Displaying military graphics using message processing

Military software used for Situation Awareness and Command & Control pass secure communications between mobile devices in the field and command centers. These special communications consist of either voice or data transmissions. Data communications can contain military messages which define where specific military symbols are located on a map.

You can build an application using the ArcGIS Runtime SDK for Java to take these military messages and convert them into military symbols to be displayed in a map control on a desktop or laptop device. Currently the messages can be displayed using symbology from the Department of Defense (DoD) MIL-STD-2525C symbol dictionary, or from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) APP-6B symbol dictionary.

For your application to process a military message, a MessageProcessor class must be created. This Message Processor will make use of a MessageGroupLayer on the map to display the specialized military graphics of the messages. A DictionaryRenderer can then control the labels (for example, the unique designator) of the symbols created by the message processor. This DictionaryRenderer also allows labels to be turned on and off as well as controlling the scale thresholds for which they are displayed.

2/7/2013