XVI 
1 
FOREWORD BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE 
SEVENTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF PHOTOGRAMMETRY 
There was great enthusiasm at the VII International Congress of Photogram 
metry from the first speeches at the opening plenary session to the final remarks 
at the closing banquet. The first speeches described the urgent needs for gather 
ing and clearly mapping information about the world’s resources so essential to 
effective work toward improved living conditions and world peace. Paper after 
paper in the proceedings of the technical commissions describing remarkable 
improvements in techniques, instruments and lenses; the exposition of the 
smoothly working, precise instruments; the beautiful photographs and maps 
made from them, all combined to build up more and more enthusiasm over the 
ability of photogrammetry to meet these needs. This enthusiasm was reflected 
in the large registration for the VII Congress (1257 from 41 countries), more 
than double the registration of previous Congresses. 
The notable developments in photo interpretation since the VI Congress 
(held in Scheveningen, The Netherlands in 1948) were discussed by a new Tech 
nical Commission VII. Highly useful methods for resource inventories, geolo 
gical and engineering studies and for military intelligence were explained in a 
series of papers so enthusiastic as to require more time than any of the other 
commissions. 
An outstanding achievement of Commission I, Photography, was the draft 
ing and adoption of a provisional international standard for lens tests and camera 
calibration. There has been much uncertainty regarding the performance of 
lenses made in different countries due to different methods of testing. The need 
for an international test is pointed up by the availability of a new wide angle 
air survey lens reported to have improved definition, more than twice the illu 
mination at the edge of a 90 degree field over previous wide angle lenses and a 
distortion not exceeding 10 microns out to 42 degrees. Other new wide angle 
lenses of improved resolution and distortion are reported to be under develop 
ment but were not displayed at the Congress. 
The spirit of international cooperation in scientific testing and free ex 
change of information was also very evident in proceedings of the other Com 
missions. Commission II, Plotting Machines and Instruments, had some lively 
discussion of international standard test plates for plotting machines and adopt 
ed a resolution advocating an international plotting competition. Commission 
III, Geodetic Applications, discussed a number of developments in the adjust 
ment of air triangulation and resolved to promote uniform methods of evalua 
tion for such work. 
Commission IV discussed a number of successful applications of photogram 
metry to surveys of scales as large as 1 : 600 and 1 : 1000. A number of very 
useful applications of photogrammetry to measurements other than mapping 
were discussed by Commission V. Commission VI reported substantial progress 
on a dictionary of photogrammetry in 8 languages. Histories of photogram 
metry and photogrammetric societies in some nine countries were also assembled. 
This Eleventh Volume of the International Archives contains the proceed 
ings of the VII Congress; the technical papers in their original language with 
summaries 
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