(Heerbrugg, 10 August  2011) Leica Geosystems announces version 3.34 of its powerful Leica Flight & Sensor Control Management System (FCMS). New productive features such as automatic  generation of bitmaps from DTM data have been added to make Leica FCMS v3.34 the most productive tool for cost-effective flights and data acquisition.

Leica FCMS provides Flight and Sensor Control Management for all its airborne sensor systems. Leica FCMS 3.34 provides easy and highly automated operation of the recently released Leica ALS70 high-performance Airborne LiDAR system as well as of the new Leica RCD30 medium format camera, the world’s first 60 MegaPixel camera to acquire multispectral imagery in RGB and N. Both, the Leica ALS70 and the Leica RCD30, can be operated either as a standalone installed system or as multi-sensor system ALS70+ RCD30. The combined system works as a fully integrated unit, and shares not only GNSS/IMU data but is also operated conveniently from one operator interface.

Efficient flight guidance is provided by the proven Leica FCMS flight guidance features. In addition to display vector data on a map layer the newly released Leica FCMS v3.34 now also supports the display of bitmap maps. The map layer can be shown as part of the North-up and Nose-up flight guidance views, and the in-flight evaluation view. The content of the map layer can be defined independently for the Operator interface and the Pilot interface. Additionally, Leica FCMS 3.34 generates automatically Elevation Encoded or Shaded Relief bitmaps from SRTM DTM data when uploaded to the airborne system. These bitmaps can also be displayed as back drop during flight to provide an overview of the topography and to verify the area coverage in-flight.

Availability
Leica FCMS v3.34 is released for Leica RCD30 and for Leica ALS70 , ALS60, and ALS50-II. It is immediately available for all customers with FCMS Software Maintenance or as an upgrade.