I’m listening to Bryon Pitts in downtown Baghdad on CBS. Live. Voice only. Bryon Pitt sounds like he’s pinned down by sniper fire. At the same time, Sadam’s statue is being dragged through the streets.

Poynter’s Media Map shows where the correspondents are in Iraq. But where is Bryon?

Nobody seems to know. CBS put up a simple, two dimensional map.

What they need is the Harris RealSight system. They prepared a simulation of 400 square kilometers of Baghdad at the Pentagon’s request. The simulation is generated using two-dimensional photographs drawn from satellite pictures, then fleshing out the third dimension.

Harris has already done 3-D simulations of six cities. This includes Salt Lake City, where it was used to support the Winter Olympics; lower Manhattan, used by NBC to show the after effects of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center; and Quebec, for planning security measures in advance of the Americas summit.

The simulation allows a user to do a screen capture of a location, measure the distance between buildings, organize flight plans or look for dangerous spots where ambushes might be placed. The images can be overlaid on a map, showing street names, identifying natural features such as lakes and providing compass orientation.

To create geospatially-accurate photo-realistic 3D models, Harris’ RealSite software is powered by an SGI Onyx 3200 visualization system. NBC used Harris RealSite models last fall to create 3D representations of “Ground Zero” and the damaged areas surrounding the World Trade Center. The models were included in an MSNBC special titled “Out of the Rubble.”

Once the models are processed through Harris RealSite’s texture mapping application, it’s translated into the Alias|Wavefront Maya format, for NBC artists to create fly-throughs, animations and other special effects.

Earthviewer provides eye-opening simulations for everyone; right on their desktop. You can zoom continuously from a whole Earth view down to your house. A broadband connection downloads the satellite images

Overlaying the 3D map with live tracking of humans may also be possible.

Military radio has some capability but its’s clunky. Digital Angel puts RF-ID in a purple pill. Talk to your doctor. No generic.

A secret project in England may have the ultimate answer; it tracks everyone, all the time using ordinary mobile phone towers. Through passive signal processing, they become “radar”, tracking every moving object. The UK’s Celldar project allows surveillance of anyone, at any time and anywhere there is a phone signal. The technology ‘sees’ the shapes made when radio waves emitted by mobile phone masts meet an obstruction. Signals bounced back by immobile objects, such as walls or trees, are filtered out by the receiver. This allows anything moving, such as cars or people, to be tracked. Passively.

Now all we need to do is issue everyone Benetton clothing and Safeway cards.

But tracking goes two ways. Map Info may deliver Next-Shuttle service but it also uncovers where America’s wealthy live. Freezing assets in an electronic world is simple – and in the best democratic tradition. Howard Reingold has the latest on Smart Mobs.

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Posted by Sam Churchill on Wednesday, April 9th, 2003 at 2:27 am.