Developing Modeling and Simulation (M&S) Terrain Data Bases for Army training events has been one of the most perplexing issues in Army M&S. Generating the necessary terrain data for the supporting Simulations, as well as Command and Control (C2) Systems, for training is extremely expensive and requires extensive lead-time. Historically, there were significant differences in the resolution and type of data that was required for military simulations and for operational decision support tools. For the last 10 years there has been an ongoing debate between the M&S and Operational Communities concerning which community has the "better" standards. However, a value analysis of the problem shows that most of the effort is put into obtaining and refining geospatial (and image) source data, and that this process can be the same for both communities. This paper describes findings of a US Army Simulation to Mission Command Interoperability Overarching Integrated Product Team (SIMCI OIPT) Geospatial Initiative focusing not on the differences but on the similarities between the two communities.

The implication is that the data requirements for all these systems are converging and becoming more demanding. Unfortunately, the various communities have, often for good reason, implemented different and inconsistent data related processes, standards, and policies for representing the same things in the different domains. These inconsistencies seriously limit the interoperability of systems, the reusability of geospatial data and ultimately the overall effectiveness of our C2 systems. Achieving the interoperability and meeting the increased demand systems users now demand requires that the M&S community increase its production efficiency and, critically, the consistency of the data that is the lifeblood of all these systems. Special emphasis in the paper is given to Co-Production of M&S and Operational geospatial data generation, which has been identified as a critical part of the current SIMCI effort.