ISPRS
2000
Obituaries
Roberto da Cunha (1950-1997)
Dr. Roberto Pereira da Cunha was prematurely taken from us
by a malignant disease on 19” November 1997.
He was a person no one can easily forget, even after a
short acquaintance. His outspoken manners and pictur-
esque speech left a mark wherever he acted. He had a
special attachment to Remote Sensing, which he used to
say has a 'sex appeal' of its own, and dedicated most of
his professional life to matters related to that discipline.
Roberto was born in Passo Fundo, a southern Brazilian
town, graduated in Geology in 1973 at the Rio Grande do
Sul Federal University, obtained his Master's degree in
Remote Sensing at INPE in 1977, and a Ph.D. in Geology
in 1983 at the University of
Kansas, USA.
Back in Brazil, with INPE as a
Remote Sensing Researcher,
he occupied several positions
of leadership in the years to fol-
low, not only at INPE, but also
as President of SELPER, the
Society of Latin American
Remote Sensing Specialists,
from 1986 to 1989, and as
President of ISPRS Commis-
sion VII in the 1992-1996 term.
He was not stopped by his ill-
ness, which struck him shortly after his return from the 1996
Vienna Congress. He served as INPE's Institutional Rela-
tions Co-ordinator, a position he occupied from 1990 until a
very few days before his death. In his honour, INPE's Visitor
Center in Sáo José dos Campos was named after him.
within a short time. In 1938 he returned to Europe and fol-
lowed summons by Willem Schermerhorn, the later founder
of ITC, the beginning of a life-long friendship. Neumaier
taught Photogrammetry and Cadastral Surveying in Delft. In
1941 Neumaier returned to Vienna where he founded the
photogrammetric institute of the South-East-Europe Soci-
ety. After World War Il Neumaier started an excellent further
career in the Federal Office of Standards and Surveying
(BEV): Head of the Photogrammetric Department, Head of
the whole Group of the Austrian
Topographic Survey, Vice-Presi-
dent and President of the BEV.
In parallel he taught photogram-
metry at the Technische
Hochschule Wien. In both func-
tions he was the protector of
many later to become well
known teaching photogram-
metrists: Ebner, Fischer, K. Gru-
ber, Jerie, Hoschtitzky, Kellner,
Kölbl, Kröll, Kubik, Leberl, H.
Schmid, Schneider, Tempfli,
Waldhäusl, and certainly of
many others who served in different ‘photogrammetric’
functions.
In the BEV, and from there on in international organisa-
tions, Neumaier was again the great reorganiser and man-
ager. He was the father of the new Austrian map series 1:
50,000; he installed the first computer in 1955 (IBM 604/2);
he bought the first survey-aeroplane after WW II; he
bought and tested many new instruments with and for
WILD Heerbrugg; he was the reformer of the Austrian
Cadastre; the co-founder and President of OEEPE and of
OEEPE Commissions; President of FIG; President of the
Board of the WILD School for Operators and President of
ISP Commission VI (1952-1956). In 1960 Neumaier
became a Honorary Doctor of the Technical University in
Graz and he received several other high public distinc-
tions. Neumaier retired in 1964, but not really. From 1964
to 1978 he was a Chartered Surveyor. In 1968 he married
for the first time (his wife died in 1993). In 1964 he ensured
that Photogrammetry got its own Ordinariat at the TH
Vienna and he was then its first head as Honorary Profes-
sor, with full rights to a seat and vote in the faculty. (He
could not accept full professorship, because he had a
higher position and pension as President of the BEV). As
lecturer at the TH, and later TU (1945-1973), he built up the
new institute together with myself (since 1956) and just a
handful of colleagues so that his successor and first real
full professor for photogrammetry at the TU Vienna, Karl
Kraus, could start in 1974 from an already sound basis.
Neumaier was also active as an international expert con-
sultant with contacts in many countries in the Middle East
and Africa. The biggest task he solved with several other
top experts for Saudi Arabia: the geodetic basic network
for the topographic survey of 2 million square kilometres.
He subsequently gave me leave for 18 months to go as
UNDP-Expert to Riyadh for the development and start of
the photogrammetric-cartographic part, in co-operation
with Hans Jerie and Jan Visser of the ITC. | have Professor
Neumaier to thank for this great experience.
Professor Ing. Dr.techn.h.c. Karl Neumaier (1898-1999)
When we all met in Vienna in 1996 on the occasion of the
XVIIth Congress, Karl Neumaier was still with us. He visited
the Opening ceremony, came to see his former students
and the exhibition, and he took part also in the Banquet in
the Ceremonial Hall of the Vienna Municipality. He was then
98 years of age. Karl Neumaier was born on 12" January
1898 near Waidhofen/Thaya in Lower Austria’s ‘Woodquar-
ter’. In 1916 he finished the Gymnasium and became a sol-
dier for the time in the First World War. He returned home ill
from malaria. His studies at the then Technische
Hochschule Wien he could nevertheless finish early in 1925,
qualifying as an ,Engineer for Surveying'. He became Assis-
tant to Professor Dokulil and an enthusiastic follower of Pro-
fessor Dolezal, the founder of ISP. In 1928 he went as a con-
sultant of the Chekiang provincial government to China. In
1931 he accepted a call of the Chinese central government
to act as a consultant expert for the reformation of the Chi-
nese land surveying system and for the introduction of pho-
togrammetry. From 1934 onwards he was also professor at
the Tung-Chi University in Woosong and at the Chiao-Tung
University in Shanghai. In 1936 he went back to Chekiang
and took over the expert consulting for the cadastral office
in Hangchow. The reorganisation was made possible by
means of enlargements of aerial photos. The people had to
indicate their plots. Those who did not show up would have
lost their property. The result was a complete cadastre
82 : International Archives of Photogrammerty and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part A. Amsterdam 2000.
