21 
time. revoli 
by de 
2.5 The 3 fields of development, mentioned so far, are now every day reality in practice. How- conce 
ever, they seem to be only the first steps of a continuous process which has intensified and prevu 
accelerated during the past 10 years. The technology explosion is gaining speed, launching new f° r 
techniques and’opening new possibilities. The potential of digital computers and of software revoli 
performance is more and more supplemented by electronics and physical components. The re 
sulting developments are distinguished by still higher technical performance, more comfortable The p 
and more automated working methods, as well as by more general and interdisciplinary scopes dimer 
and applications. teclm 
tools 
Although covering a limited sector only we may mention first the Navstar Global Positioning on th 
System (GPS) which cillows kinematic camera- or sensor positioning in the accuracy order of possil 
0.1 m or better, and also the airborne laser or radar profiling and scanning systems for direct 
measurement of digital terrain models. Both systems are expected to have revolutionary effects. As so 
as tas 
The major new development are certainly the Geographical Information Systems (GIS). of the 
They represent a very general concept of collecting, analyzing, merging, selecting, and presenting comp 
geometrical and thematic data for various fields of application. Photogrammetry and remote vious. 
sensing are the prime disciplines for data acquisition and data assessment. 
Manj 
Other recent developments carry similar generalisation potential to a similar degree like GIS. It with 
suffice here to mention the key words: fusior 
even 
© Digital photogrammetric workstations are going to replace the analytical plotter 
by combining various functions: stereo-measurement, image display, interactive graphics, 32 A 
overlays and integration with data bases (see fig. 2). analy 
© Digital image processing takes over gradually human intelligence functions, starting ^fh 1 
with low-level operations such as image matching and feature extraction. ^ 
© Digital cameras are beginning to replace photographic cameras, at first in close range 
applications. And they open the possibility for real time photogrammetry. • By su 
sudd( 
block 
The few key words are sufficient to demonstrate that we are up to even more revolutionary photc 
developments than we have had in the past. The short review also makes clear that the de- instn 
velopmcnts are launched by and based 011 computer technology and electronics. In a way our into < 
disciplines make use of and exploit developments which take place elsewhere. This implies not prodi 
only hardware development but also conceptual and methodical developments, in the field of 
computer science in particular. Ther< 
step 1 
From a photogrammetric point of view an overall aspect of the developments is, perhaps, that imply 
now the complete range of image information is becoming exploited, by more and more auto- it wil 
mated methods, including geometrical, physical, and semantic image information. or se: 
" tioil ] 
have 
3 Implications parac 
tispei 
3.1 The previous review has sufficiently pointed out that we have been going tlirough drastic ( l ;i y < 
changes of our tools, of our working methods, and of their performance. The results are quite know