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3.2 Publications
Publications represent the Society’s best means for
reaching the broad audience of individuals and
organizations interested in the mapping sciences.
Members automatically receive PE&RS each month,
but in addition are able to share in technical advanc-
es reported in a steady stream of Proceedings
published by ASPRS from other conferences and
symposia, and from reference manuals documenting
the state-of-the-art in selected fields within the
profession. Two such references are currently being
revised for publication between 1993 and 1995: the
Manual of Aerial Photographic Interpretation (Dr.
Warren Philipson, editor-in-chief); and the Manual of
Remote Sensing (Dr. Robert Ryerson, editor-in-chief).
Unlike its predecessor, the new Manual of Remote
Sensing will be issued in a series of smaller, topic
specific volumes. In the advanced planning stage
are volumes titled Remote Sensing and GIS for
Development, Radar Remote Sensing, and Remote
Sensing for the Geosciences; and in the discussion
stage are Remote Sensing Platforms and Sensors and
Principles of Remote Sensing. A new reference
manual, The Glossary of Mapping Sciences (Soren
Henriksen, editor), should be published in 1993; and
a proposed G/S Manual with Dr. Russel Congalton as
the proposed editor-in-chief is under consideration by
the Publications Committee.
Since 1988, ASPRS has published more than 35
Proceedings, Directories, Compendia, Surveys, and
Bibliographies that it has either commissioned
directly or co-sponsored with other societies or
government agencies. These are in addition to the
Proceedings derived from the Annual and Fall Techni-
cal (now GIS/LIS) meetings. A complete list of these
can be obtained by writing to the Communications
Director at ASPRS Headquarters.
3.3 Membership Services
Meetings and publications are the primary means for
advancing the technologies employed by our mem-
bers, and among the chief mechanisms for promoting
the retention and attraction of new members.
Education of young people entering our professions
is a central concern for all our members, but continu-
ing education of practicing professionals is equally
important. The pace of technology development is
so rapid and becoming so specialized that programs
to inform and serve our members must be constantly
reviewed. The Student Affairs and Evaluation for
Certification committees are vital functions in this
education process at the national level; but there are
many related committees within the Regions, and the
whole Professional Practice Division that are also
active participants. With ACSM, we also educate
through the activities of the Joint Government
Affairs, the Joint Satellite Mapping and Remote
Sensing, and the Joint Education Committees. Our
sustaining members, PE&RS Journal advertisers, and
news columns written for the Journa/represent other
significant means for spreading information.
4.0 Sectoral Achievements
The National Report contains contributions describing
the achievements of government agencies, academic
institutions, and the private sector. Among the
government agencies submitting program descrip-
tions are the U.S. Geological Survey, Defense
Mapping Agency, U.S. Forest Service, and NASA.
19
Also submitted are reports from some 16 academic
programs, some of which are multi-institutional or
cross-disciplinary. ^ Private sector activities are
reported by the publisher/editors of G/S-World, GPS-
World, the executive director of the Management
Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors
(MAPPS), and the President and CEO of ERDAS.
Supplementing these programmatic reports is a
series of 13 papers describing Technical Achieve-
ments in remote sensing and geographic information
systems, and the integration of these.
4.1 Private Sector
The most profound development in the mapping
sciences since 1988 has been the rapid evolution of
commercial enterprises for remote sensing and GIS.
These now complement, in range of services and
volume of revenue, more traditional private sector
activities in aerial data acquisition and photogramm-
etric applications. Moreover, it is now certain that
GIS has significant consumer groups outside of
ASPRS's traditional focus on natural and cultural
resources, environmental issues and global change.
These marketplaces may represent new membership
opportunities at the state and local government
levels, and in facilities management and the business
community.
A related opportunity for commercial development
lies in the integration of GIS with GPS and remote
sensing data. Hardware and software improvements
have permitted the genesis of highly robust systems
for integrating and managing large amounts of raster-
and vector-based spatial data. These, together with
improvements in data supply, dissemination and
processing, allow faster access and analysis times,
and thus quicker turnaround times for customers
with short term needs. In short, what has before
been referred to as /ocation theory can now be
modeled and analyzed with real data for real solu-
tions to real problems. Demographic data, digital
elevation models (DEMs), digital line graphs (DLGs),
moderate resolution satellite data from SPOT and
Eosat Corporations, fine resolution data from recti-
fied aerial photographs, and spatial data from any
number of registered map and tabular sources are
the basis for this capability.
4.2 Government Sector
Federal government programs have added greatly to
our national and global capability for environmental
monitoring and modeling. Digital map-making; digital
map production systems; the creation of the digital
chart of the world; standardization in mapping, chart-
ing, and geodesy; and the creation of image-based
digital orthophotoquads are all aspects of this basic
modernization effort. DEMs and DLGs are available
for the entire conterminous United States at
1:250,000 scale, and significant progress has been
made for these products at larger (1:100,000 and
1:24,000) scales. Though not represented in the
National Report, another significant achievement in
spatial data applications since the 1988 Congress
has been the completion of the 1990 national
population census using digital data storage and
retrieval techniques. The results of this census are
available on CD-ROM and are called Topologically
Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing
(TIGER) files. In sum, these products and data sets
represent the enabling capability for GIS develop-
ments taking place in other federal agencies like the
U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management,