Hansa Luftbild Starts Flying Season with New UltraCam

Hansa Luftbild has purchased a new UltraCam Eagle Mark 3 system to continue to meet customer requirements. “The UltraCam Eagle Mark 3 is our flagship and the perfected version of its predecessor models. All important components have been improved,” is how Jörg Haupt, chairman of the board of Hansa Luftbild AG, describes the most innovative camera system the company owns.

The UltraCam Eagle M3 allows Hansa Luftbild enormous flexibility in terms of flight altitude and ground sampling distance (GSD). “For precise evaluations, we capture a GSD of 10cm from an altitude of 2,500 metres. This is particularly important in the densely populated areas of Europe, also because of air traffic control and environmental issues,” explains Haupt.

Hansa Luftbild has been relying on cameras from Vexcel Imaging in Graz, Austria, for almost a decade. With the UC-Xp, the Eagle M1 and M2, hundreds of thousands of square kilometres were captured in Germany and abroad, and digital terrain models, (true) orthophotos or 3D city models were delivered to customers.

Radiometric resolution

Vexcel Imaging succeeded in further developing the applied electronics. Thanks to new technology, the UltraCam Eagle M3 attains a radiometric resolution of more than 7,500 gray values by having a pixel size of 4.0µm. The pan-sharpening ratio of 1:3 and an SNR of >72dB achieves impressive radiometric results. The image footprint has also been further increased compared to the previous model. The UltraCam Eagle Mark 3 generates a high-resolution 4-band image (RGBI) with a pixel size of 26,460 x 17,004. The area captured on the ground depends on the flight altitude. With a ground resolution of 10cm, an area of ​​2.6km x 1.7km can be mapped. Together with the forward motion compensation (TDI), the gyro-stabilized mounts from SOMAG, the proven GNSS/INS systems from IGI and the company's double-chamber survey aircraft, Hansa Luftbild is able to literally fulfil every customer requirement.

"Thus we can fly quickly, economically and flexibly for our customers, even over very large areas," Jörg Haupt concluded.