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of a science faculty, it: would be better to attach them to a
department of electrical engineering rather than civil
engineering or forestry. The result of present practices are
visible everywhere. I could elaborate to any desired length.
I will just: say that the sad state of surveying matters in most
fields (e.g. in urban areas as a particularly crass example)
should be sufficient proof of this alarming situation.
The professional aspect of the matter under discussion is
in part the direct result of an inadequate education of
professional cadres, with the exception of a few countries,
mostly European.
On a world-wide scale, the use of photogrammetry is mainly
limited to government agencies or to government projects. Here
I could mention several state institutions in which even the most
advanced and very expensive photogrammetric instruments are
standing idle. So called "private surveyors’ and their
organizations oppose photogrammetric methods and particularly
their application in cadastre, or in its simplest form, legal
survey. In countries, in which legal survey is being carried out
by government offices (occasionally over special territories such
as reservations or lands belonging to the state), the same
negative attitude is reigning towards the only technique that
could offer a meaningful solution. This attitude is caused by
technical ignorance and ill-directed efforts to protect
professional interest by adhering 'rigidly to centuries-old
concepts. This is simply opposition to technical progress. I
remember the difficulties we initially encountered when the
associations of land surveyors rejected the use of electro
magnetic distance measuring devices because the specifications
called for "direct length measurements by chain or tape".
Since the principle "horror vacui" applies not only in the
physical realm but also in the operational and conceptual domain,
esoteric solutions are forcefully advocated by quarters outside
the basic surveying and mapping field. As an example, remote
sensing workers, cleverly introducing their clients to different
"operational levels" (satellite, airplane, terrain), often
indiscriminately claim to be able to provide quick and economic
solutions to all pressing surveying and mapping problems, even
those of legal surveying. Politicians, ignorant of the real
issues and iritated by the lack of progress in our field, embrace
these new proposals whicn only delay rational and lastincr
solutions.
When I conducted studies in Africa, commissioned by the
Canadian Government, all users or remote sensincr data (there were
about ten of them) clamored for 1:20 000 topographical maps so
that the remote sensing data could be meanincrly and efficiently
used. This is but one example where confusion and indolence in
our
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