2 
GENERAL MAPPING AND SURVEYING APPLICATIONS 
OF THE AP-C COMPUTER 
V. C. Kamm 
A. E. Whiteside 
The Bendix Corporation 
Research Laboratories Division 
Southfield Michigan 
INTRODUCTION 
The AP-C Analytical Stereoplotter has been developed to apply 
the advantages of the analytical plotter concept to the more common 
commercial types of aerial photography. The instrument has a basic 
accuracy better than 5 microns rms at photo scale, and it has the 
capability of handling any photograph size up to 9 by 9 inches and any 
focal length between zero and 48 inches. The main components of the 
AP-C system, shown in Figure 1, are the computer on the left, the 
viewing unit in the center, and the output plotter, or coordinatograph, 
on the right. To operate the system, the operator sits at the viewing 
unit and controls the location of the floating mark in the stereo image 
by means of two handwheels and a footwheel, just as in a conventional 
system. The main function of the computer is to accept inputs from 
the handwheels and the footwheel which define the coordinates of the 
reference mark and to provide servo commands to the photo carriages 
in the viewing unit so as to properly position both photographs on a 
continuous basis. The computer also scales the handwheel inputs by 
arbitrary factors for plotting,and controls the operation of the 
coordinatog raph. 
The detailed organization of the AP-C system has been described 
in another paper. ^ The objective of this paper is to describe the general 
characteristics of the computer and to suggest uses of the individual 
components of the system in applications which are related to its main 
use as an analytical stereoplotter. To assist the reader in drawing his 
lE. C. Johnson and V. C. Kamm, "Computer and Programs for the 
AP-C Analytical Stereoplotter," The Canadian Surveyor, Vol. XVIII, 
No. 2, June, 1963.