In Beijing this week for the XXI Congress of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS). This event occurs once every four  years in a different international location and brings together delegates from government, commercial and academic organizations from across the globe, eager to learn about the latest developments in photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information services.

While Microsoft is participating at this event primarily to support its photgrammetry division--Vexcel Imaging--and their UltraCamX large format digital aerial camera that provides the high resolution aerial views that can be seen in Virtual Earth (and are used to automatically create the 3D city models), we are also showing Virtual Earth on our plasma in the booth and wowing delegates. This community of photogrammetrists are having a hard time believing that the models are created automatically, given some of the building contours that are more intricate than just a box shape (what they expect from other mapping platforms). Our booth has seen much traffic including Chinese ministers who are followed surrounded by their entourage, including guards and photographers. These officials are spending a good deal of time in the Vexcel Imaging/Microsoft booth learning about Virtual Earth and the photogrammetry products. I am pretty sure that some of our staff snapped some photos and I will try to include in a next blog entry.

In the meantime, I would like to share with you some slightly off topic news (for this blog) by pointing you to the UltraCam web site where we have just announced two new cameras ... the UltraCamXp that is an enhanced version of the UltraCamX, providing a larger image format and higher storage for large scale mapping projects and the UltraCamL which is a medium resolution camera for smaller aircraft and smaller mapping organizations. You can read about them here as well as other news about recent sales including one to the Tenessee Department of Transportation and the sale of the 100th camera to GeoKosmos.

Off to the show floor! More later!