Best Paper 1997

The U.V. Helava Award, sponsored by Elsevier Science B.V. and LH Systems, LLC, is a prestigious new ISPRS Award, which was established to encourage and stimulate submission of high quality scientific papers by individual authors or groups to the ISPRS Journal, to promote and advertise the Journal, and to honour the outstanding contributions of Dr. Uuno V. Helava to research and development in Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.

The Award is presented to authors of the best paper, written in English and published exclusively in the ISPRS Journal during the four-year period from January of a Congress year, to December of the year prior to the next Congress. The Award consists of a monetary grant of SFr. 10,000 and a plaque. A five-member jury, comprising experts of high scientific standing, whose expertise covers the main topics included in the scope of the Journal, evaluates the papers. For each year of the four-year evaluation period, the best paper is selected, and among these four papers, the one to receive the U.V. Helava Award.

The first U.V. Helava Award will be presented at the 19^th ISPRS Congress, Amsterdam, 16-23 July 2000. The five-member jury appointed by the ISPRS Council evaluated the 28 papers of 1997 and announced its decision for the Best Paper. The winner of the 1997 Best Paper is:

  Automatic Aerotriangulation - Concept, Realization and Results

Liang Tang ¹ , Josef Braun ² , Rasmus Debitsch ²

1 Technical Consulting and Software Development for Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics, Munich

² Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen

Liang Tang	Josef Braun	Rasmus Debitsch

Jury's rationale for the paper selection

The paper describes a working commercial system for automated aerial triangulation (AAT). This topic is very important both theoretically and practically. The paper covers all aspects of AAT, presents clearly the involved concepts and their realisation, is well written and organised, and provides adequate references for further reading. It presents practical results from extensive tests and shows clearly the advantages of automation and what is feasible in practice. This work is part of similar recent developments that have allowed the use of AAT in production with significant impact in the field of photogrammetry.

In the name of the ISPRS and the U.V. Helava Award jury, I would like to congratulate the authors for this distinction and thank them for their contribution. I would also like to thank the sponsors of the Award, and the jury members for their hard work and thorough evaluation.

Emmanuel P. Baltsavias

Editor-in-Chief, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing