Hey everyone so I’ve finally published the first episode of Behind the Maps out on Channel 9. This video series will take you on a journey where we will follow the path the data and imagery in Virtual Earth takes from the manufacture of the camera, to the capturing of imagery in an airplane, to the processing of that imagery, to the Virtual Earth platform and 3D control that delivers all of this data and imagery straight to your browser.

Our first episode takes us to Graz, Austria home of the UltraCam, our high-resolution aerial image camera. We meet Dr. Michael Gruber, inventor of the UltraCam and Bernhard Reitinger the creator of the UltraMap software that is used with the UltraCam camera.

Michael goes into some details about just how they built a camera that has such a high mega-pixel rate using a technique to combine 9 individual CCD’s to act like one big one and use 4 other CCD’s to handle all the color spectrum channels. Bernhard also goes into details on the UltraMap software and how it is used to manage and correct the imagery that is captured by this incredible camera. Here’s a link to the video below. I also have a nice picture of this camera here below I took at their camera laboratory in Graz.  --Enjoy.

 
Behind The Maps - UltraCam