Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation Team

The JACIE team partnership was formed in 2001 to leverage U.S. Federal agency resources for the characterization of commercial remote sensing data. The JACIE team has grown to consist of representatives from the following Federal agencies:

Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation Data Quality Assessments

Experts in data-quality analysis complete independent data-quality assessments or characterizations of image and image-derived end products. Partner agencies bring their resources and strengths to this task, providing in-depth assessments of imagery and information quality. The efforts of the JACIE team members are instrumental in providing image product quality; however, the most important part of JACIE is the strong collaboration and enhanced working relationships between government and non-governmental organizations to understand remote sensing information and make it more useful to the user community.

Geo-positional, spatial, and radiometric quality are three primary areas for image characterization analysis that are completed by participating agencies using a common collection of JACIE Best Practices (Cantrell and Christopherson, 2024).

Combined, these analysis results help to describe the quality of image data and strongly affect the usability of the data for a myriad of Earth science applications and studies. The JACIE team communicates the knowledge and results of the quality and utility of the remotely sensed data available for government and private use.

Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation Annual Workshop

JACIE data-quality assessment analyses of remote sensing systems are presented each year at the JACIE Workshop. The JACIE Workshop is a week-long event where remote sensing data research and assessment results are shared with several hundred attendees from government, industry, and academia. This highly regarded and independent workshop affords the opportunity for presenters to exchange information regarding the characterization and application of commercial imagery used by the public sector. Presenters also have the opportunity to provide updates for current and future enhancements to existing sensors and promote new sensor uses and data products. Highlights of JACIE Workshops include presentations about new systems, new methods of analyzing and improving data, effects of data quality on applications, poster sessions, exhibits, focused side meetings, and networking events.

In addition to the annual JACIE Workshop, the JACIE team currently (2024) holds monthly tech team meetings. Tech team meetings usually include a guest speaker from one of the agencies or from an external group who relays technical information of interest to the group. The JACIE tech team consists of JACIE partner government and government contractor staff.