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e The increasing ‘globalisation’ of media will create 
greater awareness of cultural differences (perhaps the 
opposite to what many expect). 
e People will value more the differences and what 
makes them unique as a culture. 
e The differences between rich and poor peoples will 
still exist, with many of the advances in technology 
available only to those who can pay (although the 
alternative may be forced upon rich nations as people 
become more ‘connected’, as seen with the release of 
generic AIDS treatment drugs for Africa). 
e Increasingly, technology will be relied upon to solve 
shortages of food, energy, healthcare and water. 
e A high percentage of the world’s population will 
conduct much of their lives on-line. 
e All the world’s monuments will be documented. 
Well perhaps not the last, but this is a worthy aim. It is 
acknowledged that it is very difficult to make these predictions, 
but there are some trends over the last 20 years or so that if 
extrapolated could result in these situations. There are however 
unknown events that may well change everybody’s idea of a 
future. 
So what advances and developments have been made that gives 
rise to these predictions? 
2. TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT 
Since the development of electricity, humankind has been 
harnessing this force to serve their imagination. Initially it was 
used to provide light, then power for machines, then to generate 
radio signals. Presently it does all this, and also drives the 
computer and telecommunications developments that are such a 
part of the information technology revolution. To a great 
extent, is has been the developments made in the IT revolution 
that has dramatically changed the way that monument 
measurement and documentation can now be preformed. 
Over the last 20 years, and most probably condensed over the 
last 10 years or so, the following advances have been made. 
2.1 Computer Hardware Technology 
The advances in computer technology over the last 20 years 
have been nothing short of phenomenal. The oft quoted 
Moore’s law (in one of its many interpretations) implies that 
processor speed will double every 18 months, however this now 
seems to be coming up against physical limits. Nevertheless 
that is more a limitation of the materials and approaches used 
currently, this will not stop the relentless search for faster, 
bigger, energy efficient processors (Meieran, 1998). 
In 1970 Intel introduced the 4004 chip, equivalent to several 
thousand transistors. In 2000, Intel introduced the Pentium P4, 
with the equivalent of 100 million transistors, with almost a 
linear rate of development in between. Suffice to say for the 
sake of this paper, processor speed will be almost irrelevant in 
20 years. 
2.2 Data Bases 
The advances in data base design and structure over the last 20 
years has extended the application of large scale data bases to 
desk top computers. The development of relational data bases 
and the associated query languages like SQL now offer a 
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International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part BS. Istanbul 2004 
uniform method of querying data,, and indeed supports much of 
the information delivery over the Internet. From a 
documentation point of view data base structures are important, 
as many records now are digital and these need to be stored, 
indexed, standardised and referenced. 
For example, the Cultural Site management System developed 
to document, monitor and conserve the rock painting sites at 
Uluru in Australia (Ogleby et al, 2003) contains scans of forms, 
maps, layers from the site GIS, movies, photograph and audio 
all within one data base with extensive metadata about the 
records. The project has now been extended to include the 
intangible heritage of the Anangu people who live at Uluru — an 
application not possible without modern computers and a 
flexible data base. The system operates in a browser, making 
access and maintenance of the system relatively easy for the 
people using it on a daily basis. 
2.3 Standardisation 
The development of cross-platform standards like Java, HTML, 
SQL, XML and so on encourage common forms of data 
representation, storage and access. It frees the digital 
information society from the confines of proprietary software 
and promotes the development of services, as well as the 
sharing of data and derived information. The explosion in the 
availability of information on the WWW is the result of open, 
accessible and uniform ways of storing, displaying and 
navigating that information. 
In addition, the development and acceptance of a variety of 
metadata standards facilitates the retrieval of relevant data and 
gives some meaning to web pages. Metadata also provides 
some quantification and qualification of the reliability of that 
information. 
2.4 Imaging Systems 
Digital photography is now a consumer item, with 5 megapixel 
cameras being an affordable alternative to 35mm film 
photography. Digital imaging has also had a major impact on 
the photogrammetric process as many (most) of the newer 
systems operate solely in a digital environment. 
From an image point of view, the quality is capable of equalling 
that of medium format professional film cameras. From a 
metric perspective, the cameras are easily calibrated making 
them a simple measurement tool with the appropriate software. 
Image storage formats have been standardised, allowing the 
interchange of images between systems and the compression of 
images to reduce storage requirements. 
In 2003 there were 50 million digital camera units sold world 
wide (Digital Photography Review, 2004), up from 5 million 
units in 1999. Naturally this trend is expected to increase 
(Google Answers, 2004), along with increased chip resolutions, 
and new approaches to the sensor operation (for example 
developments in CMOS sensors). 
Space borne imaging has also seen dramatic developments, with 
Im pixel resolution imagery now being available in a post 
processed, geo-coded format. Radar imaging systems in space, 
and also from airborne platforms, are also providing regional 
data for use in cultural documentation (for examples see any 
recent proceedings from the International Archives of 
Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing).