What is MACS-Box?
MACS-Box is a software application suite, containing several tools in the field of airborne imaging and remote sensing, ranging from pre-flight planning, flight operation, real-time mapping, visualization, conversion and post processing of raw imagery and sensor data up to the derivation of remote sensing products such as true ortho mosaics, digital elevation models and 3D models. The tools are specially tailored to the DLR MACS aerial camera systems, but can be used for general remote sensing tasks and processing, analyzing or visualization purposes as well. The MACS-Box core application maintains the installation, updates and licenses of the complete application suite.
Requirements
MACS-Box supports Windows 7/10 64bit systems. Installation size is between 150MB and 600MB, depending on number of licensed tools to be installed. While the MACS-Box core application has virtually no further demands, some of the tools inside may require a larger amount of RAM and/or CPU processing power, depending on the projects and tasks to be accomplished. Some tools will download map and digital elevation model data, which will require additional disk space.
MACS-Box Applications
MACS-Box contains about 60 single applications. Here is a selection of the major ones:
 Calibration |
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| ImageCalibrator | Radiometric calibration tool for matrix image sensors. Determine PRNU, DSNU from dark and flatfield images and fit parametrized devignetting models. Supports bracketed series. |
| CameraEditor | Editor for MACS camera database. Manage mounting information, boresight data, radiometric and geometric calibration data and flight setups. Supports multi sensor heads and oblique setups. |
| ResolvingPower | Spatial resolution determination with spokes targets (Siemens Star), slanted edges or bar test targets. Measurement includes several confidences (center accuracy, interpolation method, overall distribution). |
 Mission planning |
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| MACS-MissionPlanner | Flight mission planning tool. Create flight plans, analyze overlapping, ground sampling distances. Supports multi-sensor heads. |
| MapDownloader | Download maps for offline use of MACS-BOX mapping applications. Supports several map providers. |
 Flight operation |
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| MACS-Navigator | Navigation assistance and flight operation. Flight plan display, real-time coverage visualization and MACS camera system operator interface. |
| MACS-GroundControl | Ground control station for real-time capable MACS camera systems. Remote commanding of camera system, monitoring telemetry data, controlling broadband aerial link. |
| MACS RT-Relay Server | Relay station for real-time capable MACS camera systems. Serves as data hub and distributes real-time image streams to operators and operation and coordination centers. |
| MACS RT-Viewer | Real-time mapping visualization software for real-time capable MACS camera systems. Supports selection of multi-sensor heads, time slicing, interactive histogram tonemapping. |
 Raw data visualization |
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| MacsViewer | Single image viewer for MACS image files, provided by MACS aerial camera systems. Browse meta data, locate recording location or map them onto map. |
| Mosaica | Airborne image quick mosaicing tool. Map raw imagery onto maps, render quick ortho mosaics or export projects into subsequent processing tools. |
| PointCloudViewer | Fast 3D visualization tool for large point clouds. Loads point clouds in native formats (.las, .ply, etc) and builds a hierarchy on the fly. Works in-core, but allows fast visualization of many millions of points. Supports point splatting and 16 bit color data. |
 Post processing |
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| MACS-Compressor | Compress and copy raw MACS imagery from MACS data cartridges to your data storage systems. Supports preview thumbnail generation. |
| mipps | Converts raw MACS imagery into 16bit TIFF files. Supports a bunch of debayering algorithms, geometric correction, DSNU & PRNU correction, masking, tonemapping etc. |
| Bundler | Photogrammetric tool which fuses navigaton data, Ground Control Points and image correspondences to reconstruct the positions and orientations of aerial imagery. |
| GeoCheck | Lets the user inspect the quality of geo-referenced imagery. Supports automatically extracted image correspondences, manual tie points or Ground Control Points. |
| GDALViewer | Fast image viewer for large georeferenced image datasets. Supports map projection and a variety of responsive image filters: false colors, hill shade, contour lines, and many more. |
How to join?
If you are interested in MACS-Box, feel free to contact us to get an Activation-ID.
About us
MACS-Box and its applications are developed by the Department Security Research and Application Systems in the Institute of Optical Sensor Systems in Berlin, Germany.