FOREWORD 
After a very careful editing by the Symposium Director Prof. Dr. Jorg Albertz and his team, these Pro- 
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ceedings of the XVIII 11 International CIPA Symposium in Potsdam 2001 have been printed now as a CIPA 
contribution to the 
The year 2002 marks the end of a decade with such events as the destruction of the 1500 years old giant 
Buddhas in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, and the Kosovo war in the former Yougoslavia with a lot of vandalism 
and crime against culture. The sudden events of the 11th of September, 2001, add even more threats to those 
Documentation of state, changes, trends and changes of trends, of the whole development process, positive 
or negative, is very important for any control, maintenance, conservation, development and management of 
the cultural treasure of mankind, from the little artefacts in the museums, the archaeological finds, archi 
tectural heritage inside and outside, villages, towns, historical parks and gardens, to the cultural as well as 
natural landscapes. All cultural objects and sites and their environment need observation, preservation, care 
and protection, best possible management. For all that photography, measuring and other research data 
stored and processed in electronic information systems are today basic requirements, conditions sine qua 
non. 
New technologies for data capture, new techniques for imaging, data processing, modelling, visualisation, 
archiving, change detection and change analysis, are leading to new methods, new products, new possi 
bilities of useful applications for conservation, maintenance, planning of further development of cultural 
objects and sites. These new possibilities need to be discussed, adapted, tested and improved by and with 
experts of the application side. In CIPA both sides meet. Technologists meet conservationists, architects, 
archaeologists, historians, all those applying modem measurement and information technology in the 
conservation area and profit from each other. 
CIPA, the ICOMOS and ISPRS International Scientific Committee for Documentation of Cultural Heritage, 
is a well known bridge between the techno-cultural and the artistic-cultural world. I thank all authors who 
have contributed a new brick stone for this bridge. The Potsdam CIPA Symposium was the biggest ever, 
with 241 participants from 31 countries. It was the first under the auspices of UNESCO. It was the beginning 
of a new future of CIPA, with more and more international and inter-professional communication and 
understanding. The reader of the proceedings will feel it, that the authors - and I thank cordially all of them - 
were enthusiastically offering their inventions, results of developments and practical experiences as well as 
their problems and demands for solutions. 
All authors and interested readers are invited to participate also in future in the activities and events of CIPA, 
to take actively part in CIPA’s Working and Task Groups as well as in the future International CIPA 
Symposia. Please keep yourself informed via internet http://cipa.icomos.org 
»2002 United Nations Year for Cultural Heritage« 
of the decade for the future of monuments and sites. More or less normal aging and decay doesn't stop either. 
em. Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Peter Waldhausl, Austria 
President of CIPA