US Patent 8744760 Surface information generating system, device, and method

A present novel and non-trivial system, device, and method for generating surface information presentable on a display unit is disclosed, where the surface information may be presented to draw a viewer's attention to threatening terrain location within a targeted area. An image generator (“IG”) may be configured to receive navigation data; receive search data representative of at least a reference location, a targeted area, and a pattern comprised of a plurality of ground tracks; retrieve object data representative of object cell elevations of the targeted area; determine threat data representative of a threat level for each object cell; and generate an image data set representative of an image comprised of one or more threat-based search area location highlighters and/or one or more threat-based ground track location highlighters. The reference location could be comprised of a search pattern datum or a commencement search point.