Rendered.ai, a Seattle-based company, has emerged as the winner of the National Security Innovation Network SynGen Prize Challenge. The CEO of Rendered.ai, Nathan Kundtz, highlighted the crucial role of synthetic data in automating geospatial analysis, particularly in meeting the time-sensitive demands of the intelligence community. Rendered.ai’s successful collaboration with Orbital Insight, a leader in geospatial software and analytics, played a significant role in their victory.
While traditional methods of geospatial analysis heavily rely on manually labeled data, Rendered.ai takes a different approach. Their platform combines physically accurate modeling, photorealistic rendering, and computer vision analysis techniques to generate high-quality synthetic data that closely mimics real-world sensor collection. This enables customers to experiment and iterate, generating almost unlimited datasets. In turn, this reduces the need for manual data labeling and facilitates innovation in autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, and infrastructure and asset management.
Orbital Insight’s Terrascope platform, known for its advanced algorithms in object detection from sensor data, complemented Rendered.ai’s synthetic data platform. By merging both companies’ expertise, they demonstrated a repeatable workflow for leveraging synthetic data in remote sensing.
The SynGen Prize Challenge, offered by the National Security Innovation Network (NSIN), aimed to encourage the development of synthetic data generation capabilities for geospatial intelligence. NSIN collaborated with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) for this initiative. Rendered.ai’s first-place victory, together with Orbital Insight, reinforces their commitment to investing in research and development to drive innovation in the fields of synthetic data and artificial intelligence.
FAQ:
Q: What is synthetic data?
A: Synthetic data is artificially generated data that closely resembles real-world data, often created using simulations or mathematical models. It is used to supplement or replace real data in various applications, such as training machine learning models.
Q: How does synthetic data benefit geospatial analysis?
A: Synthetic data allows for the generation of unlimited datasets, reducing the reliance on manually labeled data. This enables more experimentation and iteration, fostering innovation in geospatial analysis fields, including autonomous vehicles, UAV technology, and infrastructure management.
Q: What is the National Security Innovation Network (NSIN)?
A: NSIN is a government program office within the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OSD(R&E)). It collaborates with universities, government agencies, and the venture community to develop solutions driving innovation in national security.
Q: What is the Terrascope platform?
A: The Terrascope platform, developed by Orbital Insight, deploys state-of-the-art algorithms for object detection in sensor data, such as satellite imagery and infrared imagery. It provides actionable insights to both commercial and government customers.