July 2009 brought for Microsoft the first commercial sale of an UltraCamX in Turkey. Istanbul-based Foto Havicilik is the first company in the country to ink a purchase agreement with Vexcel Imaging GmbH, the Microsoft company producing large-format digital aerial camera systems. According to the software giant, Foto Havicilik needed UltraCamX for an upcoming project the company had lined up. In this regard, Microsoft revealed that Foto Havicilik planned to use the new UltraCamX in order to map Istanbul at 1:5000 map scale.

“Turkey is a growing market, and Vexcel is pleased to be the provider of all of the digital aerial cameras in the country today,” revealed Alexander Wiechert, business director of Microsoft and managing director for Vexcel Imaging GmbH. “The large footprint and expanded storage of the UCX is an excellent choice for a company such as Foto Havicilik A.S. as they take on bigger international projects.”

UltraCamX is capable of snapping digital images at a resolution of no less than 216 megapixels. Microsoft pointed out that the aerial imagery captured measured 14,430 across track and 9,420 along track pixels. The large-format digital aerial camera is capable of harvesting images at a rate of three gigabits per second.

With the new UltraCamX, Foto Havicilik will expand its aerial coverage on top of the large-scale photogrammetric map and orthophoto content it has produced so far for Istanbul, Izmir, Turkey, and in Azerbaijan. The Istanbul-based company offers customers aerial photogrammetry and GIS services, as well as orthophotos and maps.

“With the purchase of our first digital aerial camera, our company is well positioned to handle larger projects anywhere in the world,” said Altan Cetinkaya, general manager of Foto Havicilik A.S. “We chose the UltraCamX because it fully satisfies our requirements with its superior technology and reliable performance.”