3 
NATIONAL REPORT OF THE UNITED STATES 
Organization 
The Society has experienced continued 
growth and development. The National 
Headquarters staff has been augmented to in 
clude additional personnel and a full-time 
Executive Director. The working structure of 
the Society has been strengthened by re 
organization of its committee structure and 
through the creation of new committees in the 
areas of Technical Program and Aerial Photog 
raphy. The Board of Direction recently ap 
proved a divisional structure for a more ef 
fective organization of the Society’s technical 
effort. 
Photogrammetric Development 
Photogrammetric development in the 
United States from 1964 to 1968 is depicted in 
the 280 technical articles that were published 
in Photogrammetric Engineering maga 
zine during that period. Needless to say, the 
photogrammetric mapping efforts that pre 
vailed in 1964 have steadily increased in vol 
ume and scope in both private practice and 
governmental agencies. Although completely 
automated mapping systems are not used 
generally, nevertheless many parts of systems 
have been automated and are being used, and 
a few very sophisticated systems are in opera 
tion. Analytic (computerized) .systems have 
increased at a high rate, where as the use ot 
first-order analog plotting instruments have 
increased very slowly. 
A few of the highlights of these develop 
ments are included in the following para 
graphs. 
Segmented photography from Lunar Or- 
biter was utilized through an application of 
orbital constraints to the analytical photo 
grammetric problems associated with pro 
duction of detailed topographic maps of the 
lunar surface. 
LASER technology has been applied to the 
scanning, manipulation, and recording of in 
formation on film. Experiments have dem 
onstrated that it is feasible to scan at res 
olutions exceeding 256 line pairs per milli 
meter and to distinguish between 31 levels of 
gray. 
Experimental orthophotomaps involving 
several types of terrain and culture are being 
produced in an effort to determine those for 
which photo image representation is most 
effective, and include both flat areas (a mosaic 
of scaled and rectified photographs) and non 
flat areas (a mosaic of scaled orthophoto 
graphs). 
A selected group of employees engaged in 
stereoscopic compilation was provided with 
special optometric services, including periodic 
on-the-job and clinical examinations, to 
gether with prescriptions and corrective 
glasses as required. Psychological testing of 
all participants was also included. 
Airborne infrared imagery has shown the 
location of the salt/fresh water interface in an 
estuary and the distribution of effluents from 
thermal power plants in lakes and streams. 
Infrared (false-color), color, and black-and- 
white aerial photography have been tested 
for detecting and assessing tree diseases. 
Stereo side-looking airborne-radar (SLAR) 
techniques have been developed for certain 
kinds of mapping where continuous cloud 
cover prevents conventional photography. 
A computer program was designed to pro 
duce fictitious data for the testing of exten 
sive programs of analytical aerotriangulation. 
The program generates the positions of 
ground points and exposure stations, and the 
angular orientation elements for the photo 
graphs. This program was employed to pro 
duce the data used in the I.S.P. Commission 
III tests on analytical triangulation. 
The automated analytical stereoplotter 
with orthophoto system, AS-11C, performs 
automatic orientations, contouring, profiling, 
terrain digitization, orthophoto printing, and 
recording of hypsocline contour plots. A 
scanning pattern is fitted to the terrain by a 
computer, resulting in a geometric high- 
fidelity orthophoto. Automatic mode is 
achieved without compromising versatility or 
operator ability to view and control opera 
tion. 
The universal automatic map compilation 
equipment (UNAMACE) operating auto 
matically under computer control accurately 
measures and outputs detailed altitude varia 
tions over the stereo field presented by a 
variety of photographic inputs. In concurrent 
operations produces orthophotographs of high 
resolution. Orthophotos from contiguous 
stereo pairs can be output on a common sheet 
avoiding the manual mosaicking operation. 
The system can operate as a precision stereo 
comparator and perform relative and ab 
solute orientation calculations required to 
create accurate stereo models. 
A thermal infrared scanner was developed 
for airborne geologic research. 
A nine-lens “multiband” aerial camera en 
ables simultaneous photography of the earth’s 
surface in narrow-band regions of the visible 
and near-infrared spectrum. The camera em 
ploys three rolls of aerial film, each traversing 
three matched lenses equipped with appro-