DGPF Celebrates Centenary
Article

DGPF Celebrates Centenary

Next year marks the hundredth anniversary of the German Society for Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation (DGPF). The main ceremony commemorating this jubilee is scheduled for 24th March 2009 in the city of Jena, under the auspices of the Annual Meeting of the DGPF. It was in October 1909 that a ‘Tutorial Week for Stereophotogrammetry' took place in Jena under the tutelage of Professor Carl Pulfrich and sponsored by the firm Carl Zeiss. During this event some enthusiastic participants decided to form a ‘Society for Photogrammetry' similar to the one already in existence Society in Austria. The new Society developed slowly over subsequent years, with the First World War making activities particularly difficult.

 

Step Forward

A major breakthrough occurred in 1926, when the small Society hosted the second International Congress for Photogrammetry in Berlin. This event was a great success: delegates attended from 26 countries, and for the first time an accompanying international exhibition was held. The Society also presented its new periodical, Bildmessung und Luftbildwesen, which has since become the oldest established photogrammetry  journal in the world. From this moment on, photogrammetrical techniques and instrumentation developed rapidly, along with its many applications. Several German textbooks were published and photogrammetry became an academic discipline. During these years the Society represented a large community, but everything collapsed at the end of the Second World War.

 

Two Societies

It took several years to recover from this disaster. In 1949 the Society was reactivated and over the following years it benefited from the gradual growth of the German economy. In 1976 the Society expanded its field of activities to include ‘Remote Sensing', and in 2002 it embraced ‘Geoinformation'.
It also hosted the 14th International Congress for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing in Hamburg in 1980. However, the post-war political situation led to the founding in 1960 of the Society for Photogrammetry in the DDR. For nearly thirty years there existed two photogrammetric societies in Germany, both active members of ISPRS. In the aftermath of the cold war and the reunification of Germany in 1990 the societies merged and now once more comprise the one and only German Society.

 

New Challenges

The history of the DGPF is strongly linked to technological development. But it has also been largely dominated by political and economic change. The Society has thus experienced various ups and downs over the last hundred years. Many technological changes are foreseen on this, the eve of its second century. The German Society for Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Geoinformation welcomes new challenges and intends to continue to play an active role in the ISPRS in years to come.

 

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