17 
New Developments in the Processing Software for P-Series Planicomp 
Johannes Saile, Oberkochen 
tember 
he 
1. Introduction 
The instruments of the PIanicomp P-Series were presented to the public three 
years ago. The economy-priced P3 PIanicomp has since become a standard 
instrument among analytical plotters, especially for jobs involving bulk data 
acquisition, i.e. in the fields of topographic mapping and DEM data acquisi 
tion. The top-of-the-1ine instrument PI PIanicomp is primarily used for ap 
plications where the special possibilities of optics switchover, optical in 
terfacing and the large photocarriages are required, i.e. for triangulation 
measurements, terrestrial photogrammetry or if the connection of the VIDEOMAP 
stereo version would be of advantage. Both instruments feature the charac 
teristic P-cursor for free-hand guidance of the floating mark and for command 
input. The P2 PIanicomp, which was derived from the viewer of the C120 
PIanicomp and is therefore equipped with the traditional handwheels and foot 
disk, has also succeeded in holding its share of the market. Customers are 
now increasingly making use of the option to upgrade an existing C100 
PIanicomp to a P2 in order to be able to utilize the extensive capabilities 
of the PHOCUS program system. The three years since the market launch have 
shown that the three instruments with their different performance features 
effectively cover the users' requirements so that there has been no need for 
major changes or extensions of the hardware design. The flexibility of the 
instruments was also used to full advantage when it came to the connection of 
IBM-compatible computers featuring an MS-DOS operating system. The name P-CAP 
stands for the orientation software and the connection of CAD and GIS pro 
grams written for this computer category. 
This paper deals with the capabilities and new features of PHOCUS and P-CAP, 
the emphasis being placed on object-oriented data acquisition and the meas 
urement of digital terrain models.