NATO Vector Graphics Notes

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NATO Vector Graphics (NVG) originated as a data format to be used in support of a concept called “COP TV”. The goal was to have a light weight rendering format for military symbology that could be streamed to an inexpensive viewer. The viewers were intended to be simplistic and low cost. Preferably the viewer would be available with no license cost thus enabling the wide distribution of the capability. Under the “COP TV” concept the user visualize only a small amount of the available information. For the full content they would reach back to the originating system for additional information and capabilities. NVG fulfills the information encoding and sharing portions of the “COP TV” concept.

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NVG is broken into data formats and protocols for delivering content. Portions of the specification can be utilized independent of the others to realize a number of information exchange patterns. NVG is not intended to replace C2-to-C2 information exchange as the actual information exchanged is primarily focused on geospatial rendering. Additional metadata can be provided to enhance the user experience, however it lacks the structure and complexity required for command and control.

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The most prevalent uses of NVG is as follows: 1) Exchanging the current location/status of battle space objects (within an organization and across a federation) 2) Exchange of operational overlays in support of situational awareness (within an organization and across a federation) 3) Private exchange between an application and its geospatial renderer 4) A information product in a managed COP environment

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The overlay concept allows for graphical overlays to be obtained from multiple sources and combined to achieve the desired level of situational awareness.

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File based exchange of NVG products is still quite common.

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This pattern is the most prevalent and is used in to poll information providers on a periodic basis to update the situational display.

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NVG streaming is emerging as an optimized way of delivering NVG content. Instead of polling (wastes bandwidth), information is sent only when changes occur.

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The NVG specification supports encoding multiple symbologies. The reason being that we don’t all use the same symbology specification. Especially in a federated environment where non-NATO partners a participating. Also, providers of information may be unable to map between symbologies because: 1) They don’t have access to the specifications 2) They don’t have time or expertise to do the mapping 3) No such mapping is possible due to differences in symbology domains and specifications. 4) During operations additional symbols are created to adapt to changing threats and doctrine NVG errs on the side of including all information regardless of the symbology specification used. Rendering of unknown symbology is dealt with in the guidance to NVG renderers.

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NVG contains a number of extension points. These extension points allow communities of interest to embed additional information along side the NVG content. The semantics of these extensions are communicated separately but allow the communities to develop additional capabilities quickly without requiring a specifications change.

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NVG was envisioned to work in an environment where service registration and discovery are supported. Though not absolutely required, it eases the configuration of client systems and should be considered in your deployment of NVG producers and consumers.

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A couple of reference implementations exist and can be re-used in support of developing, testing, verification of additional NVG consumers an d producers.

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Use of NVG is increasing. NVG is actively being used by a number of NATO and National systems in current operations, exercise, etc. The NVG specification is included a number of profiles mandating its use for certain information flows.

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