GVII-56 
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING 
“Summary 
“Military photo interpretation found its form during the second World War, which 
it has maintained since then. 
“Changes have occurred mainly in the form of improved equipment (optics, 
cameras, film, stereoscopes, et ah). 
“It would seem, however, that photo intelligence already—or soon—-will be ac 
corded a still greater importance since warfare, threatened with atomic weapons, is on 
the eve of great changes. The most decisive factors can be summarized as follows. 
1. The number of intelligence photos will be far greater, making a correspondingly 
great demand on the photo interpretation capacity. 
2. The enemy camouflage technique, developed to counteract photo reconnaissance, 
makes the discovery of targets slower and more difficult—-although field-forti 
fications, erected against the risk of atomic attack, may not be as well camou 
flaged as others, owing to insufficiency of time. 
3. The demand for speedy results is accentuated in atomic warfare, where it can be 
a question of utilizing a favorable occasion for one’s own atomic weapons or to 
hinder the enemy from using his. 
4. It is of supreme importance to exploit entirely the results of the interpretation in 
order to ascertain enemy tactics without delay, since they are of vital interest. 
5. A great amount of interpretation material will cause difficulties in procuring a 
sufficient number of qualified interpreters. The military objectives multiply and 
become more and more difficult to discover. The demand for specialists on cer 
tain types of interpretation targets will probably increase. 
“Without a doubt the future will hold a number of tasks of the traditional kind 
where the demand for speed of interpretation and number of photographs will not be as 
overwhelming as has been outlined here. Perhaps these traditional tasks will be the most 
common ones. 
“The above mentioned points do not, taken each by itself, give one reason for hold 
ing any other view as to the future direction of military photo interpretation. Taken all 
together, however, they tend to give the impression that, in a future war, a greater 
task may be imposed on photo interpretation than can well be managed, unless it is 
given facilities on a much broader basis. 
“Therefore, it would seem reasonable to take into consideration the demands of the 
In view of the rapid expansion in photographic interpretation applications 
which is indicated in this report, and the probability of equally rapid advances 
in the period to come, any attempts to predict the future in any detail are con 
sidered to be impractical and probably misleading. It is further believed that 
the members of the varied professions which utilize photographic interpretation 
are much better qualified to predict its future employment in their field of inter 
est than are the compilers of this report. 
It is suggested, however, that perhaps the most significant indication of 
future development in photographic interpretation is found in the increasing 
acceptance of the photograph as the planning base for many of the present day 
engineering, scientific and social problems. This is heralded in the vital part 
played by photographs and mosaics in the large land-use and urban planning 
projects. Present day scientific planning, with respect to the earth’s surface, 
requires the observation and correlation of a vast amount of detailed informa 
tion in many fields. Photography which records, clearly and objectively, all of 
the visible detail in an area, which is susceptible to an endless variety of uses 
as a field map, as an interpretation source, as an annotation base, and which 
can be used in every form from individual prints to controlled mosaics, is gain 
ing recognition as the most practical base for such planning.