Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of Virtual Earth? Curious what cameras are used and what happens after the pictures are taken? How do they end up on Live Maps? Wonder no more, Mark Brown started a video series Behind The Maps on Channel 9.

This video series will take you on a journey where we will follow the path the data and imagery in Virtual Earth takes from the manufacture of the camera, to the capturing of imagery in an airplane, to the processing of that imagery, to the Virtual Earth platform and 3D control that delivers all of this data and imagery straight to your browser.

The first episode is about the UltraCam, Virtual Earth’s high-resolution aerial image camera, and the UltraMap software. Mark interviews Dr. Michael Gruber, inventor of the UltraCam and Bernhard Reitinger the creator of UltraMap (software used with the camera).

Embedded below is episode 1, enjoy!

Remember this is a series, so you may want to subscribe to the feed at http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/Behind+The+Maps/ if you don’t want to miss another episode!