diligent engineering, and genuine
ingenuity are essential and need to be
showcased in a high-quality visualizations
Wash Wedderburn
STK Product Manager
MODTRAN-based atmosphere model and
the ability to use custom 3D models as target
objects. STK Engine applications not requiring
any visualization can take advantage of a new
“No Graphics” option for faster performance
and minimal memory requirements. The
benefits become even more evident when
scaling across a cluster of compute nodes.
Aviator now includes navigation algorithms
that allow the simulation of even more
complex aircraft routes. Users are able to
perform near real-time rules-based flight
path evaluations using built-in guidance
strategies. Additional models now allow for
more accurate analysis of helicopter and
electric UAV performance.
As platforms and form factors for software
delivery continue to evolve, our software
will too. AGI is committed to meeting
the needs of our diverse user base, and
going beyond. We intend to continue
developing STK to maximize usability and
computational efficiency so that you, the
end user, can consume and manipulate
increasingly large data sets. Starting this
year, we will be releasing updated versions
of STK twice annually.
Air-to-Air Integrated Aviator and EOIR Scenario
to bring those scenarios to life in order to
convince the decision makers, proposal
evaluators, and budget approvers. If, or
when, that time comes, at that darkest
hour, when someone’s life could be on
the line is when all of our hard work could
mean the difference between success and
failure. What work are you doing to save
the world and how can we at AGI help you
tell that story?
Phased Array Antenna Model
Helps STK Users Do More, Faster
Chris Moyer
Phased Array Developer
Phased array antennas can be found
almost everywhere in today’s systems. The
benefits of this type of antenna include
lower cost of maintenance, improved search
and track features, reduced interference,
greater system capacity, and reduced risk of
detection or interception, to name a few.
I’m excited that we released a phased array
antenna model as part of STK 11. With it,
users can easily perform common tasks and
analysis, and will be able to model their
phased array antenna by specifying element
count, spacing, and configuration. We have
Aviator
Tom Neely
Creator of Aviator
I’ve been
at AGI for
almost 20
years now, and in that span, we’ve evolved
a lot. We’ve gone from being space experts
to modeling sub-orbital vehicles to changing
the STK product name because we are now
about a lot more than satellites. That has
been immensely gratifying. I didn’t come to
AGI to work in orbit. I’m an air-breathing guy.
Before my first day at AGI, I knew we had
tremendous potential to provide value for
military aviation and the systems that go into
their aircraft, ships, radars, that support it.
Our product offerings for those systems have
taken huge strides. Airplanes are cool, but at
the end of the day, they are only interesting
and useful because of the stuff they carry
around. We are working hard building out
capabilities to the point where what I do is
in the background. Meanwhile, here are a
few words about some of the lesser known
aspects of Aviator.
Did you know that “everything in Aviator
is a plugin?” Aviator is constructed using
what I refer to as an “Interface-based
Design.” There is a framework into which
everything plugs in. The entire feature set
of Aviator is plugged in to this framework.
This aspect of Aviator means it can be
extended to support new capabilities with
included methods for beam steering the
antenna, as well as directions for adaptive
nulling. We also included several ways to
compute each element’s complex excitation
value. Couple these capabilities with STK’s
Constraints, 3D Graphics, CommSystem,
Coverage, and new Volumetric Object, and
the possibilities are vast.
Phased array antennas
The STK phased array antenna model
opens up dynamic analysis to include beam
little or no changes
to the framework. If
a customer needs
some new feature
tomorrow, we can
build a package of
software completely
separate from
the ongoing STK
development process
and send that to the
customer. It will plug
in and appear like
it’s built-in. In other
words, AGI can be
very nimble supporting our customers’
advanced requirements.
We also have a rather large object model
behind Aviator (called the Flight API).
There are over 600 classes in the API,
with almost 1000 interfaces for doing
neat things. We are working on a Java
version of the API, which is why we haven’t
released official documentation for it, but
once we do, users will be able to assemble
our building blocks as their particular
problems require. New servers, applets
and desktop tools will be enabled with
customized workflows. We have bunches
and bunches of building blocks today
which we can make use of; the goal is to
get our users mashing up those building
blocks into their systems.
forming and adaptive nulling for improved
performance of radar and communication
systems, understanding stray emission
on surrounding areas or assets caused
by dynamic beam-forming, and the
consideration of countermeasures and counter
countermeasures. These are just a few of the
many opportunities the phased array antenna
can provide benefits to our users.
This release is just the beginning. We will
continue to identify, prioritize, and roll out
new features for our users. And, as usual,
we’ve built several customization points
into the current release of STK which will
allow users to add a specific behavior or
proprietary algorithms.
We welcome the chance to listen to
your comments and hear about your use
cases, experiences, and utilization of STK
communications and radar features.
Above is a screenshot of the “Advanced
Fixed Wing Tool” (AFWT) showing the
flight envelope for some hypothetical
aircraft design which I threw together in
about one minute. Yes – one MINUTE – to
work out a high-level sizing concept for a
new aircraft. Imagine if you are trying to
figure out how an enemy aircraft might
perform and then being able to figure out
an aircraft design that will kick that thing’s
ass in combat. Sweet!
By the way, all the little models that go into
the construction of the flight envelope are
plugins into the AFWT. This tool is both a
plugin and framework. The AFWT is part of
a plugin aircraft performance model, but it
also exposes plugin points. You can see how
deep the rabbit hole can go with Aviator.
04 INVIEW
FALL 2017 05

STK UPDATE
STK UPDATE
STK 11 for Space
It’s Out of this World!
STK 11 was an epic release for modeling and
operating in all domains, but it is important to
highlight how this latest version addresses key
problems for professionals working with space
systems. With all of the incredible capabilities
released in Aviator for aircraft systems, key
additions that can be applied directly to space
systems can’t be overlooked. Here are my top
10 of the many enhancements and use cases
relevant to our community of space users:
• New Phased Array attennas allow for
studies of adaptive beam-forming for
satellite communications as well as space
tracking radars performance evaluation.
• Volumetric sun lighting conditions such as
solar intensity can be used to find shadows
in space.
• Volumetrics can be used to evaluate the
amount of time sensors look for space debris
in various regions of space. See Figure 2.
Figure 1
Adam Gorski
Aerospace Nerd
Support Tip
Why is my C# or
VB.NET engine
application not
working?
STK 10 was the last 32-bit version of
Systems Tool Kit. STK 10 also ran under
.NET Runtime 2.0. As a result, the STK 10
Programming Interface Help instructed
developers to change the version of .NET
Framework to 3.5 and the build platform
to x86. These instructions were necessary
Terrain Server
Ismir Tufek
Engineer/
Comedian
because the default settings for Visual
Studio versions 2010 and 2012 are .NET
Framework 4.0 and “Any CPU” platform.
STK 11 is available as both a 32-bit and a
64-bit application. In either case, STK 11
uses .NET Runtime 4.0, so you do not have
to worry about the version of the .NET
framework. However, you still need to be
careful about platform settings. In theory,
if you have the 64-bit version of STK 11
installed, you should be able to create a
new project and create the STK Engine
application without changing any settings.
While this is true for Visual Studio versions
2010 and 2012, Microsoft added a new
platform target option to Visual Studio
versions 2013, 2015, and 2017. The option
is labeled, “Prefer 32-bit,” and it is located
on the Build tab of the project properties.
When the option is enabled and the
platform is set to “Any CPU” (which are the
default settings), your application will build
as a 32-bit application. This means that if
you only have 64-bit STK installed, your
application will not work. To fix the problem,
disable the “Prefer 32-bit” option to build
your application as a 64-bit application.
• New CubeSat Models (1U, 2U, 3U, 6U)
configured for Solar Panel Tool allow users
to quickly measure the power generated
from satellites in various orbits and attitude
profiles. See Figure 1.
• Walker Satellite Constellation Design Tool
updates make the creation and modification
of new large constellations even easier.
• Electro-Optic and Infrared (EOIR) models of
sensors along with new MODTRAN-based
atmosphere and custom 3D target models
can be used for realistic simulation of space
observations. We have already verified
against real-world FLIR images captured of
the International Space Station (ISS).
• Phased Array Communications can be used
with Volumetrics to evaluate the signal in
space around the Earth from a user-defined
emitter. See Figure 3.
• Volumetrics natively visualizes the Space
Environment and Effects Toolkit (SEET) results
such as electron flux, radiation and particle
impacts so users can understand the effects
beyond just the orbit of a single satellite.
• Custom or proprietary calculations are easier
with registration-free plugins for Access,
HPOP, and Astrogator force models.
• Learning complicated space problem
workflows is much easier with the revamped
Figure 2
Help System that features consolidated and
updated tutorials. One great example is the
new Astrogator rendezvous and proximity
operations tutorial.
With these new and updated features, it has
never been easier for users to model space
systems in such high fidelity and evaluate
system performance with as much depth as
they can with the STK 11 family of products.
So, download STK 11.2 and start exploring
the universe today!
Alex Wood
Terrain Server Tsar
The landscape for geospatial visualization has
changed dramatically over the last several
years. Geospatial applications continue to
shift from top down 2D view of a map to
immersive 3D experiences, running on the
desktop, in a browser, or on a mobile device.
With tilted views of the globe common place,
the need to accurately represent terrain
elevation is paramount. Data acquisition used
to be the biggest challenge; however, now
the cost of an aerial drone equipped with
surveying sensors is within reach of many
hobbyists and tech enthusiasts.
With the unbounded growth of data
available for visualization and the diverse
Elevation data on the left with a uniform grid requires all tiles to be generated at the maximum resolution.
The irregular mesh shown on the right demonstrates how multiresolution data is seamlessly represented.
range of target platforms, comes the
requirement to house data on a server
and stream terrain assets as needed. The
STK Terrain Server is a powerful enterprise
application that runs on commodity
hardware for creating and hosting Terrain
that can be efficiently streamed to client
applications, such as STK or Cesium.
The core technology behind the Terrain Server
is our advanced techniques for mosaicking
terrain data sources of varied resolution into a
global unified Terrain Tileset, using the open
terrain runtime format, Quantized-Mesh. This
open format breaks away from traditional
terrain formats designed for storage, by
representing terrain as a rendering engine
asset, streamed over networks.
Using the Quantized-Mesh format, we
preprocess terrain tile meshes offline into
a tileset. When building a terrain tileset, it
is not uncommon to start with an existing
terrain tileset, such as the STK World Terrain
Dataset, and layer higher resolution terrain
datasources into the existing tileset.
Figure 3
Swiss Village Dataset collected by a Sensefly eBee drone at 5cm resolution shown with the Bing
Maps Road Imagery Style in both images. Terrain features are characterized with seamless Terrain
lighting, a feature provided by the STK Terrain Server.
In order to tailor content that shows well to
end users, terrain load time and rendering
must not dominate the frame budget. When
standing up an enterprise streaming terrain
solution for GIS visualization, one can expect
lower risk when adopting the streaming
terrain technology that offers a consistent
and performant end user experience.
06 INVIEW
FALL 2017 07

PROVEN TECHNOLOGIES
AHEAD OF THE GAME
ComSpOC
Paul Welsh
VP Business
Development
Commercial Space Operations Center
Travis Langster
VP Space Business
Development
ComSpOC fuses satellite tracking
measurements from its commercial global
sensor network to generate highly accurate
space object information. ComSpOC
delivers the most relevant, timely Space
Situational Awareness (SSA), mission
assurance, and space traffic management
services available.
ComSpOC is more than a concept; it is the
first and only operational commercial SSA
center of its kind in the world. Others talk
about it, but we’ve been doing it since 2014.
When the government asked the private
sector to step up to help solve the SSA
problem in 2013, we did. We knew we
already had the best SSA products that
we’ve been building since 1989. But we
didn’t just use our products, we rebuilt them
… better. The most experienced product
builders with the best SSA products went
back to the drawing board and created the
capability that others dream about. The
result is a very robust system with software
processing prowess far more capable than
the combination of other tools.
Designed for ultimate flexibility, the system
is not limited to specific data formats nor
specific sensor types. This fusion of optical,
passive RF, active RF, and radar into a single
process creates the most exquisite satellite
data possible.
Advancements in technology are enabling
sensors to be both extremely capable and
affordable, and the number of available
sensors and networks is growing rapidly.
Sensors and their data are now the
easiest part of the SSA problem. Satellite
observations are quickly turning into very big
piles of data. Making sense out of this data
is where we come in. More observations
doesn’t necessarily mean better results.
ComSpOC’s true power is our processing
capability and unmatched orbit determination
abilities. We create our High Definition
Ephemeris (HiDEph) and other meaningful
SSA data products faster than any other
system in existence. And we can do it for the
entire catalog.
Jan. 2016, ComSpOC tracked the debris from a Breeze M rocket body upper
stage that broke apart at GEO altitude. The yellow orbit illustrates the many
potential conjunctions caused by this event.
Jan. 2017, AsiaSat-8 began relocating but public position data was not
available for more than a week. This illustrates the importance of noncooperative
maneuver detection to Space Traffic Management (STM).
July 2016, ComSpOC tracked small debris identified by JSpOC from the still
functional WorldView-2 and calculated the resulting orbit change to the satellite.
Nov. 2016, China launched the Shinjian 17 (SJ-17) directly into GEO and disposed
of the upper stage in a GEO crossing orbit (shown in yellow). This irresponsible
behavior results in an object going through GEO altitude about every 23 hours.
A Big Step for Space Traffic Management
The Space Data Association (SDA) and
Analytical Graphics, Inc. (AGI) have
entered into a long term agreement to
launch an upgraded Space Data Center
(SDC) Space Traffic Management (STM)
service, powered by ComSpOC.
SDC 2.0, which will be available to all
members of the SDA, has a highly accurate,
independently generated catalogue of
space objects which will grow to include
objects larger than 20 cm in and traversing
the GEO arc, and will allow for transparent
and actionable collision warnings. The
service also features functionality to
combat Radio Frequency Interference (RFI),
including the construction of geolocation
scenarios and a Carrier ID database.
“As satellite operators, it is vitally important
that we continually improve the Space
Situational Environment to ensure safety
of our own missions, continuity of services,
and protection of the space environment
for all operators. After considerable analysis
we have determined that the collision risks
are higher than previously understood.
We underwent a comprehensive
process to determine key requirements,
conducted extensive market research and
a competitive procurement process, and
have concluded that AGI can offer the best
STM service to adequately mitigate these
risks. AGI clearly understands this critical
mission and the SDC 2.0 service, using AGI
capabilities, delivers the best value and is
timely, validated, and reliable,” stated Mark
Rawlins, SDA Chairman.
“We applaud the leadership of the SDA
executive members: Eutelsat, Inmarsat,
Intelsat, and SES, for continuing to set the
standard for responsible space operations
and traffic management,” said Paul Graziani,
AGI CEO and founder. “We look forward to
extending our trusted working relationship
with SDA as its exclusive STM Services
Provider and working in partnership with
them to expand the boundaries of STM
capability and space safety.”
About SDA
SDA is a non-profit international association
of satellite operators that supports the
controlled, reliable, and efficient sharing of
data critical to the safety and integrity of the
space environment and the RF spectrum.
Established in the Isle of Man, the SDA is
open to all satellite operators and other
participants. Its membership comprises
most of the world’s satellite operators.
Membership information can be found at
www.space-data.org.
Quick Facts
• Diverse global network from an array
of partners
• Multiple sensor phenomenologies
including optical, radar, and passive RF
• Tracked over 9,000 public catalog
objects in LEO, MEO, HEO, and GEO
• Tracked and analyzed non-public objects
• Government and commercial contracts
08 INVIEW
FALL 2017 09

Recent Space Activity
ComSpOC delivered highly accurate independent
tracking and advanced maneuver processing to
provide safety of flight and orbital data products in
the recovery efforts of the AMC-9 satellite.

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Shows its Power on the Web
Our Cesium ecosystem sets the world standard for
browser-based three-dimensional globes. Cesium is an
open-source JavaScript library that allows users to create
2D and 3D virtual globes and maps for dynamic-data
visualization. When our company launched Cesium in
2011, it was AGI’s first significant open-source effort.
In recent years, with the massive rise in availability of
3D data, Cesium has become a mapping workhorse for
aerospace as well as defense, oil and gas, agriculture,
and real estate industries.
Hannah Pinkos
Cesium Team
Cesium is built on HTML5 technology and
WebGL, allowing you to run it in any web
browser, on desktop or mobile devices, without
plugins. The ecosystem has features you’d
expect in a geospatial visualization platform. You
stream terrain, overlay imagery from a variety of
sources, and render vector data and geometry.
But that’s not all it can do. As the JavaScript
library has expanded, Cesium visualizations
have become even more powerful. Now the
ecosystem has support for high-fidelity, timedynamic
visualization, similar to STK. It also has
support for 3D models. You can toggle between
a 3D globe, 2D map, and 2.5D Columbus-view
mode within one API.
New 3D Geospatial Open Formats
In addition, we continue to build new formats that allow
you to perform at a higher level. Now, you can:
Stream terrain tiles
Using our new quantized-mesh format, you
can stream terrain tiles from your STK terrain
server in Cesium.
Visualize scenes over time
CZML is a JSON schema for describing timedynamic
3D scenes. With the latest iteration
of STK, you can export a scenario from STK
and visualize it with Cesium.
Display 3D models on the web
The Cesium team worked with Khronos
to develop glTF, a transmission format for
displaying 3D models on the web. Use the
open-source COLLADA2GLTF converter
to convert your COLLADA models. Try the
model converter on our website.
Stream complex 3D content
Now in its final stages of development,
3D Tiles allows you to stream massive
heterogeneous 3D geospatial datasets,
including buildings, trees, and other 3D
models, point clouds and vector data. Many
users have adopted 3D Tiles even in its
earliest stages.
THE NEW WEB STANDARD
Bentley’s ContextCapture produces high resolution 3D models in Cesium
from simple photographs.
4D Choropleth creates geospatial visualizations of complex information
changing over time.
Need help acquiring and processing 3D data for these
formats? Check out cesium.com. You’ll get free access
to data in open formats and the option to subscribe to
curated datasets, annotation and analysis tools, a map
composer application, and a REST API for developers
to process, host, and analyze 3D datasets as part of
larger custom applications. As always, let us know what
you think!
We are committed to open-source solutions
From the beginning, Cesium has supported open
formats and open standards, to provide interoperability
and a full ecosystem of tools. We chose open-source
intentionally to make 3D visualization accessible to as
many industries as possible.
Radio Garden displays radio stations from around the world available
for streaming.
Realistic shadows rendered in real-time based on 3D models and terrain.
For more information and updates check out cesiumjs.org.
Flightradar24 tracks thousands of aircraft flights worldwide in real-time.
12
INVIEW
FALL 2017 13

INNOVATIONS
INTERNATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Continuous
Improvement
Enterprise
Shashank Narayan
VP Development
Customer
Support on a
Global Scale
Sylvain Dupont
Development Innovator
Solutions
Melissa Honaker
International Marketing
At AGI, we understand that innovation
is essential to our success and that of
our customers. In fact, our high level of
investment in research and development
(R&D) is unmatched in the industry. AGI
allocates a large fraction of its revenue on
R&D - about 24 percent.
R&D Spending
As a percentage of revenue
25%
20%
24%
R&D Spending
As a percentage of revenue
For the last 16 years, AGI has been
represented by a network of International
Business Partners. We currently boast 14
partners in 50 countries. Our partners
strive to provide the best support to our
international customers. They employ
STK Master Certified engineers within
the same time zones and speak the same
languages as the customers that they
support. In 2006, we invested in a more
hands-on approach to our international
support by opening an office in the UK.
Partners gathered at AGI’s first International Users Conference in Singapore
Three years later, we opened a second
office in Singapore. We now have seven
dedicated engineers in Europe and Asia
who support local partners and customers
directly in addition to our team of support
engineers at AGI headquarters. Karynna
Tuan recently joined us as the newest
international engineer based in Singapore.
Welcome, Karynna!
As part of our commitment to our
international customers and partners, we
have regular virtual training and webinars
every 2-3 weeks during a time convenient
for Europe and Asia. STK training topics
range from beginner to advanced levels and
informational webinars include “What’s New”
in the latest version and technical deep dives.
Find the schedule at agi.com/training.
15%
10%
5%
0%
3.5%
Toyota
6.4%
Samsung
13.2% 13.4%
Google
Microsoft
AGI
By reinvesting a high percentage of
our revenue back into research, we’re
able to stay on the leading edge, craft
breakthroughs, and promote a culture of
innovation and technological excellence.
Our engineers spend time investigating
new ideas, learning about advances in the
various fields touched by AGI products,
and applying their ideas to improve on
new or existing products. We allow our
engineers and developers one day a week
to pursue passion projects and prototype
their ideas alone, or as a team. Such
openness has sowed exciting advances,
including improvements to Aviator and
volumetric computations in STK, 3D
on the web with Cesium, and parallel
computing in STK and ComSpOC. And so
much more on the horizon!
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
3.5%
6.4%
13.2% 13.4%
0%
The technology landscape has evolved rapidly in the last two decades, shifting from
conventional desktop applications to enterprise-scale apps that support a variety of clients
including web and mobile. At AGI, we strive to stay ahead of the curve. Our enterprise
application platform serves as the foundation for a variety of our solutions and products.
Toyota
Samsung
Google
Microsoft
Our Enterprise Application Platform offers:
• Multi-tenant, multi-platform architecture
• Browser-based interface; no install
required
• Access through disparate data
access points
• Security, with identification,
authentication, authorization built
into the foundation
• Seamless experience with zero
downtime, thanks to server load
balancers and redundant components
• 40% Powerful performance, via scalable
architecture and implementation
24%
AGI
• User interface framework built on
Cesium, the open-source JavaScript
library for world-class 3D globes
and maps
AGI is using this enterprise application
platform to develop the next generation of
applications and solutions that include UAV
Traffic Management, Air Operations, and
Space Situational Awareness.
Akatsuki, a Customer
Success Story
Chikako Hirose
JAXA/ISAS
AKATSUKI, or “dawn” in Japanese,
is a Japanese Venus Climate Orbiter.
The orbiter is intended to uncover the
mysteries of the planet Venus, and it has
continued to work well and send down
a large amount of thrilling and valuable
data. Venus is an important planet for
exploration. It is considered Earth’s twin
planet, because they are similar in size,
mass and composition. However, the
environment is very different. The sky
on Venus is covered with sulfate clouds.
The planet is furiously windy, blowing
gusts up to 100 meters per second. That’s
faster than the most powerful tornado on
Earth. We seek to better understand the
meteorological conditions and atmosphere
on Venus. But when we first attempted
orbit insertion of Akatsuki in December
2010, it was unsuccessful, due to the main
engine failure. The spacecraft made a flyby
of Venus to orbit around the Sun. We had
to recalculate the mission trajectory to put
the spacecraft back into the Venus orbit.
The recovery mission trajectory design
was full of challenges, though. There are
a lot of hardware and software constraints
to satisfy the planetary mission, including
periapsis and apoapsis altitude, orbiting
direction, and duration of solar eclipse.
Despite these constraints, AGI’s STK/
Astrogator and Analysis Workbench
helped by employing a trial-and-error
process to find adequate guidance
maneuver planning at Venus. In
addition, the trajectory design
method which Akatsuki Project had
adopted for could be applied to STK
without any limitations in functions,
by building many custom geometric
models (vectors, frames, angles, etc).
Thanks to the great effort made by
the team, Akatsuki was successfully
transferred into the Venus orbit on
December 7, 2015. The spacecraft
sends us a number of thrilling and
valuable data from our twin planet,
Venus, every day.
14
INVIEW
20% 20%
15%
FALL 2017
15
5%

Unmanned
Systems Meet
Safety Of Flight
Software services bringing flight safety to unmanned operators and mission planners.
UTM.AGI.COM

18
UNDER THE HOOD
Engineering
At AGI, we’ve always believed that when you buy our products you
get a piece of the AGI organization, too. We know that solving hard
problems is hard, regardless of how well we design and build our
products. We have an obligation to ensure that you are equipped
with all of the knowledge and tools you need to be successful.
“Customer success” is an AGI core value, and it isn’t just fodder
for the corporate handbook. We believe it, we commit to it, and
we hire individuals who embody it. A big part of the responsibility
for ensuring customer success with our software products falls on
AGI’s Engineering Team. We have learned some important lessons
that have helped our customers be successful and we thought we
would share a few of those with you.
40%
0-5
years
20% 20%
5-10
years
It Starts with the People
10-15
years
oyota
amsung
15%
15-20
years
oogle
Distribution of experience within AGI’s Engineering Department
5%
icrosoft
20+
years
Hopefully, this is no secret at all. We employ engineers who love
what they do. We could fill much of this article with the list of class
ranks, GPAs, fellowship awards, and other technical honors our
engineers accumulated throughout their academic and professional
careers. However, none of them got their jobs because of those
qualifications. We hire engineers with a demonstrated passion
for making a difference in the aerospace industry, who treat their
customers and teammates like family, and who bring a unique part
of themselves to the team. It also creates a fun work culture. A
fortunate result of hiring people who love what they do is that they
do it for a long time. Among our engineers, our average tenure is
more than eight years with a distribution that ranges from less than
a year to more than twenty years. Your benefit is the accumulated
corporate knowledge that comes with experience.
‘‘I love AGI Tech Support!“
INVIEW
GI
Being an Engineering Manager means being willing to take an occasional
pie in the face
Make it Fun
We all became engineers because we enjoy solving challenging
problems. Imagine working on the most challenging problems
facing our industry alongside the best and brightest technical minds
within our customer organizations. That’s what it’s like to be an AGI
engineer, and it’s fun. In the last twelve months alone, we worked with
more than 1,200 organizations in 50 countries. The combination of
work diversity and technical challenge creates a very interesting and
motivating environment. Even at AGI, work can sometimes feel like
work, so we try to keep the mood light and the energy level high.
We rely on cutting-edge management techniques like pie-in-the-face
team challenges and go-kart racing rewards to maintain focus on our
performance objectives. And, of course, there are the spontaneous
Nerf gun battles when we need to shake out the cobwebs. It’s amazing
how pegging your cube-mate with a sponge dart can re-energize you
to dig into the problem that has been plaguing you all morning!
Training
Kevin Flood
VP Engineering
FAQ & resources
156,233
Understand the Big Picture
As the internal users of our own products, we rely on the same
resources as you to help us get our jobs done. That’s why we keep
the responsibility for technical product support, training, technical
documentation, licensing, and technical web content all under one
departmental roof.
Blogs Blogs
35,409 35,409
Help
225,150 system
408,207
Last Year, Our Customers
• Asked our Engineers more than 10,000
questions
• Attended training in record numbers
(over 2500 total)
• Recommended dozens of product
enhancements
As a result, we are consistently getting
more customer participation on all fronts.
‘‘
Day in
Karynna Tuan
the Life
Aerospace
Engineer
A day in
the life of
a product support systems engineer at
AGI. Where do I even begin? As a recent
Aerospace Engineering graduate from the
University of Colorado, I knew AGI would
be a perfect place to apply my hard-earned
college knowledge to help customers all
across the aerospace industry. Because
of STK’s vast capabilities and application,
companies and individual users are using our
software for all kinds of programs. STK has
the ability to model, simulate, and analyze
many areas of interest like space systems,
missile defense, communications and radar,
and much more! With our support team being
the first line of defense for STK assistance, I’ve
learned an enormous amount in the relatively
short time I’ve been here just by working
through problems with our end-users. Have
you ever called into our support line? Or
emailed us at support@agi.com?
With current maintenance, you get direct
assistance from any one of our qualified
engineers! No need to go through any
What Does It
Mean To Be
Part of the
Engineering
Team?
If you read Kevin’s article about what he
thinks his engineering team is doing, here
is what we are really doing: EVERYTHING.
Since the beginning of the year, we have
experienced an increase of more than 25%
in the number of STK trainees, number of
stk.com account holders, and web hits to
our technical resources.
Join the Fun
The best way to improve our ability to help,
is for you to reach out to us. Call us, email us,
check out our on-line resources.
automated messages or repeat yourself
multiple times, we’re right here to answer all
of your questions. Having used STK through
my curriculum at school, I was familiar with
the product and a few of its capabilities, but
upon starting on the Product Support team,
I was astonished by how our customers
were able to apply the power of STK to
accomplish their goals. Through my role here,
I help our users every day, whether it be a
quick question and answer or a complicated
scenario setup and analysis. By working with
others, I’m able to get a better understanding
of what they are using STK for and how
they are integrating it into their projects. It’s
extremely beneficial for AGI to understand
how our customers use STK, as we value any
and all input so we can to tailor our software
to better suit their needs. As a support
engineer, I have immediate communication
with our users so any bugs found and
features requested are taken into account
and directly passed on to our development
team for future implementation.
Although we still refer to ourselves as product
support engineers, we recently changed our
official title to the Corporate Engineering
Team. I think this greatly addresses what
Well, almost, but that’s not necessarily
a bad thing. Sure, we provide technical
assistance to customers and our own sales
engineers but there is so much more that
we cover.
Because of our detailed knowledge of AGI’s
products, we get pulled in whenever there
is a need for additional manpower. This
WHAT IT MEANS
We don’t have all the answers, but the more
you ask, the better we’ll get at supporting
you. Find out why customers say,
“I love AGI Tech Support!”
The STK support system worked perfectly!”
Jens Ramrath
Aerospace
Engineer
“It’s the best 3rd party software support
I’ve ever worked with!”
“The STK support system worked perfectly!”
we do as a whole. The majority of my work
is product support, but I’m also involved
in pre-sales communications and training
our users. This is truly what I love about
this job. I’m able to see our products go
through the entire process of introduction,
comprehension, and application. As the
technical help for the pre-sales team, I speak
with potential customers about their project
to see how STK would be a good fit for what
they need to achieve.
We offer training courses, both online and
on-site in certain areas, which allows our
customers to get hands-on instruction on
using the software. Being involved in training
gives me the opportunity to travel, which is
another fantastic aspect of my job. I even
got to go back to Colorado for a week long
training and see my friends and family!
As a member of the Corporate Engineering
Team, my range of responsibilities and my
day-to-day work keeps me on my toes. I’m
always ready to take on any task, tackle any
challenging obstacles, and learn and grow
each and every day. A day in the life of a
product support systems engineer?
One word ... indescribable.
ranges from product testing, setting up and
staffing tradeshows, custom application
development and ComSpOC support to
mopping the floors and bringing coffee
to our managers. I am kidding about the
last two but you get the idea. If there is a
project at AGI, chances are that someone
from the engineering team was involved in
some way.
FALL 2017
19

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