For about five years, the Sabah’s Lands & Surveys department had considered acquiring a new camera. It would need to be a camera that could fulfill the demands of the other departments that L&S Department Sabah serves. The requirements range from orthophotos to 3D city models to dense point clouds. Their old analog camera was no longer sufficient for these applications. Finally, the department decided on an UltraCam Osprey. Robert Cheng, Senior Assistant Director from Lands and Surveys Department Sabah is impressed by the variety of stand-out features of the Osprey camera. The Osprey is a two-in-one camera that can collect photogrammetry-grade nadir images and oblique images simultaneously, supporting city mapping as well as classical nadir applications from the same flight mission. Given that in Sabah the hiring of aircraft is quite expensive, the UltraCam Osprey brings many advantages in terms of cost-effectiveness. With this camera, it’s not necessary to re-fly the same area.

Robert Chang especially likes the compact design of the Osprey cameras: “It’s so easy to install and dismantle the whole system. I think it’s just a very, very well designed camera."  Norman Shah, Support GIS Specialist at Lands & Surveys Department Sabah emphasizes the high degree of automatization of the aerial photogrammetry software: “Processing data using UltraMap software for orthophotos is especially easy because the software performs dense matching and produces point clouds automatically.” In contrast to many other programs, UltraMap is easy to use as it combines both nadir and oblique image processing in one run. "With the UltraMap software it’s also possible to eliminate or reduce haze from images automatically as it’s typically seen in the tropics", mentioned Norman Shah.