Tech Inpho: Microsoft's 196 megapixel camera

Redmond (WA) - Microsoft makes cameras? Yes, but this is not your average consumer model. Topping out at a whopping 196 megapixels and a native resolution of 17,310 x 11,310 pixels, UltraCamXp can take stereo images at 1 inch GSD with up to 2.5 Gbps data throughput. The company touts the UltraCamXp as the largest format camera available today for aerial photography and will use it soon to improve the quality of terrain imagery used by its Live Maps mapping service.

Popular online mapping services like Google Maps or Microsoft's Live Maps rely on so-called orto-photography to provide users with terrain imagery. Such images are taken with expensive, ultra-high resolution cameras mounted to aircraft. Aerial photographs are then analyzed for rich terrain data beyond pure pixels, stitched together and uploaded to data centers. From there, a mapping service that runs inside your browser, like Live Maps, simply fetches the pixel data required by your current screen resolution and zoom level.

Thanks to its acquisition of Austria-based Vexcel Imaging, Microsoft is able to design and engineer its own high-resolution cameras tailored to aerial photography used in Live Maps' Bird's Eye view. Whereas the company so far relied on its 64 megapixel UltraCamL camera to map the Earth's surface, the new 92 megapixel UltraCamLp is capable of taking photos in a native resolution of 11704 x 7920 pixels. The company claims UltraCamLp to be "the largest footprint medium format camera system for small aircraft." Microsoft plans to put UltraCamLp into service in 2010.

If you thought the resolution of UltraCamLp is high, consider the even higher-res UltraCamXp model that supports 196 megapixels, or 17,310 pixels across track x 11,310 pixels along track, with a pixel size of just 6 μm. The camera can collect stereo imagery at just 1 inch GSD at a flight speed of 110 knots, with s supported maximum data rate of 2.5 Gbps. Thanks to its computing unit with 14 CPUs, the camera processes raw images on board in real time, offers image quality assessment as well as quick views and histograms.

Leveraging the sheer amount of pixels it can register at once, there is much more onboard removable storage that stores around 6600 uncompressed images (~4.2 TB) per unit.

Microsoft started offering UltraCam cameras to the general public in 2004 and plans to offer the UltraCamXp model to institutions, organizations and companies specializing in orto-photography. The 55 kilogram-heavy camera supports all standard gyro-stabilized camera mounts (PAV-30, Z/I T-AS, GSM3000) and most common GPS/IMU systems. High-tech aerial photography has recently came within reach of consumers, like this gigapixel camera composite that provides Google Earth like panoramas.

MONSTER CAM
Microsoft's 196 megapixel UltraCamXp camera (left) produces urban maps with minimal occlusions and Digital Elevation Models with no spikes or holes. The pixel size on the ground (GSD) at an altitude of 1500 ft is 2.9 centimeters, or 1.8 cm at 900 ft altitude. The Office Processing Center software (right) shows all images of a block, sub-assembly or strip, and enables easy stitching.