US Support for ISPRS

For many years US geospatial practitioners have actively supported the programmes and goals of ISPRS. The first American ISPRS president was O.S. Reading, who served from 1948 to 1952, followed by Frederick Doyle from 1980 to 1984, and Lawrence Fritz from 1996 to 2000. The ISPRS Congress has twice been held in Washington, DC, first in 1952 and again in 1992, and ISPRS Technical Commission Symposia (including I, II, III and IV) and numerous working-group workshops have been hosted in the US over the past sixty years.  

The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) has an important function in sustaining US involvement with support through technical meetings, programmes and its journal, Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing.

The twenty-first ISPRS Congress in Beijing elected Mike Renslow Council treasurer for a four-year term.
Mike is a past-president of ASPRS, runs Renslow Mapping Services and is technical editor of PE&RS.
He previously served five years as ASPRS treasurer and currently holds the same office at the ASPRS Foundation.

Newly Elected

The same Congress elected Marguerite Madden president of ISPRS Commission IV - Geodatabases and Digital Mapping. Marguerite is a past-president of ASPRS, professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia and director of the Center
for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science. Under her leadership Commission IV's Working Groups
will address topics including:

- development, access and management of spatio-temporal geospatial databases

- spatial data infrastructures and cyberinfrastructure

- automated geospatial data acquisition, image-based databases, and mapping from high-resolution data

- virtual globes and context-aware visualisation/analysis

- web-based access, retrieval and dissemination of spatial data, including web-based location-based services, geosensor networks and geo-GRID

- integration of spatial-information systems and image analysis for database-driven change detection, data capture and updating core spatial databases

- global DEM interoperability

- digital 3D/4D landscape modelling, geo-visualisation, and urban models

- 3D spatial data integration for emergency services

- extraterrestrial mapping and spatial information systems

- semantic data interoperability and ontology for geospatial information.

Commission IV Mid-Term Symposia will be held in the south-eastern US in autumn 2010.

Broad Representation

The US is well represented on the ISPRS Foundation Board, Larry Fritz, ISPRS past-president serving as finance officer and Terry Keating as
a trustee.

Plans are underway for the ISPRS Centenary Celebration to be held in Vienna on 4th July 2010, and several Organising Committee members are from the US: Alan Mikuni (Executive Board) with the U.S. Geological Survey, Mostafa Madani of Intergraph Corporation, and Mark Cygan of ESRI. Stewart Walker and Marguerite Madden also serve on the ISPRS Strategic Planning Committee, which will present ISPRS with recommendations at the 2010 Centenary Celebration.

The participation of the US in ISPRS activities continues to grow through connections between the ASPRS Student Advisory Council, ASPRS Student Chapters and the ISPRS Student Consortium, with the goal of strengthening international ties and ensuring the future of our profession.