te DOT
ISPRS
2000
ideas and experience of photogrammetry will prove conta-
gious for the Medical Imaging workers as well.
There is a strong movement from Human Motion Analysis
groups into the field of medical sciences. This step is
straightforward and today spreads its influence into patient
supervision, sports medicine and physio-therapy. Cautious
and reluctant steps in these directions were already pre-
sented at the Commission V conference in Hakodate 1998.
For Amsterdam 2000, more contributions are announced.
The reliability issue of today's computers strongly affects
the field, of course, and is a topic of discussion, especially
for canonical approaches of redundancy.
Photogrammetry approaches slowly find access to medical
images [http:// www.ai.sri.com/~konolige/ svs/] but surveys
of typical medical image analysis show little interest in these
measurement methods [Medical Image Analysis, Oxford Uni-
versity Press (Journal) 2000, ISSN: 1361-8423] [Segmenta-
tion of Skin-Cancer Images, Image and Vision Computing,
January 1999, pp. 65-74]. One of the most predominant rea-
sons is that the geometric and photometric aspects of med-
ical imaging give little information to the investigating med-
ical doctor, in the limited context and sense that the
information does not match the experience of the medical
expert. There are just no established standards and no train-
ing for images that suddenly arrive armed with quantitative
information. Absolute image brightness and highly accurate
localised features within images just do not co-operate with
the brought-in working style the medical environment offers.
Today’s machines simply cannot be relied upon, computa-
tional results have to be regarded as potentially being erro-
neous and this severely restricts the penetration of modern
IT achievements into clinical use. Interactive image under-
standing - the combination of machine visualisation fol-
lowed by human decision-making is therefore the safe and
natural way to enter this field. And this approach has been
standard in photogrammetry for a long time. Useful user-
interfaces for people whose main interest is not technol-
ogy though, are yet to be developed.
Disclaimer
Since the new Chair was empowered in 1998, the review
period for 1996-1997 is completely adopted from the pre-
vious Chair Dr. T. Leemann. There is no new review nor any
critical discussion referring to the period before 1998. WG
V/4 is now ‘Human Motion and Medical Image Analysis’, it
was ‘Biostereometrics and Medical Imaging’ at the begin-
ning of the reviewing period.
WG V/5 “World Cultural Heritage”
by Chairperson: Petros Patias, The Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki,
Greece
Feng Wenhao, Wuhan Technical
University of Surveying and
Mapping, China
and Co-Chair:
Research Activities and Technology Trends
The documentation and conservation of cultural heritage
are being increasingly seen as tasks of national - ultimately
international - priority. Due to digital techniques, pho-
togrammetry now appears as more efficient and inexpen-
sive; today’s user-oriented software is easier to handle by
non-experts, thus widening the potential spectrum of
application in architectural and archaeological recording.
International Archives of Photogrammerty and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part A. Amsterdam 2000.
The main strength of photogrammetry, that is the recon-
struction of an object surface geometry by remotely sens-
ing it, has been recognised also by other disciplines than
photogrammetrists. This important merit is currently being
enhanced by:
- atrend towards moving from traditional stereoscopy to
multi-photo surface reconstruction
- the low-cost digital image acquisition capabilities of
the current technology
- the potential of multi-sensor information collection
- the wide acceptance of Information Systems currently
enhanced by digital images as well
- the wide spread of 3D modelling, visualisation and
web-authoring tools
Both at the Commission V Inter-Congress Symposium
(1998) in Hakodate, Japan, and at the International Work-
shop (1999) in Thessaloniki, Greece, trends and develop-
ments, regarding the WGs’ topics had the opportunity to
show up. The trends were clear:
- Development of vision-based techniques and novel sys-
tems under new concepts for documentation
- Multi-sensor data acquisition and multi-source infor-
mation integration
- Developments in simple and efficient digital recording
tools
- Integration of CAD with Photogrammetry for model-
driven object reconstruction
- Automated and semi-automated production of con-
structive solid geometry models from image networks
offering considerable potential for the future
- Automatic production of 3D models appropriate for visu-
alisation purposes from image sequences captured by
video camera equipment. Whilst yet not geometrically
precise, such techniques can be combined with estab-
lished photogrammetric geometry and calibration princi-
ples to promote them among non-photogrammetrists
- Development of Information Systems, with special
attention for the use of digital images, for documenta-
tion and information management
- Visualisation in virtual environments (e.g. virtual muse-
ums, historical sites documentation, image-based 3D
texture mappings, etc.) thus enhancing the promotion
of the cultural heritage
Eagerness of the specialists from a variety of scientific
communities, like photogrammetrists, architects, archae-
ologists, computer engineers, geophysicists, information
managers, to communicate, interact and exchange knowl-
edge and experience on a common aim: to map and doc-
ument our cultural heritage.
And now, at the ISPRS XIX Congress, we are witnessing
trends, like:
- Development of visualisation techniques for geometri-
cally precise and aesthetically mature models of the
world's cultural heritage
- Qualitative analysis of digital images for material study
and damages assessment
- Assessment of the state-of-the-art in photogrammetric
recording for close-range applications in architecture
and archaeology
- Modelling and algorithmic aspects and demonstration
of new techniques
Management of large quantities of multi-sensor data
193
