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These systems have been installed to applications 
such as: robot guidance, road maintenance and 
deformation measurements. The non-topographic 
applications using close-range cameras have been 
used at a quite stable level. 
3. DEVELOPMENT OF REMOTE SENSING 
The remote sensing activities have increased all the 
time. One indicator is the increase of the number 
of remote sensing and digital image processing 
systems (see table V) in operational use. Forest 
inventory has been one of the main research topics. 
Much emphasize has also been put on the develop- 
ment of the HUTSCAT (Helsinki University of 
Technology SCATterometer) radar by the Institute 
of Space Technology of HUT, and its use for the 
remote sensing of forestry. The radar is carried by 
a helicopter. The interpretation and analysis of 
these and other radar images have also been under 
heavy research in Finland during the past four 
years. 
Other important research activities are the use of 
multi-temporal image sequences to analyze tem- 
poral changes and the interpretation of multi-source 
image data. A research project to develop an 
airborne remote sensing system using a video- 
camera for color or color-infra image acquisition has 
begun. The interpretation of Landsat and SPOT 
imagery has reached, at least, a half-operational 
status. The real-time system for transmitting 
satellite data products to icebreakers has also 
reached an operational level as well as the land-use 
classification. 
4. DEVELOPMENT OF GIS AND DIGITAL 
MAPPING 
The past four years could well be stated as the era 
of the second generation GIS-systems. The proto- 
type systems have been replaced with more 
advanced. Collection of the most important land 
information in a numerical form, will be finished in 
the late 1990's. Maps in numerical form cover 
500 km?. This is a very small portion of all large- 
scale maps of Finland. 
The number of GIS users has increased remarkably 
during the last two years. There are over 300 
organizations using GIS in Finland and about 1500 
graphical workstations. The increase in the num- 
ber of users, workstations and GIS-systems taken 
into use has been about 50 % per year. The empha- 
sis in software development has been in tailoring 
original systems to the needs of Finnish users. The 
trend is to UNIX workstations and to PC environ- 
ments instead of VAX/VMS. Great emphasis has 
been placed on the joint use of geographical infor- 
63 
mation. The joint use concept for geographical 
information has been developed in Finland from 
1985-1991 in the national LIS-project by a hundred 
people from about thirty organizations. The con- 
cept is based on decentralized data maintenance 
and it is open to all important geographical infor- 
mation resources as well as users. The Geographi- 
cal Data Directory System (GDDS) is the kernel of 
the joint use. It has now been in operation for one 
year and has nearly 200 users. 
For several years forest industry and administra- 
tion as well as transport optimization, land-use 
planning, environmental research and control have 
also been active. The largest expansions in recent 
years have taken place in facility management 
applications and in municipalities. À terrain model 
has been produced at the scale of 1:10 000 for a 
mobile telephone network as well as for other 
purposes. At present, excluding Northern Finland, 
digital contours are available at 1:10 000. The 
Environmental Information Centre has digitized 
catchment areas. 
5. EDUCATION AND RESEARCH 
5.1 Education in Finland 
Education in surveying at the university level is 
centered to the Helsinki University of Technology 
(HUT) and the department of Surveying. Annual 
intake is appr. 50 students of which 1/3 are female. 
The average time needed for a Master of Science 
degree is about seven years. In addition to HUT, 
university level education in fundamentals of 
photogrammetry and remote sensing plus special 
courses in the determination of forms and deforma- 
tions, is given at the Tampere University of Tech- 
nology (TUT). 
Fundamentals in remote sensing are also taught in 
the departments of geography and forestry at the 
University of Helsinki, in the department of geogra- 
phy at the University of Oulu, in the departments 
of geography and biology at the University of 
Turku, and in the department of forestry at the 
University of Joensuu. 
During the period in question fourteen M.Sc. 
theses, two licentiate degree theses, and two doctor- 
ate theses in photogrammetry or remote sensing 
have been accepted. The two dissertations were: 
Sarjakoski, T.:"Automation in 
Photogrammetric Block Adjustment Systems". 
Kuittinen, R.:"Determination of Aerial Snow 
Water Equivalent Using Satellite Images and 
Gamma Ray Spectrometry”.