Autometric

Autometric Inc. was a company spun out of Paramount Pictures to work with early satellite imagery.

Early successes at Autometric included the invention of the Chromatron which was subsequently sold to Sony and used prior to developing the Trinitron.

The company created image analysis products for representing imagery of the earth, cataloging, and image analysis. Autometric developed early orthophotographic hardware and methodology. The company was acquired by Raytheon and transitioned its product focus to military and intelligence projects. It was called Autometric Operation of Raytheon. In a few years, Autometric split off from Raytheon becoming independent. After a series of management blunders and near bankruptcies, Boeing Inc. purchased the company at the end of 2000 as part of the Future Imagery Architecture.[1][2] The Future Imagery Architecture became the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects. Since the F.I.A. debacle, the National Reconnaissance Office has banned Boeing from bidding on new spy satellite contracts. Autometric's nominally successful products, before they were shelved by Boeing, included Wings Mission Rehearsal, Edge Whole Earth, Spatial Query Server and DataMaster. Due to high turnover, most of the technology made its way to Google and other companies in the form of disgruntled technical talent.

Wings and Edge were direct predecessors to Google Earth. Bob Cowling, the Director of Product Engineering at Autometric, was the primary developer of Wings. Wings was a mission rehearsal product draping imagery over terrain. With advances learned from that experience, Bob built a globe which led to the formation of Edge Whole Earth. Edge was used to develop graphics for National Geographic, CBS Evening News, and the motion picture "Shadow Conspiracy."

The success of Edge led to several smaller spin offs, including Edge Development Option. Many of the engineers working on Edge Development Option, went to work for Keyhole, Inc. helping to create what is now Google Earth.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.