OFF-LINE ORTHOPHOTO PRINTER
1
INTRODUCTION
RADC has recently completed the development of an
experimental optical orthophoto printer capable of
operation in an off-line mode. The system (Figure 17)
uses a mechanical-optical scanner/printer developed
by Ottico Meccanica Italiana of Rome, Italy, and the
Bendix BX-272 control computer as the primary elements.
In addition, an AMPEX TM-7 magnetic tape unit and an
ASR-35 teletype are provided. The system operates
independently of any stereoplotter, in the physical
sense. Actually, the system in its present state
of development requires elevation data generated by
the AS-11B-1 analytical stereoplotter, and one photo
graph of the stereopair from which the elevation
data was compiled. The necessary orientation data
can be entered via a shut-down tape from the AS-llB-1,
or by the control panel on the front of the printer
unit.
The OMI Printer unit was developed by the Rome
Air Development Center in a joint R&D program between
the United States and Italian governments. Upon
its receipt at RADC a contract was awarded to the
Bendix Research Labs to put the printer in an on
line operation with an automated analytical stereo
plotter, the chart analysis device, and was subsequently
tested for performance evaluation. A second contract
provided for an off-line capability and resulted
in the system being reported in this paper. The
system arrived at RADC in March of this year and
was accepted in May. Since that time it has been
exercised in generating various products and has
been evaluated in terms of accuracy and quality of
products.
SYSTEM CONCEPT
The Off-Line Orthophoto Printer is a direct
optical scannina/printing system and is in contrast
to the conventional projection-type printers. The
Gigas-Zeiss Orthoprojector, the Galileo-Santoni Ortho
photo Simplex, and the SFOM Orthophotograph are
examples of the latter and follow the design concepts
of projection-type plotters wherein the entire photo
graph is illuminated and projected to a large table
