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General Introduction 
It is well-known that for decades aerial photos have been used 
not only in the military field but they are also an essential part of 
classical photogrammetry, land-measuring, surveying, and last 
but not least of archaeology. Now, it is 15 to 20 years ago that the 
satellite image was added which opened completely new di 
mensions to the whole field of information and data acquisition 
in remote sensing. 
Therefore, the aerial photo and the satellite image have become 
more important beyond their previous scope, a completely new 
quality of interpretation possibilities has been achieved, too. 
Not only the evaluation of aerial photos and the interpretation 
of satelli te images has become more important in many fields of 
technique and science, theory and research. The entire image 
processing - and not only with the conventional photography 
but also with many other imaging fields - is advancing. 
Therefore it is easily comprehensible that also industry is utili 
zing this knowledge and putting new systems adjusted to the 
increased requirements and the advancing technology on the 
market to support the interpretation aid. The following descri 
bes three new products in the optical field. All the above mentio 
ned factors were taken into account when Kern & Co. AG 
developed the SMI 2, the Zoom Sight 20 X, and the RK 820.