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3.2 Publications 
Publications represent the Society’s best means for 
reaching the broad audience of individuals and 
organizations interested in the mapping sciences. 
Members automatically receive PE&RS each month, 
but in addition are able to share in technical advanc- 
es reported in a steady stream of Proceedings 
published by ASPRS from other conferences and 
symposia, and from reference manuals documenting 
the state-of-the-art in selected fields within the 
profession. Two such references are currently being 
revised for publication between 1993 and 1995: the 
Manual of Aerial Photographic Interpretation (Dr. 
Warren Philipson, editor-in-chief); and the Manual of 
Remote Sensing (Dr. Robert Ryerson, editor-in-chief). 
Unlike its predecessor, the new Manual of Remote 
Sensing will be issued in a series of smaller, topic 
specific volumes. In the advanced planning stage 
are volumes titled Remote Sensing and GIS for 
Development, Radar Remote Sensing, and Remote 
Sensing for the Geosciences; and in the discussion 
stage are Remote Sensing Platforms and Sensors and 
Principles of Remote Sensing. A new reference 
manual, The Glossary of Mapping Sciences (Soren 
Henriksen, editor), should be published in 1993; and 
a proposed G/S Manual with Dr. Russel Congalton as 
the proposed editor-in-chief is under consideration by 
the Publications Committee. 
Since 1988, ASPRS has published more than 35 
Proceedings, Directories, Compendia, Surveys, and 
Bibliographies that it has either commissioned 
directly or co-sponsored with other societies or 
government agencies. These are in addition to the 
Proceedings derived from the Annual and Fall Techni- 
cal (now GIS/LIS) meetings. A complete list of these 
can be obtained by writing to the Communications 
Director at ASPRS Headquarters. 
3.3 Membership Services 
Meetings and publications are the primary means for 
advancing the technologies employed by our mem- 
bers, and among the chief mechanisms for promoting 
the retention and attraction of new members. 
Education of young people entering our professions 
is a central concern for all our members, but continu- 
ing education of practicing professionals is equally 
important. The pace of technology development is 
so rapid and becoming so specialized that programs 
to inform and serve our members must be constantly 
reviewed. The Student Affairs and Evaluation for 
Certification committees are vital functions in this 
education process at the national level; but there are 
many related committees within the Regions, and the 
whole Professional Practice Division that are also 
active participants. With ACSM, we also educate 
through the activities of the Joint Government 
Affairs, the Joint Satellite Mapping and Remote 
Sensing, and the Joint Education Committees. Our 
sustaining members, PE&RS Journal advertisers, and 
news columns written for the Journa/represent other 
significant means for spreading information. 
4.0 Sectoral Achievements 
The National Report contains contributions describing 
the achievements of government agencies, academic 
institutions, and the private sector. Among the 
government agencies submitting program descrip- 
tions are the U.S. Geological Survey, Defense 
Mapping Agency, U.S. Forest Service, and NASA. 
19 
Also submitted are reports from some 16 academic 
programs, some of which are multi-institutional or 
cross-disciplinary. ^ Private sector activities are 
reported by the publisher/editors of G/S-World, GPS- 
World, the executive director of the Management 
Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors 
(MAPPS), and the President and CEO of ERDAS. 
Supplementing these programmatic reports is a 
series of 13 papers describing Technical Achieve- 
ments in remote sensing and geographic information 
systems, and the integration of these. 
4.1 Private Sector 
The most profound development in the mapping 
sciences since 1988 has been the rapid evolution of 
commercial enterprises for remote sensing and GIS. 
These now complement, in range of services and 
volume of revenue, more traditional private sector 
activities in aerial data acquisition and photogramm- 
etric applications. Moreover, it is now certain that 
GIS has significant consumer groups outside of 
ASPRS's traditional focus on natural and cultural 
resources, environmental issues and global change. 
These marketplaces may represent new membership 
opportunities at the state and local government 
levels, and in facilities management and the business 
community. 
A related opportunity for commercial development 
lies in the integration of GIS with GPS and remote 
sensing data. Hardware and software improvements 
have permitted the genesis of highly robust systems 
for integrating and managing large amounts of raster- 
and vector-based spatial data. These, together with 
improvements in data supply, dissemination and 
processing, allow faster access and analysis times, 
and thus quicker turnaround times for customers 
with short term needs. In short, what has before 
been referred to as /ocation theory can now be 
modeled and analyzed with real data for real solu- 
tions to real problems. Demographic data, digital 
elevation models (DEMs), digital line graphs (DLGs), 
moderate resolution satellite data from SPOT and 
Eosat Corporations, fine resolution data from recti- 
fied aerial photographs, and spatial data from any 
number of registered map and tabular sources are 
the basis for this capability. 
4.2 Government Sector 
Federal government programs have added greatly to 
our national and global capability for environmental 
monitoring and modeling. Digital map-making; digital 
map production systems; the creation of the digital 
chart of the world; standardization in mapping, chart- 
ing, and geodesy; and the creation of image-based 
digital orthophotoquads are all aspects of this basic 
modernization effort. DEMs and DLGs are available 
for the entire conterminous United States at 
1:250,000 scale, and significant progress has been 
made for these products at larger (1:100,000 and 
1:24,000) scales. Though not represented in the 
National Report, another significant achievement in 
spatial data applications since the 1988 Congress 
has been the completion of the 1990 national 
population census using digital data storage and 
retrieval techniques. The results of this census are 
available on CD-ROM and are called Topologically 
Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing 
(TIGER) files. In sum, these products and data sets 
represent the enabling capability for GIS develop- 
ments taking place in other federal agencies like the 
U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management,