Today it is easy to start a drone to take aerial photographs. This valuable reconnaissance information can now be added into the MssDraw application. Aerial photographs with a geo reference can be added as a map overlay with the help of the "Ortho-Photo Integration…" wizard.

This new function is valuable in the following use cases:

• Integration of aerial images for areas with a poor quality of maps
• Integration of aerial images after a natural disaster
• Integrate current aerial photographs as additional reconnaissance information
• ...

The new function is supported from MssDraw version 03.01.09 and later. On the right hand side you find some example of Ortho-Photo overlays added this way.

The entire image export in the MssDraw has been revised and improved. This has been done on the basis of direct user feedback. The export function supports new file formats as for example SVG. This provides the possibility to export entire military map overlays into a single SVG-File.

In addition it is possible to manually define the extent of an area, zoom level and the image resolution for every export. This is helpful in the planning phase to get a static situation overview.

In the past weeks we have focused on the development of an international MssStick version. This was due to the increasing number of international requests for MssSticks.

• The international version of MssDraw uses the map services of Bing Map and open Street View.
• This version of MssDraw and MssComposer is using the international MssLibrary, which covers all the tactical graphics and symbols defined in the standards MIL-STD-2525C and APP-6B.
• The galleries are designed to provide the most frequently used tactical graphics and symbols in a user-friendly way.

MssDraw and MssComposer ,the applications to create military map overlays as well as to manage organization-/operation-structures and state of readiness-/means-tables , have been improved step by step in the last months. The main goal was to enhance the applications speed by using less memory.
The low consumption of memory lets the applications MSS, MssDraw and MssComposer run smoothly on the hardware used in the Army or installed on military vehicles. Furthermore the applications run also without any noticeable delays on subnotebooks of the first generation or on a windows 10 tablet with ATOM processor.

The NATO Military Interoperability Program (MIP or short NATO - JC3IEDM) uses MIR GEN of gs-soft. This application bases on MSS® and thereby contains all symbols and tactical graphics defined in the international standards. The participants from the various nations use MIR GEN to link military symbols and tactical graphics from the standards MIL-STD-2525C, MIL-STD-2525B, APP-6A and APP-6B with the corresponding MIP-IDs . The final product of this work is amongst others the central data base which contains the single links between MIP ID and Symbol ID (more than 300’000 single links). Additionally, MIR GEN allows creating reports directly out of the maintained data.