From the Publisher
By Roland Mangold

ISPRS Heralds New Era in the GeoTechnologies
A tremendous amount of excitement was generated in the international geospatial industry as the XIXth Congress of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing took place from July 16th-23rd 2000 in Amsterdam. Once every four years, the world's foremost practitioners, theorists, researchers, educators and students of remote sensing and photogrammetry, 3000 in all descended upon the RAI Congress Centre in Amsterdam this year. They came to exchange ideas and to study the latest techniques for observing, measuring and capturing features on the Earth's surface.
      The conference was certainly a success. Attendance was up. But, more important than the high level of information exchange focused on technological advances was the "buzz" on the exhibition floor of how to create commercial opportunities from the changes taking place. The Congress also succeeded from an organizational standpoint. For the first time, a new and compact formula was adopted for the Congress that has traditionally covered a minimum of two weeks. This time, the seminars, presentations, and exhibition all took place within one week.
      To add drama and competition to a normally dry, technical event, it was appropriate that the two stars of the show were archrivals LH Systems' and Z/I Imaging's respective new digital airborne mapping cameras. Two different approaches to the same problem, and judging from the crowds around the booths, these approaches are the harbingers of technical advances in this industry that will change the way data is collected, produced and disseminated.
      Traditionally, this show is made up of software and hardware vendors - but an indication of how this industry is changing is that there were a large number of data, value-add and services companies exhibiting. Possibly the most ambitious among those was ISTAR, a leading cartography company specializing in the production of digital geographic databases for wireless telecommunication networks, as well as the broader GIS markets.
      ISTAR has processed digitized maps and satellite and aerial images covering more than 15,000,000 sq. km of the Earth's surface. Their online HotSpotsª catalog currently contains 2000 cities and regions in 100 countries, and is updated daily. In addition, ISTAR announced the European launch of its newest 3D CityViewª product line, processed from digital data acquired from a unique Digital Stereo Remote Sensor operated onboard a Beechcraft 2000 aircraft.
      "We will test the new HRSC AXW camera at various European locations. After that, it will be sent to the USA for operational use. This camera has been designed to acquire imagery of large urban areas - a typical area of interest measures about 50km by 50km. We will use this imagery to produce true multispectral and panchromatic orthoimages, with a resolution of 1m, and digital surface models (DSMs) with resolutions between 2 and 5m," Laurent Renouard of ISTAR explained.
      ISTAR's business model is similar to others out there, such as Kodak Earth Imaging Products' growing web-based library of high-resolution aerial images. Kodak's growth strategy has resulted in 100,000 aerial color frames of 6-inch resolution precision imagery in support of major North American cities. Kodak expects that this e-commerce initiative will have color Earth images available from more than 2000 cities and towns in the US and a number of international countries. They are partnered with Haut Mont, an aerial mapping services firm from Quebec, for much of the image acquisition.
      With worldwide remote sensing markets estimated at $5 billion annually by 2004 as the prize, a lot of organizations in this industry and others who want in, are scrambling to ensure their piece of the pie. This is certainly an industry experiencing a metamorphosis. The advent of high resolution satellites, digital mapping cameras, LIDAR and other technological advances combined with the potential impact of the Internet and other innovative distribution schemes, it will be interesting to see what transpires until the next ISPRS.

Until next time,
Cheers!

Roland Mangold
Publisher, EOM
E-mail: [email protected]

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