ISPRS Review of 200623/02/2007 |
| Ian Dowman, ISPRS president |
| ISPRS had a busy year 2006. And also, I think, a successful one. We held seven Technical Commission Symposia, as well as attending as representatives of ISPRS workshops and meetings hosted by other organisations. Unfortunately, the Commission VIII Symposium had to be cancelled because of the conflict between Israel and Lebanon; a double disappointment as this Commission is a new one and we are anxious to establish remote sensing as a major activity within ISPRS. We hope to compensate for the loss of the symposium by additional remote-sensing activities at other meetings. The symposia showed how active ISPRS is in all areas of photogrammetry and remote sensing. It is difficult to pick out highlights. Interesting activities would include the assessment of CartoSat data reported at the Commission IV Symposium, developments in the use of laser scanning at Commissions I, III and V, eLearning at Commission VI, data fusion in Commission VII, and the development of small satellites reported in Commission I and elsewhere. Progress in multi-scale GIS was reported at Commission II and the many developments in close-range photogrammetry at Commissions III and V. ISPRS is always working for closer links with other organisations, and I am pleased that the symposia have attracted high-profile speakers from organisations including GEO, IEEE and ION. We have also attended many meetings of other societies. These included the Asian and African conferences on remote sensing, FIG meetings in Cairo, Accra and Munich, the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, the UN Cartographic Conference for the Asia Pacific Region and GEO plenary sessions and committees. We have also worked with IEEE and OGC to organise workshops on the Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). The Joint Board of Geospatial Information Societies was hosted by ISPRS in Vienna and held valuable discussions on joint activities in capacity building. Council met on three occasions during 2006 and besides dealing with ongoing issues such as the Congress, finance and ISPRS publications, discussed a new strategic plan, additional benefits for members, restructuring of Council, and our strategy for capacity building in Africa. Many people contribute to the smooth and effective running of an organisation like ISPRS. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Technical Commission presidents, working-group officers, members of the ISPRS committees and the many other people who contributed to making 2006 a good year for ISPRS. We look forward in 2007 to a number of important workshops, including the 5th International Symposium on Mobile Mapping Technology, the workshop on ‘High-resolution Earth Imaging for Geospatial Information’ and the workshop on ‘Photogrammetric Image Analysis’. We will also be heavily involved in the International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment. CIPA will be holding its biennial conference in October. These are important events that will pave the way to the XXIst Congress in Beijing in 2008. |
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| Archive |
| Archive > March 2007, Volume 21, Issue 3 > ISPRS Review of 2006 |
