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ISPRS 
The International Society for Photogrammetry and 
Remote Sensing (ISPRS) is a non-governmental organi- 
sation devoted to the development of international co- 
operation for the advancement of photogrammetry and 
remote sensing and their applications. Officially, ISPRS is 
composed of member organisations representing 102 
nations, 8 regional associations and 50 sustaining mem- 
ber companies and institutes. The activities are con- 
ducted by 7 Commissions. Each Commission has Work- 
  
  
ing Groups, totalling 45 in all. 
  
Computational Intensive Task 
The history of photogrammetry began over a century ago. 
The extraction of information from imagery is a computa- 
tional, intensive and non-trivial task. The central aim, dur- 
ing its long history, has always been to reduce human 
involvement by automating parts of the complex process. 
In the past, one circumvented labour-intensive transforma- 
tions by constructing sophisticated optical mechanical 
analogue ‘computers’. With the advent of digital comput- 
ers transformations are done computationally, enabling 
flexible work flows. Today, most photogrammetric 
processes have become fully digital, which is enabled by 
storage of the image contents in the form of pixels. For the 
distribution of imagery and even software, the Internet 
increasingly becomes an important transport medium. 
Automation 
Today, the processes are fairly well automated up to the 
level of constructing DEMs and the creation of geo-refer- 
enced stereo-images and orthophotos. This development 
A 
  
International Archives of Photogrammerty and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part A. Amsterdam 2000. 
  
ISPRS 
2000 
  
enables the easy use of these value-added products by 
GIS users. Automatic processing also means that vendors 
are able to charge a modest price. This is, of course, very 
beneficial for all those customers who have a need for 
these products. This development will undoubtedly mean 
that the user group for photogrammetric image products 
will rapidly grow in the near future. In this respect the 
choice of the theme 'Geo-information for all' has to be 
considered to be a hit. 
Fusing and Merging 
Although much research has been devoted to the auto- 
matic extraction of features such as roads and buildings, 
the automation rate of this part of the mapping process is 
low. Many of the papers on this subject presented during 
the Congress demonstrated that work on the (semi-) auto- 
matic extraction of features is still very much alive, 
although the claims have become, compared to the past, 
quite rightly modest. The approach involving searching for 
Sophisticated algorithms, which operate on just one type 
of image source, moves increasingly in the direction of fus- 
  
Impression of the exhibition 
  
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