POLISH SOCIETY FOR PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING 
THE POLISH NATIONAL REPORT FOR PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING 2000 — 2004 
for the XX ISPRS Congress in Istanbul 
Com. VI 
KEY WORDS: National Report, Technology, Research and Development, Education, Organization. 
ABSTRACT 
The National report for Poland is concerned with the review of the activities involving the main projects undertaken on the state 
and local level, developments in research and education in various aspects of photogrammetry and remote sensing during the 
period of 2000 — 2004. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Poland has over 75 years tradition, in using technologies of 
photogrammetry and remote sensing for mapping and other 
applications. Since middle 90 —ties, when all the state mapping 
companies had been privatized and many new private firms 
have been established, the digital technologies entirely 
replaced the analogous methods of photogrammetry. Presently, 
there are many companies distributed around the country, which 
are involved in various projects, on the national or regional 
level, where the digital photogrammetric methods are used. 
The last four years have been very important for the 
development and implementation of digital photogrammetry in 
Poland, because of the initiation of a few key projects, 
summarized in chapter 2. Because of these and other projects, 
the near future is very prospective for use of photogrammetric 
and remote sensing methods in various applications in Poland. 
The research activity in areas of digital photogrammetry, remote 
sensing and GIS is progressing within various projects 
sponsored by the National Committee for Research (KBN), 
supported from the very limited universities research budget, or 
funds from the international linked projects. However, the 
available funds are not sufficient to the possibilities and needs 
for research activity in view of involvement of digital 
photogrammetry, remote sensing and GIS in the present and 
future projects in Poland. 
The education in fields of photogrammetry, remote sensing and 
geoinformation is given in different levels and aspects, 
dependly on the requirements of the programmes of various 
universities in Poland. In general, however, the education 
programmes in these areas try to follow the international 
standards and the present very ambitious needs and 
requirements of the mapping and environmental industry in the 
country. There are still many students interested in all these 
involved courses and the only barrier to have all the time 
changing packages and systems up to date is the unsufficient 
financial support to the high education in Poland. 
THE MAIN PROJECTS ON THE NATIONAL AND 
LOCAL LEVEL 
3. 
The last four years have been very significant for development 
of photogrammetry and remote sensing and geoinformation, in 
general, in Poland. In respect to the new Surveying and 
Cartographic Regulations (Law) in Poland and due to the 
preparations for the enter to the European Union there was the 
need for the creation of the general concept for the 
Polish System for Geographic Information (KSiG). Such system 
is supposed to include all the national level reference data, 
standarized spatial data bases and procedures and proposed 
technics for the systematic acquisition, update, processing, 
storage and distribution of all data. 
The general concept and principles of the KSiG have been 
prepared by the Head Office of Geodesy and Cartography 
(GUGIK), which is the coordinating national institution for 
surveying and mapping in Poland. The concept assume the use 
of various georeference data which exist in various forms in 
different levels’ data bases. The KSiG system includes: (1) 
General geographic data base for the whole country 
accomplished from the maps at small scales (1:250 000 — 
1 000000), (2) Database — Map Level 2 — generated from the 
topographic map at 1:50 000 with 110 class of objects. This 
database is to be completed for the entire country in 2 — 3 years 
and for the update process the satellite imageries will be used in 
the future. (3) The digital Topographic Database (TBD) with 
the accuracy and content of 1:10 000 map. This data base will 
be generated first for all the urbanized areas of the contry. The 
coverage of the whole country might take quite long time 
because of very large amount of data (17 000 modules with 
three main layers). (4) and (5) the Systems of the 
orthophotomaps and Digital Elevation Model for the entire 
country. 
All collecting on the national level geoinformation data, which 
based on the aerial and satellite imagery (digital source 
images, photogrammetric products and metadate), will be 
stored and distributed by the Terra Share system, which has 
been already purchased and impemented in the Central Center 
for Geodetic and Cartographic Documentation, under the Head 
Office GUGIK. 
The main key projects which have been initated in Poland in 
the last four years, where products of digital photogrammetry 
and remote sensing proved to be very useful to acquire the 
geoinformatic data, are; 
the initiation for the establishment of the national digital 
topographic database (TBD) with the accuracy and the 
content of the 1:10 000 map on base of the existing and 
the new data, 
the introduction of the Land Parcel Identification System 
(LPIS) within the Integrated Administration and Control 
System ( ACS),