The military combat operations center serves as a prime example of a human-centered system. In the enhanced combat operations center (ECOC) of the future, advanced 3D displays will serve as the visualization and interactive medium between the commander and the battlespace. Information will enter the ECOC from the field via a networked battlespace. This information will be quite diverse: sensor reports, troop reports, intelligence data, logistics information, etc. The internet will serve as a tool for obtaining weather reports, geopolitical data, etc. as well as for providing a collaborative planning capability with higher ranking military who are remote from the battlefield. Autonomous agents will interact with these varied systems to provide the visualization display with key information. Visualization will play a central role. Data quantity and complexity, multiresolution representation of geomet!ric objects and terrain for real-time rendering, and representing uncertainty are among the difficult visualization issues that must be effectively handled. In addition, novel interactive methods will be required to better support user interaction. Evaluation of methods and systems will be important as all of these advances proceed.

Looking back at the report of last February’s workshop, the vast majority of the technical issues listed by the break-out groups (as well as several of the societal ones) are present in developing the ECOC for the digital battlefield. Among the more critical:

• Integration of data mining and visualization
• Multimodal and new sensory interfaces
• New environments: beyond "virtual reality"
• Information extraction tools
• Natural language recognition
• Knowledge-rich information retrieval, visualization, and interpretation
• Collaborative Multimodal environments
• Database (and other) technologies to support collaborative work
• Measures of performance
• Stakeholder analysis in the human-centered design process

The Virtual Reality Lab at the Naval Research Laboratory has pioneered the use of VR Responsive Workbench ("electronic sand table") technology for the ECOC^1,2. In this talk we will discuss our participation in the March 1997 USMC Hunter-Warrior Advanced Warfighting Exercise as well as current efforts to integrate our work with other software and hardware to create a human-centered system for the ECOC.