A Survey of Geospatial-Temporal Visualizations for Military Operations

For the first time European defence funding has surpassed 200 billion euros per year, with a renewed strategic interest in creating technological innovations which aid military co-operation, such as comprehensive command and control information systems. Overcoming the many challenges associated with the research and development of such military technologies presents an excellent opportunity for the visualization community's contributions in the domain, as there is ample scope for applied research. This survey is interested in further developing the functionality of military decision-support systems by assessing the integration of cutting-edge geospatial-temporal visualizations into such systems. With this objective in mind, this survey systematically identifies, investigates, and discusses suitable visualization solutions and the benefit they may offer to military command and control systems through the lens of the Military Operations Process. The survey identifies gaps and opportunities for improvement of existing military products where identified geospatial-temporal visualizations can enhance military commanders' decision-making capabilities and their ability to act. No other recent surveys examine such information visualizations and visual analytics tools used in the military domain. The survey results in the formulation of a design space and guidelines to be used in the design process of visualization and visual analytics tools supporting military operations, based on the assessment of a visualizations relevance and characteristics according to each phase of the Military Operations Process.