50 
definition 
that uses 
s together 
pertinent 
owners and 
Is of land 
Lon. This 
property 
scription. 
rveys. 
merits of 
¿spite the 
nd mapping 
ago. When 
;s istance ) 
‘ocessing, 
"îulate new 
L or legal 
3 use of 
cuniques. 
entry of 
tipurpose 
em. From 
' products 
progrès s 
: that are 
sveloping 
» getting 
d the new 
loser is 
juntries. 
: of our 
through 
■ced from 
state of 
bai view 
Dk at our 
ial but 
urseIves 
, during 
dv were 
bi1 ities 
nences, 
5 of the 
/e now a 
le earth 
with great fidelity and precision in either an analogue 
(pictorial) way or in digital form. We have marvelous new ground 
techniques based on the recording of satellite signals, and 
others that use inertial sensors, to determine coordinates of 
discrete terrain points. Above all, scientists in other fields 
provide us every year with new, more powerful and more efficient 
computers and other instruments for processing, storing and 
displaying survey data in almost any desirable form. 
As a consequence one would expect that the scientific and 
professional leaders in our field would grasp these new 
possibilities and try to develope new operational concepts that 
would permit us to use the new techniques efficiently and in 
accordance with the pressing needs of contemporary society. In 
reality, the opposite is true. Our distinguished professors and 
researchers dwell mostly on single techniques, seldom asking 
meaningful questions concerning the merits of alternative 
solutions. Usually (obviously there are prominent exceptions) 
their inquisitive minds do not enter broader fields of 
application. They prefer not to confront the simple question, 
"why”. As a matter of fact, some of them consider knowledge of 
operational details as a detraction from their "scientific aura". 
They follow the safe ancient maxim: "Si tacuises philosophus 
mansisses" and thus reduce themselves to rather narrow 
technicians, mostly in the computational field. During my 
frequent visits to universities on all continents I have 
discovered that some of my colleagues, professors of 
photogrammetry, know little (occasionally nothing) of such an 
important technique as orthophotography. They have never heard 
about the possibilities of stereo-orthophotography, they have 
only vague ideas about field surveying, they know equally little 
about modern photography and cameras, and they are convinced that 
basic surveying and mapping operations such as the cadastre 
belong in the field of law. 
I must say that this situation is partly due to the fact 
that many countries of the world, among them such a leading 
country as the United States, do not recognize geodetic 
disciplines (geodesy, surveying, photogrammetry, cartography, 
remote sensing) as being worth the support of a full-fledged 
university department. Instead, they provide "extension courses” 
or "post-graduate curricula" which supposedly should be capable 
of converting all kinds of forestry or architecture students into 
competent experts in surveying and mapping. To add insult to 
injury, these substitute measures are usually part of civil 
engineering departments, which for many years have been 
recognized as the "dead hand" on geodetic disciplines. I never 
could understand what the science of building bridges or 
skyscrapers had in common with geodetic disciplines. As I see 
it, geodesy and the related disciplines belong to applied 
physics. If for practical or iocal reasons they cannot- be part