Ottica Meccanica Italiana (OMI) was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 company producing photogrammetric

Photogrammetry

Photogrammetry is the practice of determining the geometric properties of objects from photographic images. Photogrammetry is as old as modern photography and can be dated to the mid-nineteenth century....

 instruments. It was founded in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 in 1926 by Umberto Nistri (1895 - 1962) http://www.geography.wisc.edu/histcart/v6initiative/05collier.pdf. From 1962 on, Raffaello Nistri (1920-1981), son of Umberto, was president of the company. Since the 1980s the company has been part of a part of Agusta

Agusta

Agusta is an Italian helicopter manufacturer. It is based in Samarate, Northern Italy. It is a subsidiary of Finmeccanica. The company was founded by Count Giovanni Agusta in 1923, who flew his first airplane in 1907...

. The air photography branch split into S.A.R.A. Nistri http://www.saranistri.com/ and Aerofotogrammetrica Nistri http://pagine-mail.it/static/professionisti/aerofotogrammetrica_nistri,_srl.html.

OMI produced the OMI cryptograph

OMI cryptograph

The OMI cryptograph was a rotor cipher machine produced and sold by Italian firm Ottico Meccanica Italiana in Rome.The machine had seven rotors, including a reflecting rotor. The rotors stepped regularly...

, a cipher machine similar to the more famous German Enigma

Enigma machine

An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...

.