[previous page] [ISPRS home page]

THE PUBLICATIONS OF ISPRS

The publications of ISPRS in 1997 were in five categories:

1. The ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing is the official publication of the Society, was published in 6 editions in 1996, comprising approximately 300 pages. It contains scientific and technical articles and reviews in the field of photogrammetry and remote sensing, and as such, endeavours to be a primary channel of communication on the scientific activities of ISPRS, for specialists in all countries working in the many disciplines applying photogrammetry and remote sensing. A fuller report of the Journal is given below.

2. This publication of ISPRS Highlights was a new venture for ISPRS in 1996. It is the official bulletin of the Society, and will be published 4 times per year. If contains such items as the ISPRS Annual Reports, general news of ISPRS activities, event reports of ISPRS sponsored conferences, officers lists, keynote speeches, book, project and technology reviews, minutes of Council and Technical Commission meetings, and calls for papers etc. It was published for the first time in October 1996.

3. Volume 31 of the International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing was published in 1996. It comprises 980 papers totaling approximately 5000 pages, being the proceedings and the scientific and technical presentations of the 1996 Congress, edited and distributed by the representatives from the Austrian Society for Surveying and Geoinformation, the Member organization responsible for organising the 1996 Congress. Proceedings of ISPRS sponsored Workshops have been published in 1997.

4. The ISPRS Organization and Programs 1996-2000 (Silver Book) and the annual publication ISPRS Member List (Blue Book) were published to provide Members and interested groups a brief description of the current activities and addresses, and the underlying precepts of the Society. A new edition of the Blue Book will be published in 1998. Updates to the Silver Book can be found on the ISPRS Web Page, described below.

Special circulars and announcements were used to provide information on the Congress and other activities of ISPRS.

ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

E. Baltsavias, Editor-In-Chief

Relations to Council

The Editor-in-Chief (EIC) was invited to ISPRS Council and Joint Council/TCP meetings and presented matters related to the Journal.

Helava Award

The Award Terms were approved by Council in September 1998. The Award has been publicised in journals, the Journal WEB site, and all 1998 Symposia and has been included in the new Award brochure and the ISPRS WEB site. The five �1st jury� members have been selected, the selection policy has been discussed and the evaluation of the 1996 papers was almost finished by the end of 1998.

PR for the Journal

Flyer distributed in all Symposia, discussion in Business Meetings of all Symposia, short presentation in plenary session in all Symposia, on-line soliciting of good papers.

Number of papers

Six issues with ca. 380 pages were published. After a low supply of papers for issues June, August, October 1998 (which caused a publication delay for the October and December issues) suddenly many papers were submitted, to a large extent due to the PR actions taken during the Symposia. There are now enough papers in the pipeline at least for the whole 1999.

Theme Issues and Guest Editors

  • Extraction of Man-Made Objects from Aerial and Satellite Images, Apr. 98, F. Leberl/R. Kalliany/M. Gruber
  • Imaging and Modeling for Virtual Reality, Dec. 98 (and 2 papers in Feb. 99 issue), S. El-Hakim/W. Foerstner

Issues proposed by Commissions

  • Commission IV, Conceptual Aspects of GIS, Y.C. Lee/M. Molenaar (Guest Editors)
  • Commission VII, Resources Management and Environmental Monitoring, M. Imhoff/G. BYttner (Guest Editors)
  • Commission II has not made any concrete proposal yet, while Com. I is waiting for some new technological developments.

Best Symposia papers

Such papers are proposed by each Commission and solicited for publication. Proposals have been received from Commissions I and V, while for the remaining Commissions only individual WG officers have answered.

Subscriptions

Status of Aug. 98 vs. Aug. 97 shows a reduction of 1.62% (20% for personal, 0.43% for institutional subscriptions).

Journal related activities for the Congress

They have been discussed with Elsevier and have been presented to Council and Congress Director.

Review process

There is an improvement in the responsiveness and a slightly better evaluation quality. Still some problems exist, both with quality/timeliness of the reviews and lack of carefulness by authors. Speed of review process has been slightly improved, and if all goes well, the time from submission to publication has been reduced to a record of 4 months. Submission of papers via e- mail and ftp has been increasingly used lately to speed up the process. The average duration from submission to publication is ca. 1 year.

Varia

  • An easy way to order special/theme issues via WEB/e-mail and use credit card payment has been explored by EIC and Elsevier. The aim is to increase PR for such issues and number of copies sold.
  • Abstracts and full search for issues from 1996 are now available on the Journal WEB site (www.elsevier.nl/locate/isprsjprs).

ISPRS Highlights - The ISPRS Bulletin

ISPRS Highlights is a quarterly publication of ISPRS which reports on ISPRS activities. It includes the Annual Report, minutes of Meetings of Council and Joint Meetings of Council and Technical Commission Presidents, reports of ISPRS sponsored technical meetings, workshops, Symposia and the Congress, book reviews, details of members, and a calendar of forthcoming meetings. Publication was commenced in October 1996 by the Editor-in-Chief, Professor Mauricio Araya of Chile, who was contracted as editor by ISPRS Council until July 1998, during which time 7 editions were published. From September 1998, GITC bv in the Netherlands is the new publisher of ISPRS Highlights.

Summary of Contents ISPRS Highlights in 1998.

1997 Annual Report including:
  • Technical Commission Reports
  • Interorganisational activities
  • Regional Member Activities
  • ISPRS State of Affairs
  • Publications
  • Awards

Inter Congress Symposium Reports of all Seven Commissions

  • Minutes of Council Meetings:
    • Bangalore, India February/March 1998
    • Stuttgart, Germany September 1998
  • Minutes of Council and Technical Commission Presidents
    • Stuttgart, Germany September 1998
  • Announcements of, and reports on planning for, the Congress in Amsterdam The Netherlands, July 2000
  • Announcements of Technical Commission Symposia and Workshops - 8
  • Reports on ISPRS sponsored technical and other meetings - 12
  • ISPRS News and Press Releases, including the announcement of the 100th ISPRS Ordinary Member
  • Changes to the ISPRS Organizations and Programs (Silver) Book.
  • Book reviews - 2
  • ISPRS Sustaining Members � addresses, news and profiles of 7 new Sustaining Members
  • Events Calendar - updated each issue

Special topics

  • Inaugural Address at the ISPRS Commission I Symposium
  • Open GIS October Newsletter

THE INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND REMOTE SENSING

Until 1994, the publication and distribution of the official Archives produced from the quadrennial Congresses and Symposia of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing was the responsibility of the hosting ISPRS Member organization. In 1993 the ISPRS signed a contract with RICS Books to serve as the official repository for post-Congress and post-Symposia sales of all Archives produced after 1993. This arrangement was designed to make the Archives more accessible from a single source without diverting revenues from the producing organizations.

In the early years of the Society, Archive Volumes were published independent of Congress or Technical Commission Symposia. Some of these Archives are still available from the ISPRS Member listed under "Repository" below. A copy of all Archives resides in the International Training Center (ITC) in The Netherlands. 

Addresses:
     RICS Books             ITC Librarian       John C. Trinder
     Surveyor Court         350 Boulevard 1945  ISPRS Secretary General
     Westwood Way           P.O. Box 6          School of Geomatic Engineering
     Coventry CV4 8JE       7500 AA Enschede    The University of New South Wales
     United Kingdom         The Netherlands     Sydney NSW 2052, Australia
     Fax: +44-171-334-3800  Fax: +31-53-874400  Fax: +612 9313 7493

The Archives are numbered odd for Congress Volumes and even for Commission Symposia. Volume Parts are given the Commission number and are separate books. When a Volume or Part is composed of multiple books, the number of total books of the Volume or Part is given in parentheses below. The Part for other ISPRS Conferences, Workshops or Tutorials is the Commission number followed by a C, W or T respectively and a sequence number. 

Recent additions to the Archives are as follows:

Years      Archive Event & Venue                       Vol-Part    Repository
1994       Comm I Symposium - Como, Italy              XXX-1       RICS Books
 "         Comm II Symposium - Ottawa, Canada          XXX-2       RICS Books
 "         Comm III Symposium - Munich, Germany        XXX-3       RICS Books
 "         Comm IV Symposium - Athens, USA             XXX-4       RICS Books
 "         Comm V Symposium - Melbourne, Australia     XXX-5       RICS Books
 "         Comm VI Symposium - Beijing, China          XXX-6       RICS Books
 "         Comm VII Symposium - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil XXX-7       RICS Books
1995       Intercomm Workshop - Zurich, Switzerland    XXX-5W1     RICS Books
 "         WG IV/6 Workshop - Boulder, USA             XXX-4W1     RICS Books
 "         WG IV/1 Workshop - Madison, USA             XXX-4W2     RICS Books
1992-1996  XVIII Congress - Vienna, Austria            XXXI-A,B(7) RICS Books
1997       Comm VI Workshop - Padua, Italy             XXXII-6W1   RICS Books
"          Comm III/IV Workshop - Stuttgart, Germany   XXXII-3-4W2 RICS Books
"          Comm II/III Workshop - Haifa, Israel        XXXII-2-3W3 RICS Books
"          CIPA Conference - Gotenborg Sweden          XXXII-5C1B  RICS Books
"          Comm VI Workshop - Bahia Blanca, Argentina  XXXII-6W4   RICS Books
1998       Comm I Symposium - Bangalore, India         XXXII-1     RICS Books
"          Comm II Symposium - Cambridge, UK           XXXII-2     RICS Books
"          Comm III Symposium - Columbus, USA          XXXII-3     RICS Books
"          Comm IV Symposium - Stuttgart, Germany      XXXII-4     RICS Books
"          Comm V Symposium - Hakodate, Japan          XXXII-5     RICS Books
"          Comm VII Symposium - Budapest, Hungary      XXXII-4     RICS Books

ISPRS WORLD WIDE WEB HOME PAGE

The World Wide Web (WWW) has become a world wide phenomena and will be a major and vital, data sharing system for humankind in the 21st Century. Often confused with the Internet, the WWW is actually a sub-set of computers around the world that are connected with hypertext, based on the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). Because of its position as the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, it is essential that ISPRS maintain a very visible and active position on the WWW through the creation of exciting and informative webpages. However, the primary function of these webpages will be to convey, share and distribute information.

All ISPRS Member Organisations, Technical Commissions and Working Groups should use Internet webpage media to promote their work related to their area of expertise. In order to assist this task, ISPRS created guidelines for the preparation and maintenance of ISPRS webpages (www.geod.ethz.ch/isprs/documents/guidelines/webguide.html). These guidelines were prepared by ISPRS Commission VI (President T. Lukman Aziz) and Working Group VI/4 (Chairs T. Chen and J. Felkner). In addition a downloadable webpage, that can be used as a basic template upon which a webpage can be built, and the official ISPRS logo are provided at www.geod.ethz.ch/ isprs/samples.html.

As a minimum requirement all ISPRS webpages should include the following:

  • a reference to the ISPRS and the function of the Member Organisation, Technical Commission or Working Group must be stated clearly at the front of the webpage;
  • the name and address of the Web Master, as well as the date of the last update to the webpage; the official ISPRS logo clearly and prominently displayed;
  • hypertext links to the ISPRS Homepage (http://www.geod.ethz.ch/isprs);

Beside the fact, that the basic information of all Member Organizations, Technical Commissions and Working Groups is provided on the ISPRS Homepage, currently about 70% of the Technical Commissions and Working Groups and 20% of the Member Organizations provide information on their own webpages (see Figure 1). All groups who are preparing an ISPRS-related webpage shall inform the ISPRS Web Master, so they can be properly referenced and promoted.


Figure 1: Number of ISPRS Member Organisations, Technical Commissions and Working Groups with own webpages (November 1998)

As of November 1998 there are 255 HTML (HyperText Markup Language) documents with about 72'000 lines of information available on the ISPRS Homepage. These documents are assigned to the following major headlines:

  • The society (incl. objectives and activities, historical background, management structure, officers);
  • Member Organisations (incl. ordinary members, associate members, regional members, sustaining members, honorary members and application forms for the different types of membership);
  • Legislative documents (incl. statutes, bylaws, guidelines, awards, minutes of meetings);
  • Publications (incl. International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, ISPRS Highlights, ISPRS Annual Reports, ISPRS Organization and Programs (Silver Book), ISPRS Member List (Blue Book));
  • Technical Commissions and Working Groups;
  • Information and announcements (incl. ISPRS events calendar, ISPRS employment opportunity archive);
  • Tools (incl. News section, ISPRS related links, search tool);

In the year 1998 (January to November) a total number of 61'000 requests of HTML documents from 10'500 unique hosts (~ users) was registered on the ISPRS Web Server. This is an average of about 5'550 requests per month, 185 requests per day or one request every 8 minutes.

A monthly statistic for the use of the ISPRS server is available since January 1995 (see Figure 2). The permanent increase of the use of HTML documents on the ISPRS server over the last 4 years is obvious. At the present time the ISPRS server has about 6'600 visitors per month, and every week there are about 240 new hosts (~ new users) requesting information.


Figure 2: Number of HTML requests on ISPRS server per month (January 1995 - November 1998)

Last change: 23-Mar-99 by André Streilein
Problems and/or queries, send e-mail: markus.englich@ifp.uni-stuttgart.de
Imprint