XIII CONGRESS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF PHOTOGRAMMETRY 
HELSINKI’ 19/6 
COMMISSION III THE. PRESIDENTS. REPORT 
ON THE DEVELOPMENT IN THE FIELD OF ISP-COMMISSION III DURING 1972 - 1976 
  
By F. Ackermann, Stuttgart 
1. New tasks of the Commission 
  
1.1...A new distribution and definition of. the fields of in- 
terest of the 7 ISP-commissions has been decided upon in 1972, 
during the XII Congress of the International Society of Photo- 
grammetry. The redefined and extended tasks refer to the 
"Mathematical Analysis of Data", a definition which is not par- 
ticularly well chosen. 
It was overdue to delineate clearly and thoroughly the fields 
of interest of the commissions, in agreement with the modern 
developments of photogrammetry. There were especially good 
reasons to recognize the general importance of mathematical 
and statistical methods and of digital computation by jointly 
relating them to one commission. It was intended to give the 
aspects of methodical development and of information processing 
independent standingagainst data acquisition on the one hand 
and against strictly application oriented aspects on the other 
hand. Consequently Commission III will continue to treat 
questions of computation, orientation and accuracy of photo- 
graphy, including now the case of a single photograph and of 
a pair of photographs. In addition the Commission has been 
given new contents which previously were treated by other com- 
missions or which are new altogether. Therefore this report 
on Commission III will, for the first time, include topics such 
as digital terrain models and digital mapping, digital image 
processing, and also geometrical aspects of remote sensing. 
The redefinition of the commissions could not really solve the 
internal problems of delineation of tasks. Some of the prob- 
lems have merely been shifted, and some new ones have been 
added. Methodical questions have often a feedback relation with 
data acquisition and instrumentation, and they are equally 
related to aims and conditions of application. However, Commis- 
sion III does not submit, at this stage, new proposals for 
restructuring the commissions. It seems not possible to describe 
adequately by linear classification the complex interrelations 
of modern photogrammetric activities. Like in the past, the 
various overlaps amongst commissions will have to be handled 
informally in a pragmatic way.