The activities of the ISPRS are divided into seven areas of 
major interest, each of which has been entrusted to a Technical 
Commission. The area of Commission III is "Mathematical Analy- 
sis of Data". The guidelines for the research work of the 
different Commissions are always determined by the resolutions 
made in the preceding Congress. The resolutions for Commission 
III made in the Rio Congress for the period 1984 - 1988 clearly 
reflect the course of development and current trends in the 
data analysis of photogrammetry and remote sensing. The methods 
are becoming more and more digital although the analytical and 
even analog methods still play an important role. The four-year 
program of Commission III, created mainly on the basis of the 
resolutions, is to a considerable degree a continuation of the 
program followed during the previous period 1980 - 1984. 
Even some earlier Working Groups, but with different chairmen 
and naturally a reformulated program, have been reestablished. 
The four Working Groups and an intercommission Working Group 
cover to some extent the full range of the area of Commission 
III. It is remarkable that still much research and development 
work is done in subjects combined with photogrammetric tri- 
angulation. There are also topics which are beyond the scope 
of traditional photogrammetric interest, like digital image 
processing and pattern recognition. They represent the strong 
wave of the near future.  Photogrammetrists, whether they like 
it or not, have to be interested in the problems and possibi- 
lities they bring along. 
Connections to the other scientific organizations not asso- 
ciated with traditional photogrammetry are becoming more 
important. This concerns nearly the whole area of the Commis- 
sion, but especially the fields of digital image processing 
and pattern recognition. 
As to the papers of the Symposium we received over 80 abstracts 
and of these about 75$ complete papers with 697 pages were sub- 
mitted in time for printing. The late papers will be published 
in the third part of the Proceedings after the Symposium. 
The program of the Symposium largely corresponds to the 
structure of the Working Groups. There are only a few lectures 
discussing other topics. In the selection of the papers for 
the technical-scientific program the WG-chairmen gave their 
whole-hearted support. It is a pity that because of the lack 
of time we had to leave out a number of good papers. However, 
all papers are printed in the Proceedings. 
As you are aware Commission III had already a one-day Tutorial 
on "Statistical Concepts for Quality Control" here in Rovaniemi 
yesterday. The aim of the Tutorial was to brush up the theor- 
etical bases of the subjects to be treated these days in the 
Symposium. The lectures were given by Dr. W. Fórstner (FRG) 
and  Prof.Dr. M. Molenaar (The Netherlands). 27 participants 
of this Symposium utilized this opportunity and the feedback 
from the Tutorial has been very positive. I think it was the 
first time in the history of the ISPRS that such a Tutorial 
was organized. 
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