Civil NIIRS Reference Guide

irp.fas.org/imint/niirs_c/guide.htm

Prepared By
the Imagery Resolution
Assessments and Reporting
Standards (IRARS) Committee

Civil NIIRS Reference Guide

1.0 Introduction

This document presents the Civil National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS)
and discusses its use. Image examples using the Civil NIIRS are displayed in Appendix I.
Additional Civil NIIRS criteria are listed in Appendix II and a history of NIIRS appears in
Appendix III.
Comments or requests for additional copies should be directed to Mr. Rich Murphy,
Technical Director of IRARS, at 703-799-XXXX.

1.1 What is NIIRS?

The National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS) is a task-based scale used for
rating imagery acquired from various imaging systems. The NIIRS originated in the
Intelligence Community and is the standard used by imagery analysts, collection
managers, imagery scientists, and sensor designers. The imagery analysis tasks that
comprise the NIIRS have, in the past, focused mainly on military equipment. This
document provides a scale that is relevant to environmental and civil users and serves as
a "stand-alone" reference.
The concept underlying the NIIRS is that imagery analysts should be able to perform
more demanding interpretation tasks as the quality or interpretability ofthe imagery
increases. The NIIRS consists of 10 graduated levels (O to 9), with several interpretation
tasks or criteria forming each level. These criteria indicate the amount of information that
can be extracted from an image at a given interpretability level. With a NIIRS 2 image, for

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example, analysts should lust be able to detect large buildings, while on NIIRS 6 imagery
they should just be able to identify automobiles as sedans or station wagons.

1.2 Why NIIRS?

The NIIRS provides a common framework for discussing the interpretability, or

information potential, of imagery. NIIRS, therefore, serves as a standardized measure of
image interpretability for:

Communicating the usefulness of the imagery,

Specifying requirements for imagery,
Managing the tasking and collection of imagery,
Assisting in the design and assessment of future imaging systems, and,
Measuring the performance of sensor systems and imagery exploitation devices.

1.3 Civil NIIRS Criteria

The Imagery Resolution Assessment and Reporting Standards (IRARS) Committee is

providing this reference guide in response to the rising importance of civil and
environmental imagery applications of various imaging systems. The criteria presented
here are divided into three categories based on the type of image exploitation task. The
categories are:
Natural: These criteria are concerned with natural features, such as vegetation,
rocks, streams, and landforms.
Agricultural: These criteria pertain to crops, farm equipment, or livestock. This
category includes references to illicit crops, such as marijuana, coca, and opium
poppies.
Urban/Industrial: This category references constructed, non-military objects, like
roads, railroads, and buildings.

These additional criteria expand the variety of NIIRS exploitation tasks, enabling analysts
to find tasks that more closely resemble specific interests. Thus, the Civil NIIRS
supplements the Visible NIIRS1 by expanding the number of criteria categories. In this
sense, Civil NIIRS can be viewed as both a stand-alone scale and an expansion of the
Visible NIIRS. See Table 1 for Civil NIIRS criteria.
1. The Visible NIIRS was developed by the Intelligence Community for rating panchromatic imagery.
The criteria that form the Visible NIIRS address mainly military image interpretation tasks. A detailed
discussion appears in Appendix III.
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Civil NIIRS Reference Guide

Table 1. Civil NIIRS Criteria

Rating Level O
Interpretability of the imagery is precluded byobscuration, degradation, or very poor
resolution.

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Rating Level 1
Distinguish between major land use classes (e.g., urban, agricultural, forest, water,
barren).
Detect a medium-sized port facility.
Distinguish between runways and taxiways at a large airfield.
Identify large area drainage patterns by type (e.g., dendritic, trellis, radial).

Rating Level 2
Identify large (i.e., greater than 160 acre) center-pivot irrigated fields during the growing
season.
Detect large buildings (e.g., hospitals, factories).
Identify road patterns, like clover leafs, on major highway systems.
Detect ice-breaker tracks.
Detect the wake from a large (e.g., greater than 300') ship.

Rating Level 3
Detect large area (i.e., larger than 160 acres) contour plowing.
Detect individual houses in residential neighborhoods.
Detect trains or strings of standard rolling stock on railroad tracks (not individual cars).
Identify inland waterways navigable by barges.
Distinguish between natural forest stands and orchards.

Rating Level 4
Identify farm buildings as barns, silos, or residences.
Count unoccupied railroad tracks along right-of-way or in a railroad yard.
Detect basketball court, tennis court, volleyball court in urban areas.
Identify individual tracks, rail pairs, control towers, switching points in rail yards.
Detect jeep trails through grassland.

Rating Level 5
Identify Christmas tree plantations.
Identify individual rail cars by type (e.g., gondola, flat, box) and locomotives by type (e.g.,
steam, diesel).
Detect open bay doors of vehicle storage buildings.
Identify tents (larger than two person) at established recreational camping areas.
Distinguish between stands of coniferous and deciduous trees during leaf-off condition.
Detect large animals (e.g., elephants, rhinoceros, giraffes) in grasslands.

Rating Level 6
Detect narcotics intercropping based on texture.
Distinguish between row (e.g., corn, soybean) crops and small grain (e.g., wheat, oats)
crops.
Identify automobiles as sedans or station wagons.
Identify individual telephone/electric poles in residential neighborhoods.
Detect foot trails through barren areas.

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Rating Level 7
Identify individual mature cotton plants in a known cotton field.
Identify individual railroad ties.
Detect individual steps on a stairway.
Detect stumps and rocks in forest clearings and meadows.

Rating Level 8
Count individual baby pigs.
Identify a USGS benchmark set in a paved surface.
Identify grill detailing and/or the license plate on a passenger/truck type vehicle.
Identify individual pine seedlings.
Identify individual water lilies on a pond.
Identify windshield wipers on a vehicle.

Rating Level 9
Identify individual grain heads on small grain (e.g., wheat, oats, barley).
Identify individual barbs on a barbed wire fence.
Detect individual spikes in railroad ties.
Identify individual bunches of pine needles.
Identify an ear tag on large game animals (e.g., deer, elk, moose).

Civil NIIRS Reference Guide

1.4 Description of the NIIRS

Since the NIIRS was first released in the early 1970s, it has established its value to
imagery analysts, imagery scientists, and collection and program managers. It serves as
a standardized indicator of imagery usefulness for planning military missions, tasking
various collection systems, evaluating system performance, and developing new
systems. A history of the NIIRS and presentation of other scales (Visible NIIRS, Radar
NIIRS, IR NIIRS) appears in Appendix III.
The Civil NIIRS consists of several criteria at each rating level. These criteria incorporate
interpretation tasks familiar to experienced imagery analysts. All criteria within a single
rating level can be achieved by imagery of approximately the same interpretability. The 10
rating levels that comprise the scale are equally spaced in interpretability.
To assign a NIIRS rating to an image, imagery analysts are asked to judge which tasks
they can accomplish and which features they can see in the imagery. In making such
judgments, the imagery analyst takes into account scene content and image acquisition
conditions. Obviously, not every image contains the specific items mentioned in the
criteria. When features referenced in the criteria are not present, the analyst must
imagine these objects are present and make an educated guess as to which criteria can
and cannot be accomplished on the image. In other words, the imagery analyst rates
interpretability by judging what tasks could be accomplished or what features could be
seen on an image of that aquality, as if the information needed to do the tasks or the

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features included in the scale were present in the image. In this way, the imagery analyst
is in fact judging the information potential of the image, rather than making judgments
about what was or was not actually imaged.

2.0 Assinging NIIRS Ratings

The NIIRS is intended to provide imagery analysts with uniform and systematic points of
reference for judging relative image interpretability. To apply the NIIRS, the imagery
analyst should:
Determine which NIIRS rating level best describes the interpretability of the image
being viewed. This should be done by judging which interpretation tasks can or
could be done and which items of interest can or could be seen on imagery of that
interpretability, regardless of what was actually imaged. Conversely, such judgments
will reveal which tasts cannot be done and which items cannot be seen on imagery
of that quality.
Assign the appropriate rating level (i.e., 0,1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9) to the image.
Assign the level representing the most difficult rating criterion that can be
accomplished for a given image, provided that the criteria of lower interpretability
levels are also satisfied.

To arrive at the most accurate NIIRS rathing, the imagery analyst should adhere to the
following guidelines:
Assign a NIIRS rating that best characterizes the overall interpretability of the target
or area that relates to the analyst's task.
Do not ignore or emphasize exceptionally good or exceptionally poor portions of the
image.
When considering clouds, shadows, or other localized degradation, rate the image
area witha NIIRS "0" only when the degradation precludes using it for interpretation.
If the area of interest is degraded but still interpretable, the analyst should assign a
NIIRS rating that best represents its interpretability.
Ignore shadows cast by individual items of interest. NIIRS ratings should be based
on direct observation of features and not by observing the shadows cast by these
features. The information extracted from an image, of course, includes the
information derived from shadows, but shadows of specific objects should not be
considered when assigning a NIIRS.

Civil NIIRS Reference Guide

2.1 Definitions

The terms detect, distinguish between, and identify are used extensively in the NIIRS
criteria. Although there are several definitions of these terms currently in the image
analysis community, their definition for NIIRS purposes is intended to be straightforward
and uncomplicated. The definitions are:

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 Detect:
Detect is the capability to find or discover the presence or existence of an
installation, object, activity, or item of interest, based on its general shape
(configuration) and on other contextual information in the scene. Some level of
identification is implied in detection, so that the feature detected can be properly
named.
Distinguish Between:
The distinguish between level is the capability to determine that two detected
objects are of different types or classes based on one or more distinguishing
features.
Identify:
Identify is the capability to name an object by type or class, based primarily on its
configuration and detailed components. Identification depends on observation of
detail in the image and not through information from non-imagery sources.

3.0 Using the CIVIL NIIRS

The Civil NIIRS criteria are calibrated to the Visible NIIRS. Thus, an image that contains
both cultural/natural features and military equipment can be rated using either the
traditional Visible NIIRS or the Civil NIIRS presented here. The two approaches will yield
the same NIIRS rating, on average2.
A major use for the Civil NIIRS will be to assist in tasking imaging systems and imagery
collection management. Analysts assessing natural and environmental phenomena may
not find relevant criteria in the Visible NIIRS to guide their tasking. The Civil NIIRS is more
likely to represent tasks that will assist in articulating requirements in terms of NIIRS. This
approach also applies to identifying historic archived imagery for environmental analysis.
2. Two analysts will occasionally assign different ratings to the same image because assigning a
NIIRS rating to an image is a subjective process. The calibration of the Civil NIIRS ensures that ratings
made with the Civil NIIRS and the Visible NIIRS will agree in most cases. To be precise, if a large
number of images were rated using both scales, the mean difference between the two sets of ratings
would not differ significantly from zero.

Civil NIIRS Reference Guide

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