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LEARTEK Corporation for its high altitude resource-management system. 
Maybe this equipment will also do some automatic interpretation, but the 
chances that this will be better than an approximate 1 or 2-digit land use level 
do not seem very good; therefore, this will be of more interest to regional 
planning. 
Electronically assisted interpretation might lead to the development of 
new techniques, since it opens up the possibility of getting in an interactive 
mode additional information on a given object (eg previous land use, building 
permit, plot owner etc). 
4.3 Software Development for Photo-Interpretation 
Visual Interpretation Techniques 
The non-conventional (non-visual) photo-interpretation techniques now 
being developed are not yet fully operational and future applications of these 
techniques require considerable investment in instrumentation and highly 
skilled personnel. Where photo-interpretation for urban planning purposes 
has to be carried out by agencies and institutions which are not able to invest 
heavily in the data-collection sector, it can therefore be expected that photo- 
interpretation will be a matter of conventional, relatively cheap techniques. 
Experience shows that the conditions for urban photo-interpretation are not 
always ideal. Interpreters often have to work with the available material, 
which does not fit completely their specifications; the required photo flight 
might also be carried out according to “average” specifications, because the 
photographs have to serve several purposes and users. Also, interpretation 
projects often have to be carried out by interpreters without any preliminary 
training. These various constraints, the diversity of required information 
(with respect to type, reliability and accuracy) and the diversity of the study 
areas, create a demand for a wide range of interpretation techniques. In such 
circumstances, the technique appropriate to a project should be chosen so 
as to meet the required standards as efficiently as possible. 
The ITC Urban Survey Department concentrates its activities on 
the extension, diversification and improvement of these techniques, and on 
the transfer of acquired knowledge and skills to potential users. In the 
research and educational programme, special attention is paid to systematising 
the interpretation process, to arranging the interpretation task to suit various