In recognition of sustained, excellent service to the ISPRS and its aims, an individual may be elected as a Fellow of the Society.
ISPRS Fellow
Costas Armenakis
in 2010
Costas Armenakis holds a Dipl Ing degree in Rural and Surveying Engineering from the National Technical University in Athens, Greece and MScE and PhD degrees in Surveying Engineering from the University of New Brunswick, Canada. He is an Associate Professor of Geomatics Engineering in the Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering at York University in Toronto. He is also the Director of the Geomatics Engineering Program and Co-Director of the GeoICT Lab.
His research interests include rapid mapping, feature extraction and terrain modeling, low-cost unpiloted mobile mapping systems, 3D building modeling; geovisualization, disaster and emergency management; and monitoring landscape changes in the Canadian North.
His involvement with ISPRS began in 1984 when, as a graduate student, he submitted a paper to the 1984 Rio de Janeiro XVth ISPRS Congress. Since then he has participated in numerous ISPRS sponsored events including all the ISPRS Congresses since 1992. Between 2000 and 2004 Costas served as President of the Technical Commission IV on Spatial Information Systems and Digital Mapping. His ISPRS services also include: Financial Committee, Resolution Committee, Regional Coordinator, National Correspondent, Advisor and Head of the Canadian Delegation, Vice-Chair and Chair of the National CIG-ISPRS Committee, technical and scientific committees, and the ISPRS books. Currently Costas serves as Co-Chair of the ISPRS IC WG IV/VIII on Updating and Maintenance of Core Spatial Databases. Costas is a member of the Canadian Institute of Geomatics and the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and is a Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario.
ISPRS Fellow
Manos Baltsavias
in 2010
Manos received his Dipl. Ing. in Surveying and Rural Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens in 1981, MSc in Digital Photogrammetry in 1984 from Ohio State University and his PhD. on image matching in 1991 from ETH in Zurich.
His activities in research and development include: development of adaptive image matching techniques for precise and reliable point positioning and surface measurement ; automation of anthropogenic and natural object extraction from aerial and space images, focussing on buildings, roads and vegetation parameters ; geometric modelling of airborne and spaceborne, especially high-resolution, sensors and quantitative processing of data from such sensors for DTM and orthoimage generation, and extraction of objects ; data fusion ; development and implementation of image analysis algorithms for photogrammetric and remote sensing applications; implementation of photogrammetric and remote sensing techniques in various applications. He has held over 120 presentations on the above topics and has participated in about 200 scientific events and over 60 international and national, often interdisciplinary projects. He is (co-)author of about 220 publications on the above mentioned topics and two book chapters, and (co-)editor of the proceedings of five conferences and four books.
Manos was Second Vice President of ISPRS from 2004 – 2008; Editor-in-Chief, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (1/7/1997 - 31/12/2004); Associate Editor, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (1992 – 12/1996); responsible of Council for the newly formed Student Consortium and the scientific publications of ISPRS (2004 - 2008); Chair, Working Group "Promotion of the Profession to Young People" (2008-2012); Chair, Working Group "Education and Training" (2000-2004), Chair, Intercommission Working Group "Integration of Image Analysis and GIS" (1996 - 2000); Chair, Intercommission Working Group "Image Sequence Analysis" (1992 - 1996); Secretary of the U.V. Helava Award jury (1998-2004).
Awards: 1992, 2000, 2004, "ISPRS President’s Award of Honourable Mention", 2004, "ISPRS Schwidefsky Medal" for "his significant contribution as Editor of the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing", and 2007 Hansa Luftbild Award.
ISPRS Fellow
Marcio Barbosa
in 2010
Born in 1951, Marcio Barbosa holds a B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1972) from the Catholic University of Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and a M.Sc. degree in Systems Analysis and Applications (1975) from the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), São José dos Campos, Brazil. After two years as a Production Control Analyst in the private sector, in 1973 Marcio Barbosa joined the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research (INPE) where he was promoted to the post of Head of the Data Bank Division (1975-1976), before becoming Head of the Image Production Department (1976-1983), Deputy Director of INPE (1982-1985), and Director of Remote Sensing at INPE (1985-1989).
From 1989 to February 2001, he served as Director-General of INPE with a staff of 1,200 and a budget of US$ 100 million. In this capacity, he led the restructuring and modernization of INPE, as well as its research and development programme resulting in the launch of the first four Brazilian satellites. From February 2001 to February 2010, Marcio was the Deputy Director-General of UNESCO, where he supervised and coordinated the implementation of the vast programme of reforms launched by the Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura. From 2002 until the end of his mandate, Marcio represented the Director-General in the negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians on UNESCO-related matters.
Marcio attended or chaired numerous international meetings and symposia both in his personal capacity and as a representative of the Brazilian Government and later UNESCO. In the 90’s, he was elected Chairman of the International Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) and of the Integrated Global Satellite Observing System (IGOS). From 1996 to 2000, he was Second Vice President of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) and, from 2000 to 2004, President of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). Marcio Barbosa has authored, co-authored or edited many books, manuals, reports and articles in his fields of specialization, and is a recipient of many Brazilian and international awards and distinctions.
From March 2010, Marcio is acting as the General Manager of The Doha (Qatar) Cultural Village, a recently launched initiative of the Qatari government in the domain of culture and development.
ISPRS Fellow
Li Deren
in 2010
Prof. Dr. Deren Li, scientist in photogrammetry and remote sensing, dual membership of both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, member of the Euro-Asia International Academy of Science, and honorary doctorate of ETH. At present, he is Professor and PhD supervisor of Wuhan University, Vice-President of the Chinese Society of Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography, Vice-president of Hubei Association for Science and Technology (HAST), Chair of the Academic Committee of Wuhan University and the State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing.
In the 1980s, Prof. Deren Li was mainly engaged in the studies of observation errors and processing methods in geodesy and photogrammetry. In 1985, he completed theoretical research in the separability of model errors, which advanced the reliability theory to the separability phase. The result of this study received the 1988 Best Paper Award of the German Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, and Hansa Luftbild Award. From 1990 up to now Prof. Deren Li has concentrated on the research and education in geo-spatial information science and technology represented by remote sensing (RS), global positioning system (GPS) and geographic information systems (GIS). Since 1989, Prof. Deren Li has supervised 155 Ph.D students (108 having graduated, 47 still under supervision). So far, he has supervised 11 post doctoral candidates (9 having finished the research work, 2 still doing the research). He has published over 615 papers and 9 books.
Prof. Deren Li served as President of ISPRS Technical Commissions III and VI from 1988-1992 and 1992-1996 respectively. He worked for CEOS in 2002-2004 and was the first president of Asia GIS Association (2003-2006). He received the Samuel G. Gamble Award at the ISPRS XXI Congress in 2008 and received an award in appreciation and recognition of the outstanding contribution to the success and achievements of the MOST/ESA Dragon Programme 2004 to 2007.
ISPRS Fellow
Wolfgang Förstner
in 2010
Wolfgang Förstner, born in 1946, studied Geodesy until 1971 and received his PhD 1976 at Stuttgart University. After 3 years work at the Survey Department of Northrhine Westfalia in Bonn, he was scientist at the Institute for Photogrammetry of Stuttgart University. Since 1990 he has been head of the Department of Photogrammetry at the Institute for Geodesy and Geoinformation, University Bonn.
His main interests are image analysis, pattern recognition, machine learning, geometric reasoning, statistical and semantic modelling. He published more than 100 papers, supervised approximately 70 Bachelor and Master theses, and more than 20 PhD theses.
He was Vice President of the German Association for Pattern Recognition (DAGM) 1994-2001, president of ISPRS Commission III ‘Photogrammetric Computer Vision’ from 2004-2008 and chairs the ISPRS Intercommission Working Group in ‘Pattern Recognition in Remote Sensing’. Since 2006 he is associated editor of the journal IEEE Transactions of Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.
He received the Carl Pulfrich Award in 1987, the ISPRS Cassinis Award 2000 and the ASPRS Fairchild Award 2005.
ISPRS Fellow
Stan Morain
in 2010
Stan Morain is a biogeographer whose career interests centered on applications of remote sensing and spatial analysis of terrestrial environments. He has been funded continuously by NASA since 1970 for research and applications in natural resources. He has been PI on multi-university and multi-disciplinary teams of scientists and modelers, geospatial analysts, and remote sensing technologists developing tools for health information and decision making. He has been a frequent advisor to FAO, UNDP, UNEP, US/AID, and private consulting firms on projects in both developed and developing countries of Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, China, India, Central America and Australia.
Dr. Morain is the 2007 recipient of the joint NASA/USGS Pecora Award; the 2008 recipient of the Association of American Geographers Medal of Achievement from the Remote Sensing Specialty Group; and the 2010 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New Mexico Geographic Information Council. In addition, he is an elected Fellow in both the American Society for the Advancement of Science, and ASPRS. His service record for ASPRS includes four years as an officer of ASPRS, six years as Editor-in-Chief of PE&RS, and membership on many committees.
His service record for ISPRS includes Chair, Technical Commission VI, Working Group 4, (1992-1996), President, Technical Commission I (2000-2004), Treasurer (2004-2008), and Technical Secretary, Commission VIII, Working Group 2 (2008-2012).
ISPRS Fellow
Klaus Szangolies
in 2010
Klaus Szangolies as born on October 10, 1932 in Grabowen, East Prussia in Germany, the son of a farmer and lived at home until the end of Word War II. From 1952 to 1957 he studied “Surveying” at Technische Hochschule Dresden. He went directly to Jena and started his 35 year scientific career in Photogrammetry at Carl Zeiss Jena, a large and worldwide company. In the research laboratories of this enterprise he was involved in the development of new stereocomparators, stereo-plotters, orthophoto equipment, analytical and digital photogrammetric technique, image correlation, space photography and remote sensing, writing about 100 scientific publications and developing 15 patents.
With the dissertation “Correction of systematic errors of photographs in aerial triangulation” in 1963 he received the title “Dr.-Ing.” from “Technical University Dresden”. The same university appointed him 1982 as “Honar-Professor”. From 1978 to 1988 he also was “Visiting Professor” at “The City University” London.
Klaus Szangolies has been a member of the “German Society for Photogrammetry” since 1960. Between 1960 and 1990 he belonged to the East German Society, and since 1990 to the unified “German Society for Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics” DGPF. He attended all ISPRS Congress from 1968 in Lausanne to 2004 in Istanbul, where he presented papers or reports. He was President of ISPRS Commission II “Data Processing and Analysis” from 1988 till 1992, Chairman of IC Working Group “Space Photography” from 1984 to 1988 and member of several working groups for photogrammetric restitution.
He has organized important international conferences: in September 1987 in Leipzig - “Space Photogrammetry” with top-ranking participation from East and West; the ISPRS Symposium “Data Processing and Analysis” in September 1990 in Dresden with one important conclusion: the unification of the two German societies for Photogrammetry. After retirement in 1995 he became honorary “Editor in Chief” of the official German publication “Photogrammetrie, Fernerkundung, Geoinformation” (PFG) for 1997 to 2007 and received the ISPRS “Schwidefsky Medal” in recognition of his efforts during the Congress 2008 in Beijing.
ISPRS Fellow
Roy Welch
in 2010
Roy Welch is a Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA, where he established the Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science (CRMS) and served as its Director from 1984 to 2003. Dr. Welch’s involvement in International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) activities began in 1966 when, as a student at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, he attended a Commission I Symposium in London. After graduation, he undertook research on the quality of aerospace imagery at Itek Corporation and the U.S. Geological Survey before accepting a position at the University of Georgia. Roy participated in every ISPRS Congress between 1968 and 2000, remaining active until his retirement in 2004. He served as chairman of working groups in Commissions I, IV, and VII, and was President of Commission IV, Mapping and Geographic Information Systems, from 1992 to 1996. In 1980, he spent several months in Japan studying space remote sensing programs. Roy was elected President of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) in 1984, and a Fellow of ASPRS in 1995. He was a frequent contributor to the International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Photogrammetria, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, and Photogrammetric Record. During his career, Roy was a consultant to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, SPOT Image Corporation, and the U.S. Geological Survey. He established R-WEL, Inc., a company responsible for the development of the first stereocorrelation and 3-D mapping programs for personal computers.
ISPRS Fellow
Dieter Fritsch
in 2012
Professor Dr Dieter Fritsch received his Dipl.-Ing. Surveying from the University of Bonn in 1977 and his PhD in Signal Processing, also from Bonn, in 1982. He received his Habilitation in Geographical Information Systems (GIS), from the Technical University of Munich. Since 1992 he has been Full Professor and Director of the Institute for Photogrammetry, University of Stuttgart. Dieter Fritsch has chaired or co-chaired various WGs of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) and from 1996-2000 was President ISPRS Technical Commission IV "Mapping and GIS". He is a member of the ISPRS adhoc Committee "Knowledge Transfer" and Chairman Board of Trustees The ISPRS Foundation (TIF). He has been active in IAG and EuroSDR in which he is Vice President of Research.
Dieter Fritsch has held senior position in the University of Stuttgart, including being President from 2000-2006. He was the academic co-Founder of the German University in Cairo (GUC), Egypt, and Member GUC Board of Trustees; 2002-2005: He is a member Board of Directors Leica Geosystems, Heerbrugg, Switzerland from 2004 to the present and holds other positions in commercial and academic organisations. Since 1992 he has been organizer of the biennial symposium "The Photogrammetric Week Series". He is Author of 16 books and more than 300 publications.
ISPRS Fellow
Martien Molenaar
in 2012
Professor Dr Martien Molenaar is with the Department of Geo- Information Processing Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) University of Twente. He has a Doctors degree in Geodesy of Delft Technical University. He was a senior lecturer at ITC (1973-1983) and a professor of GIS and Remote Sensing at Wageningen University (1983-1996). In 1996 he returned to the ITC as a full professor in Geoinformatics and Spatial Data Acquisition. From 2001 to 2009 he was Rector of the ITC, the International Institute for Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation. He is President of the Netherlands Geodetic Commission. He was also President of the Netherlands Photogrammetric Society and later of the Netherlands Society for Earth Observation and Geoinformation. He has been active in ISPRS since 1976 in many different positions, as chair of several working groups, as Director of the technical program of the Amsterdam 2000 Congress, as co-founder of the Amsterdam 2000 Trust Fund, as trustee of The ISPRS Foundation, as member of ISAC and for the term 2008-2012 as President of ISPRS Technical Commission VI on Education and Outreach. Through his work he has been involved in international projects, consulting missions and he has been lecturing in many countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has written more than 200 scientific publications on geodesy, photogrammetry, spatial data modeling, remote sensing and GIS.
ISPRS Fellow
Shailesh Nayak
in 2012
Dr. Shailesh Nayak has been the Chairman, Earth System Science Organization, Government of India since 2008. He obtained a PhD degree in Geology from the M.S University of Baroda in 1980. He joined the Space Applications Centre, ISRO in 1978, and led projects related to ocean colour, coastal zone, snow and glacier, and water resources. Shailesh Nayak, as the Director of the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, Hyderabad, set up a state-of-theart Tsunami Warning System around GIS. He developed Marine GIS, and built services related to fishery, ocean state and hazards. Currently, he is responsible to establish National GIS in India. Shailesh Nayak has been awarded the prestigious ISCA Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Award 2012, Bhaskara Award for 2009, Indian National Remote Sensing Award for 1994, and Doctor of Science, by Andhra University in 2011. He has served the Indian Remote Sensing Society (ISRS) since 1983 and became President during 2008-2010. He has been actively involved in promoting ISPRS since 1994 and involved in activities of Commission I and VII, and became the President, ISPRS Technical Commission IV on 'Geo-databases and Digital Mapping' for the term 2004-08. Shailesh Nayak has published about 80 papers in SCI journals.
ISPRS Fellow
Paul Newby
in 2012
Educated at Cambridge University, the School of Military Survey and University College London, Paul Newby was a land surveyor in UK government service (1966–1994), both overseas (mapping for development in Africa, the West Indies and Indonesia) and at the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain (researcher and manager, with main interests in digital photogrammetry and quality management). After taking early retirement, Paul’s career included occasional university lecturing, starting a business intelligence company, Geo-UK Ltd. (1994–1998) and becoming a freelance technical translator (from German and French into English) covering geomatics and its applications, notably working for Swisstopo, contributing to the survey and mapping sections of the Swiss government’s multilingual terminological database and providing words destined for the walls of the Swiss Parliament and for the Swiss Alpine Museum, thus drawing together his twin loves of geography and mountaineering. He eventually found his true vocation as Editor of The Photogrammetric Record (1999–2011) and published the Record’s "Terminology Guide" (2007), later officially adopted by ISPRS. He first attended an ISPRS Symposium in 1982, was Chairman of WG IV/3 (Map and Database Revision, 1988–96), Vice President of the Photogrammetric Society (1997–99) and UK Delegate to ISPRS General Assembly from 2004.
ISPRS Fellow
Heinz Ruether
in 2012
Emeritus Professor Heinz Rüther graduated in 1969 with the Degree of Diplom–Ingenieur at the University of Bonn, joined the University of Cape Town in 1972 and obtained his Ph.D. in Photogrammetry at UCT in 1982. He is a Fellow of the University of Cape Town, a Fellow of the South African Academy of Engineers, a Member of the South African Academy of Science and an Honorary Member of GISA. He was treasurer of ISPRS from 1996-2000, and former Chair of the Financial Commission of ISPRS as well as former Vice President of the African Association for Remote Sensing of Environment. At present he serves on the Governing Board of HIST, a joint initiative of the Chinese Academy of Science and UNESCO. From 1990 to his retirement in 2007, he was the Head of the Geomatics Department/Division at the University of Cape Town and Scientific Coordinator of the Lake Rukwa Basin Integrated Project in Tanzania from 2004 to 2007. Since 2005 he leads the African Cultural Heritage Sites and Landscapes Project as Principal Investigator. Over recent years Professor Rüther's special interest has been focused on the area of digital spatial documentation of architectural structures, heritage sites and historical landscapes with a special emphasis on Africa. He has served on the executive of CIPA (the International Committee for Photogrammetry in Architecture) and has served as ISPRS representative on the CIPA committee; he is National CIPA delegate for South Africa and a member of ICOMOS South Africa.
ISPRS Fellow
Alain Baudoin
in 2016
Educated at École Polytechnique (1966-1969) and at the École Nationale des Sciences Géographiqies (ENSG, 1969-1971) Alain Baudoin was a Geographical Engineer serving on the French Mapping Agency (IGN, 1971-1989) then on the French Space Agency (CNES, 1989-2005) and lastly on the French Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (CGEDD, 2006-2010).
Since 1972 he has been involved in research and development of remote sensing applications, using either airborne sensors or satellite imagery. From 1978 to 1985 he was the IGN Spot project manager, ensuring that the SPOT satellite, with its stereoscopic capabilities, could be used for mapping purposes. When joining CNES he participated, as “Mission Manager”, then “Program Manager” to CNES Earth Observation programs, especially for SPOT 5 and Pléaides. Parallel to these activities Alain Baudoin was a teacher on image processing at ENSG.
Since 1980, he has been involved in ISPRS activities, participating at all Congress from Hamburg to Melbourne. During the 1980 to 1984 period, he was the Secretary of Commission VII, before acting as President of Commission I from 2004 to 2008. He was also Chairman of the “Mapping from Space” Working Group (1984-1988) and after the launch of SPOT-5, in 2002, he proposed to ISPRS, a cooperation with CNES for assessing the quality and accuracy of DEM derived from the new HRS instrument. Results were presented at the Istanbul Congress in 2004.
Alain Baudoin has been a member of the French Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (SFPT) since 1972 and was its General Secretary from 1985 to 1993. At the European level he was the French delegate of EuroSDR (1993-1999).
Before his retirement in 2010 Alain Baudoin contributed to elaborate the Space Applications Plan of the French Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, adopted in 2012 at governmental level.
ISPRS Fellow
Jiang Jie
in 2016
Jiang Jie received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in applied geophysics from the Changchun Geology University, China, in 1985 and 1988, respectively. In 2000 she received her Ph.D. in surveying engineering from China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing). She subsequently worked as a GIS specialist in the Municipal Urban Planning and Management Information Center of Changzhou during 1989 to 1999, and took charge of the establishment of Changzhou urban geodatabase and application system. She joined the National Geomatics Center of China in the end of 1999 and is currently chief engineer and director of the Department of Geo-information Service Platform. She was responsible for development of the national spatial database for navigation during 2000-2006. She took charge of establishing the national spatial database for e-government during 2006-2008.
Since 2008, she has taken the leading position for construction the national geo-information service platform “MapWorld”. The platform has integrated distributed datasets from national, provincial and municipal agencies and made them easy access for users via internet and intranet.
She was the secretary of ISPRS WG IV/3 during 1998-2000, secretary of ISPRS Commission II from 2000-2004, chair of ISPRS WG IV/1 from 2004-2012, a member of the International Scientific Advisory Committee of ISPRS from 2008-2012, president of ISPRS TC IV from 2012-2016. She was Executive Vice Chair of the Scientific Program Committee of the ISPRS 2008 Congress.
She received the Eduard Doležal Award at the ISPRS 2004 Congress, the President’s Citation at the 2012 Congress. She is the chair of WG 3 of the Regional Committee of United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management for Asia and the Pacific, and chair of the Technical Commission on Geo-information Service in China GIS Association. She has published more than 80 papers.
ISPRS Fellow
Franz Leberl
in 2016
Franz Leberl was born in Germany in 1945 and from the age of 2, has lived in Austria. He graduated high school in Graz, in 1963. In 1967, he received his Diplom in engineering from the Vienna University of Technology, and his Dr. technicae in 1972. In 1976, he received his Habilitation at the Graz University of Technology.
Franz worked as a researcher and teacher from 1969-1974, at the International Institute for Geo-Information and Earth Sciences (ITC) in Delft, and later in Enschede, Netherlands. From 1974-76, he was a research associate at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA). His first professorship, in photogrammetry (1976-1984) and his second, in computer science (1992-2013), were both at the Graz University of Technology, Austria. He was the founder of the Institute for Digital Image Processing and Graphics at Joanneum Research, 1980, and of the Institute for Computer Graphics & Vision at Graz University of Technology in 1992. Since 2013 he is Professor emeritus.
Under a leave of absence from Graz University, he served as CEO of the Austrian Institute of Technology, then Austrian Research Centers, Vienna, Austria, from 1996-1998.
Franz Leberl was the founder of Vexcel Corporation [1985, Colorado] and of Vexcel Imaging GmbH [1993, Graz, Austria]. He withdrew from business with the 2006-sale of Vexcel to Microsoft and worked at Microsoft as Director of Virtual Earth and Bing-Maps evangelist from 2006-2007.
He has 377 publications and 15 patents, and has served as 1st doctoral referee to 48 graduates. His honours include IEEE-Fellow 1996; Grand Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria [2006]; Outstanding Technical Achievement Award from the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing [2012]; Brock Gold Medal from the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing [2012]; Friedrich-Hopfner Gold Medal from the Austrian Geodetic Commission [2014]; Honorary Senator of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia [2015].
ISPRS Fellow
Petros Patias
in 2016
Petros Patias is a Professor, Director of Laboratory of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing and ex-chairman at the School of Rural and Surveying Engineering (2003-2007), The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), board member of the Department of Urban Planning, AUTH (2004-2012) and Vice Rector at the University of Western Macedonia (2010-2015), Greece. He received a Dipl.-Ing. degree (1981) from The Aristotle University and his Μ.Sc. (1985) and Ph.D. (1987) both from the Dept. of Geodetic Science and Surveying, The Οhio State University, USΑ.
Petros Patias has a long history in ISPRS activities:
- 1992-2000: Chairman of the WG Ι/2 and WG V/5
- 1996: Recipient of President's Honorary Citation
- 2000-2004: President of Commission V
- 2004-2008: Chairman of the Financial Commission
- 2008-2012: Member of the Fellowships Committee and Co-chair of WG VI/6
In addition he has been:
- 1992-1996: President of the Hellenic Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
- 1998-2010: Member of the Executive Board of the International Committee for Architectural Photogrammetry (CIPA).
- 2003-2007: President of CIPA
- 2013-for life: Honorary President of CIPA
He was also visiting professor at various European universities (TU Delft, ETH Zurich, Universidad del País Vasco), Editor-in-Chief of the “South-Eastern European Journal of Earth Observation and Geomatics” e-Journal, scientific reviewer to 43 Journals, scientific responsible, principal researcher and member of research group to a total of 78 research projects funded by European or national organizations.
His published work includes 6 books, 9 chapters in 4 different scientific books, in English language and 203 papers in journals and convention proceedings.
ISPRS Fellow
Ammatzia Peled
in 2016
Ammatzia Peled is a Professor for GIS&RS and the Director of the Center for Spatial Information Systems Research (CSISR) at the University of Haifa, Israel.
Ammatzia served as President of ISPRS Commission VIII on "Remote Sensing Applications and Policies" (2004-2008) and served on ISPRS Council as the Treasurer (2000-2004) and 2nd Vice president (2008-2012). In addition, he served for two years (2004-2006) as a Member of the TIF Board of trustees. He served as co-chair and chair of related working groups in ISPRS Commissions IV, II and VIII.
Also affiliated with the International Cartographic Association (ICA), he was a member and chair of ICA working groups and also the Chair of ICA Commission on "Incremental Updating and Versioning of Spatial Data Bases" (2003-2007).
At a National level, Ammatzia had a major role in the decision taken to remap Israel and the establishment & updating of the National Spatial Data Base in Israel. This project was launched, under his supervision, at the Survey of Israel, already in 1991 and it serves as the base for all e-Gov projects in the country.
Author of over 160 publications in Journals and proceedings papers, and books with over 260 technical reports, organizer of over 60 sessions and workshops, Ammatzia is interested in GIS, Remote Sensing, Digital Cartography and Mapping, focusing mainly in automatic Change Detection and Automatic Updating of Core Spatial Data Bases and issues of National GIS maintenance. Lately he is involved in projects dealing with autonomous spatial decision making.
In 2010, Ammatzia Peled was awarded the Eduard K. Tsiolkovsky 150 Years Memorial GOLD Medal by the Russian Academy for Cosmonautics for: “Outstanding contribution to Cosmonautics”. In 2013, he was awarded as a Professor Honoris Causa by the Siberia State Academy for Geodesy & Cartography, Novosibirsk.
ISPRS Fellow
Kohei Cho
in 2020
Kohei Cho is a professor at the Tokai University in Tokyo, Japan. As the vice president of the Japanese Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing since 2005, he has significantly contributed to streng then the relationship of JSPRS with ISPRS.
He is also an important leader in the field of Remote Sensing in Asia. Since 2009, and as successor of Shunji Murai, he is serving as the General Secretary of the Asian Association of Remote Sensing (AARS), a Regional Member of ISPRS. In 2019, he successfully organized the 40th Asian Conference of Remote Sensing (ACRS). During his ten years in office, he succeeded in continuing the tradition of ACRS, "friendship first and money after.
In ISPRS, Kohei has served as International Science Advisory Committee (ISAC) member (2012-2021), as ISPRS Commission VIII "Remote Sensing Application" Scien-tific Secretary (2008-2012), as ISPRS Commission VI "Education and Outreach" President (2004-2008), and as ISPRS WG VI/2 "Computer Assisted Teaching” working group chair (1992-2000).
Kohei initiated the CATCON (the educational software contest) in 1996, to activate educational research works within ISPRS. The CATCON has continuously been organized as one of the official events at lSPRS Congresses. He also helped initiate the ISPRS Student Consortium in 2004, under Commission VI, to promote student activities in ISPRS. Success in an education commission in the engineering field is generally not easy to gain at conferences and workshops. However, Kohei has significantly improved the research community of education in ISPRS during his Commission VI "Education and Outreach" presidency. Thanks to Kohei, the Midterm Symposium in Tokyo in 2006 was successful, with many papers and participants.
As a researcher, Kohei has been involved in various activities on remote sensing. He was the leader of JAXA AMSR2 sea ice team for years. For the past eight years, he was involved in a project monitoring the recovery of Tsunami damaged areas in Japan for environmental education. He has published more than 100 papers on remote sensing and is co-author of 15 books on remote sensing and image processing.
It should be emphasized, that Kohei has been promoting Remote Sensing in Asia for years through exchange of information, mutual cooperation, and international understanding and goodwill among the member countries of Asia. His smile encourages many young researchers to be involved in research communities and to contribute not only to AARS but also to ISPRS from Asia.
ISPRS Fellow
Songnian Li
in 2020
Songnian Li received a B.Eng. degree in Surveying Engineering from Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping, China, in 1983 and the Ph.D. degree in Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering from the University of New Brunswick, Canada, in 2002. From 1983 to 1997, he was a Lecturer, Associate Pro-fessor and Visiting Scholar in universities in China and Canada. Since 2001, he has been an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor in Geomatics Engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering, Ryerson University, Canada. Currently, he is the Associate Chair for Graduate Studies and the leader of the GIS and Geo-Collaboration Lab at Ryerson University. He is a licensed professional engineer and registered land surveyor in Ontario, Canada. He was an invited Research Fellow by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 2009 and 2012, and a recipient of both the nomination for the ISPRS U. V. Helava Best Paper Award 2016-19, and the 2015/2016 Canadian Institute of Geomatics President’s Citation. His current research interests include geospatial big data, spatio-temporal analysis, moving object and location-based services, geo-collaboration and geospatial web and web services. He has been appointed as Ad-junct Professor or Member at over 10 universities in Canada, Japan, and China.
Songnian served as chair of two Working Groups, as President of ISPRS TC II (2012-2016) and as Council Member (Treasurer, since 2016). He is TIF Trustee and Chair of the TIF Grants Evaluation Committee (since 2016) and has represented ISPRS in various roles in UNGGIM, IGU, OGC and GEO.
He has also served as Chair of the Canadian National Committee for ISPRS, Council Member of the Canadian Institute of Geomatics (former Canadian Ordinary Member of ISPRS), and Executive Member of the Canadian Society for Remote Sensing (current Canadian Ordinary Member of ISPRS).
Songnian Li has been involved in the organization of over 90 scientific conferences/workshops; many of them ISPRS or ISPRS-sponsored events, such as the ISPRS TC II Symposium in 2014, in Toronto. He has played a leading role in establishing the workshop series on “Web-based Mapping, Geo-Processing and Services”, which has been held six times since 2010, as well as an important role in organizing ISPRS workshops on global land cover and SDGs, and also served as a member of International Programme Committees for the 2016 ISPRS Congress, and the ISPRS Geospatial Week in 2017 and 2019.
Among other ISPRS editorial roles, he has served as an Editorial Advisory Board member of the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing since 2016, and received a Certificate of Out-standing Contribution in Reviewing in 2017.
ISPRS Fellow
Marguerite Madden
in 2020
Marguerite Madden is a Professor in the University of Georgia, Department of Geography and Director of the Center for Geospatial Research where she has collaborated on environmental research projects using remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) since the mid-1980s. Her research focus includes the generation of original geospatial data (e.g. detailed vegetation databases of vegetation in National Park units, animal tracking/behaviour and 3D landscape models from drone imagery), and integration of these data into GIS databases for analysis and modelling of human-environment interactions over broad scales.
A Fellow, Past GIS Division Director and Past President of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) and Editor of the ASPRS Manual of GIS (2009), she has served in the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) Working Group and Technical Commission positions continuously since 1988, including ISPRS Technical Commission President for Commission IV, “Digital Mapping and Geodatabases” (2008-2012) and ISPRS Second Vice President (2012-2016). She has served as The ISPRS Foundation Finance Officer since 2010, and the Lead Science Advisor for the Georgia Node of the NASA DEVELOP National Program since 2012.
She was awarded the ISPRS Willem Schermerhorn Award (2004), the ASPRS SAIC Estes Memorial Teaching Award (2011) and the NASA Silver Achievement Medal (2018).
Marguerite has served as major advisor to 25 Ph.D. and 21 M.S./M.A. students. She has over 65 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 11 book chapters, five edited books and proceedings, and 12 guest-edited special journal issues and serves on the Editorial Boards of five peer-review journals in geospatial science.
ISPRS Fellow
Charles K. Toth
in 2020
Charles Toth is a Research Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering, at The Ohio State University (OSU). He received a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and two Ph.D.s, one in Electrical Engineering and one in Geoinformation Sciences, both from the Technical University of Budapest, Hungary. His research interest and expertise cover broad areas of spatial information sciences and systems, including photogrammetry, multi-sensor geospatial data acquisition systems, LiDAR, high-resolution imaging, surface extraction, modelling, integrating and calibrating multi-sensor systems, georeferencing and navigation, 2D/3D signal processing, and mobile mapping technologies.
He has published over 300 scientific papers, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2009 APSRS Photogrammetric Award and the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) Academic Achievement Award 2015. In 2016, he was awarded the ISPRS Schwidefsky Medal for his significant contributions to the field of photogrammetric theory and practice in the last three decades.
Acknowledged internationally for his visionary contributions to mobile mapping, he was a key architect of the concept development, and conducted significant research in areas of sensor georeferencing and digital imaging technologies. He is credited with the introduction of the term “direct and indirect georeferencing” in the photogrammetric community. He is very devoted to education and mentoring the next generation of the photogrammetric professionals, and has been a major contributor to annual Summer Schools on mobile mapping, held internationally. Charles is highly respected across the international mapping community and has held many senior leadership positions in national and international societies, among them that of President of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. His service to ISPRS started in 1996, when he became co-chair of a working group. He continued in this position during the 2000-2004 term, and then took over the chair position for 2004-2008. He stayed on as co-chair for the next period, before becoming the ISPRS Commission I President from 2012 to 2016. Currently he serves as ISPRS Vice President.
ISPRS Fellow
George Vosselman
in 2020
George Vosselman is professor in Geo-Information Extraction with Sensor Systems. He graduated with honours from the Delft University of Technology in Geodetic Engineering in 1986, then worked at the Institute of Photogrammetry of the University of Stuttgart, Germany, until 1992. In 1991, he obtained his PhD degree with honours from the Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms University of Bonn, Germany. After a year as visiting scientist at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, he was appointed professor of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing at the Delft University of Technology in 1993. In 2004 he joined ITC, now a faculty of the University of Twente.
He is recipient of the Hansa Luftbild Award, the ISPRS Otto von Gruber Award, the Schwidefsky Medal, and the Karl Kraus Medal. He is a board member of the Netherlands Geodetic Commission and corresponding member of the German Geodetic Commission. As of 2012, he is head of the Department of Earth Observation Science of the University of Twente.
George has been playing an active and often central role in the ISPRS community for over 20 years. He has been instrumental in adapting the society to the rise of laser scanning, including roles as WG chair (2000-2004) on reconstruction from air-borne LiDAR and InSAR, WG co-chair (2008-2012) on point processing, and editor of a wellknown standard book (with Hans-Gerd Maas).
Moreover, he has made a massive contribution to scientific standards, quality control, and reviewing: he was editor-in-chief of the flagship ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (2004-2012) and has been a member of the journal’s Editorial Advisory Board (since 2012), a member of the International Science Advisory Committee (ISAC), and chair of the International Program Committee for the Congress 2016, and has written over 250 publications, many of which have been cited numerous times. He was also the Director of the ISPRS Geospatial Week, organised in Enschede in 2019.
ISPRS Fellow
Jon Mills
in 2022
Jon Mills is Professor of Geomatic Engineering at The University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He is Deputy Head of the Geospatial Engineering group, within which he leads the Newcastle Earth Observation research laboratory (NEOlab).
Jon has been a loyal and dedicated supporter of ISPRS since 1996. He has exhibited sustained, excellent service to the ISPRS and its aims and therefore is an ideal candidate for the Fellowship.
Since attending his first ISPRS event to present his research as a PhD student at the 1996 Vienna Congress, age 24, Jon Mills has attended every quadrennial ISPRS Congress, as well as every Geospatial Week, and is a regular participant in ISPRS Symposia and Workshops. He has convened / co-convened five ISPRS Technical meetings, including the scientifically, socially and financially successful 2010 Technical Commission V workshop held in Newcastle upon Tyne, and has served on Scientific Programme Committees of a further 17 ISPRS technical meetings. As Treasurer of ISPRS (2012-16), he took on roles overseeing the development of the ISPRS Scientific Initiatives programme and, notably, renegotiating the ISPRS Journal contract with Elsevier, turning what was a loss-making endeavour for the Society into a significant surplus generating one from financial year 2016 onwards, with a generated revenue of CHF 88k in FY 2018 alone.
In addition to his roles in Council and ISPRS Commissions Jon was co-author of the research vision paper in 2016 and was a joint PI, ISPRS Scientific Initiative project on SDGs, 2017. He has published 11 papers in ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and one paper in ISPRS International Journal of Geo-information. He was Theme Issue Guest Editor of the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing in Sept 2006 and has edited two ISPRS Archives volumes, 2010 and 2012
ISPRS Fellow
Sisi Zlatanova
in 2022
Sisi Zlatanova is a Professor at The University of New South Wales (Australia) in the Faculty of The Built Environment. She has a long record of contributing to ISPRS and is now President of Technical Commission IV, Spatial Information Science. She has previously chaired WG IV/8 (2004-12) and WG IV/7 (2012-6). Sisi has been instrumental in the organisation of the GI4DM, 3DGeoInfo and Indoor3D international conference series regarding the very important topics of risk and crisis management, 3D geoinformation and indoor modeling, resulting in important related publications. She also contributed to the geomatics community at large through her research and publications and teaching activities at academic institutions in various countries. Sisi Zlatanova studied in Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Graz, Austria (PhD) and has been active professionally in Bulgaria and held academic positions at the University of Architecture Civil Engineering and Geodesy, (Bulgaria), ITC (The Netherlands) and Graz Univ. of Technology (Austria), Delft Univ. of Technology (the Netherlands), Siberian State University of Geosystems and Technologies (Russia) and Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture (China).
Sisi has organised more than 40 ISPRS events including workshops and summer schools, and published widely in ISPRS journals including several hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings. She has participated in large EU and Australian projects and led seven projects on emergency response and 3D BIM/GIS data.
ISPRS Fellow
George Zarzycki
in 2010
George was born in Poland, received his MSc.-Eng.(geodesy) from the Warsaw
University of Technology in 1948 and Doctorate of Technical Sciences (photogrammetry)
from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. He worked at
the Institute for Photogrammetry, ETH, under Prof Zeller and at WILD Heerbrugg.
In 1940 developed a graphical interpolation method of adjusting aerial
triangulation which was adopted in many countries. In 1952 he accepted the position
of post-doctorate fellow at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa. In
the period 1953-66 George worked with Canadian Aero Service as chief engineer and
then executive vice president. In 1966 he co-founded Terra Surveys Ltd, and
served as Vice President then President until 1974 when he accepted the position
of Director, Topographical Survey of Canada. In 1985 he retired from the Federal
Public Service of Canada and joined the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources as
Director Surveys Mapping and Remote Sensing Branch, a position he held until
retirement in February 1991. He was visiting professor of photogrammetry at
Laval University in Quebec City 1969-1975. George is active as a consultant in
geospatial information management. During his professional career, George
directed the acquisition and management of geographic information,
photogrammetric mapping, remote sensing, railway location, geodetic and
resource surveys in Canada, South America, Africa, the Middle East,
Australia and the Caribbean.
George has lectured at professional and scientific conferences an authored
over 90 papers. Starting with the ISP Congress in Stockholm in 1957 he attended
all ISP/ISPRS Congresses until 2000. In ISPRS he was President of Technical
Commission IV from 1976-1980 and 1st Vice- President for two terms 1980-1988.
In the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, he was President
1981-1982, 1st vice-president 1980-1981 and 2nd vice- president 1979-1980.
In the Canadian Institute of Geomatics, he was President 1972-1973,
Vice president 1970-1972.
He is Honorary member The Canadian Institute of Geomatics, Fellow The Canadian
Academy of Engineering, Honorary member The American society of Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing, recipient of the Thomas M. O’Malley Award of the Canadian
Geomatics Industry Association, Honorary Professor at the Warsaw Technical
University, and Recipient of Officer’s Cross of the order of Merit of the
Republic of Poland.
ISPRS Fellow
Kennert Torlegard
in 2010
Anders Kennert Ingemar Torlegård was born Jan 21, 1937 in Sweden. He studied for an engineering diploma
(MSc) at the School of Surveying, the Royal Institute of Technology, (KTH), Stockholm from 1957-61. He
undertook his PhD studies on a research fellowship at the Department of Photogrammetry, KTH from 1961-67.
He was chief photogrammetrist at VIAK AB Consulting Engineers and Surveyors, in Gothenburg from 1967-74,
and became full professor for photogrammetry at the Royal Institute of Technology, (KTH), Stockholm in 1974,
a position which he held until 2001. Since 2002 he has been Professor Emeritus at Dept of Infrastructure, KTH,
Stockholm.
Selected items of his academic career.
| 1976-80 |
President of Commission V (Non-topographic photogrammetry) ISPRS |
| 1977-2001 |
Swedish delegate to the Steering Committee of OEEPE, l'Organisation Européenne
d'Études Photogrammétrique Experimentale, now EuroSDR |
| 1980-84 |
Chairman of an ISPRS Working Group on photogrammetric data capture for digital elevation
models |
| 1984-88 |
Secretary General of ISPRS |
| 1987-90 |
Provost (equivalent to 2nd vice president) and Chairman of the Faculty, KTH,
responsible for research program planning |
| 1988-92 |
President of ISPRS |
| 1991-97 |
Member of the Board of KTH |
| 1992-96 |
First Vice President of ISPRS |
| 1992-96 |
Chairman of the ISPRS Working Group on Geometric Modeling and Object Reconstruction |
| 1993-95 |
Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee for the 1995 summer session of the
International Space University, ISU, held at KTH in 1995 |
| 1996-2000 |
President of the Science Committee of OEEPE |
| 1998 |
Visiting Professor at the ETH Zürich |
since 1964 he has actively participated in 10 ISPRS Congresses, more than 30 ISPRS symposia, seminars and workshops,
8 FIG surveyors' congresses, 5 ICA cartographic conferences, among others.
ISPRS Fellow
Ivan Antipov
in 2010
Ivan Antipov was born in 1926. At the beginning of 1945 he was
drafted to the Soviet Army where has received a rank of a sergeant and a
specialist as a sapper. After demobilization from the army Ivan entered
NIIGAiK where he graduated in 1952, and then worked for two years at
the chair of photogrammetry as an assistant in the institute. From
1954-57 he was a postgraduate student of MIIGAiK and received a
scientific degree of a Candidate of Technical Science. Over the next 10
years Ivan progressed from assistant to the head of the chair of
photogrammetry and the deputy director of the institute in NIIGAiK.
In 1969 the State Geodetic and Cartographic Survey of the USSR
organized the first computer centre and Ivan Antipov accepted an
invitation to head the programming office of this center and later
became the chief of the centre. Under Antipov’s leadership the first
programmes were developed for different geodetic calculations with
reference to computers used at that time. Analytical phototriangulation
became the main topic of scientific interest of Ivan Antipov. During
this period he prepared his Doctor’s dissertation, receiving Dr.Sci.Tech
in 1974.
In 1977 he was appointed as the director of Research Institute of
Applied Geodesy (NIIPG) and remained at this post for almost 12 years.
In 1989-1992 he was on an official mission to the Republic of Cuba
where he worked to significantly improve photogrammetric technologies in
Cuba. After his return he was appointed as a scientific employee of
NIIPG (Research Institute of Applied Geodesy, later transformed into the
Center “Sibgeoinform”). In 1998 he returned to teaching activities in
the Siberian State Academy of Geodesy (SSGA, former NIIGAiK). Nowadays
he is a honorary professor of SSGA.
In 1976 on XIII Congress of the ISPRS in Helsinki Ivan was elected
as the President of the Technical commission III, and at the next
Congress in Hamburg as Second Vice President of the Society.
ISPRS Fellow
Klaas Jan Beek
in 2010
Klaas Jan was born in 1935 and gained his MSc and PhD from Wageningen University, The Netherlands.
Career: 1960-1961 he undertook soil surveys in
Grijalva Lowlands, Tabasco, Mexico. Ministry of
Hydraulic Resources; from 1963-1974 he was a Soil Scientist
with FAO, Land and Water Development Division,
with duty stations in Rome (HQ), Brazil, Mexico and Chile,
Duties were: World Soil Map sheets South America,
soil survey and land evaluation, soil - land suitability-
and agro-ecological mapping Latin American region;
from 1974-1980 senior he as a soil scientist International
Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement,
Wageningen; and from 1980-2000 Rector, he was Professor in
Land Evaluation, International Institute for Aerospace
Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC). He is currently Vice -chair
Netherlands Commission for Environmental Impact Assessment;
Chair Netherlands Foundation for Water and Climate.
International Scientific Societies: 1984-1988 president Commission VII, 1996-2000 Congress Director/Council
member International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS); 1994-1998 chair Sub-Commission F Land
Evaluation for Sustainable Development, 1978-1986 chair Working Group on Land Evaluation of the international Soil
Science Society(ISSS).
Previous Board/Committee Memberships: Tropenbos Foundation, Wageningen University Fund, Netherlands
Development Consultants (NEDECO), Netherlands University Foundation for International Cooperation(NUFFIC), LEICA AG,
LEICA Geosystems, National UNESCO Commission, Rotary International Inter-Country Committee The Netherlands-Germany,
International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD, Kathmandu, Nepal), International Water Management
Institute (IWMI, Colombo, Sri Lanka), External Examiner MSc –Course Resource Assessment East Anglia University, UK.
Honorary Appointments: Honorary professor of Wuhan
Technical University for Surveying and Mapping (WTUSM),
Wuhan China, and of Chinese Academy of Sciences: Commission
for integrated Survey of Natural Resources (CISNAR),
Beiijng; Honorary Fellow of Netherlands Society of Earth
Observation and Geoinformatics; International Soil
Reference and Information Centre(ISRIC); International Institute for
Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC).