President: Prof .Dr .John van Genderen

Secretary: Andrew Skidmore

INTRODUCTION:

2006 was a very successful year for our Technical Commission. The highlight of the year was the ISPRS MID-TERM SYMPOSIUM held at ITC in Enschede, the Netherlands, on the theme of: "From Pixels to Processes" It was attended by over 500 persons from around the World (participants from 75 countries!!).

For next year, our Technical Commission has organized no less than nine Workshops/conferences in various regions around the World. Please check the ISPRS Calendar of Events for full details on these events. We have also started preparations for the next ISPRS Congress to be held in Beijing in July, 2008.

CONTENTS:

1. Review of TC7 Mid-Term Symposium.

2. Status of TC7 WG's.

3. Inter-Organization Relationships

4. Activities Scheduled for 2007.

5. Miscellaneous.

1. REVIEW OF TC7 MID-TERM SYMPOSIUM:" From Pixels to Processes", held at ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands, from 8-11^th May, 2006.

The Symposium was attended by some 500 participants, half from outside ITC and half from ITC staff members and post-graduate students. The weather was very favorable during the Symposium, and there were no major organizational problems .The Symposium consisted of 24 Technical Sessions, 3 Special Sessions,2 Plenary Sessions, 3 Poster Sessions and an Opening and Closing Session. In addition, five workshops and tutorials were held the Saturday preceding the Symposium. These were attended by some 120 participants. Furthermore, there was an exhibition, where 14 companies/organizations exhibited their products and services, as well as of course, several social events, such as a trip to the tulip fields and Keukenhof, an Icebreaker reception, a reception in the City Hall, and a Symposium Banquet.

A total of 108 oral papers were presented, and there were only two "no-shows". This was because for every session, we had scheduled one or two "reserve" speakers, so that as and when an oral speaker withdrew for whatever reason, the oral slot was immediately filled with the reserve speaker. Hence, after the Final Programme was printed, there were (almost) no further changes .Of the 240 Poster Papers submitted, 123 were actually presented .Again, because the Final Programme was only printed a few days before the Symposium, of the 129 Poster Papers listed in the Programme, 123 were actually presented (95%).

The participants came from 75 different countries, making it a truly ISPRS international event. The final budget has been made and submitted to Council .The Hard Copy and Digital Proceedings have been completed. Ten sets of the hard copy have been sent to GITC.

2. STATUS OF TC7 WG'S

2.1WG VII.1: "Fundamental Physics and Modeling"

This is one of the most active and well-performing WG's. Perhaps this is so because this is the only one which existed in ISPRS history, prior to the Istanbul Congress. All other WG's in TC7 are brand new, and do not have any previous experience, or tradition of ISPRS, or of ISPRS Technical Commission/Working Group structure. We are working hard to change the perception that ISPRS is still mainly a "photogrammetric" club!!

2.2: WG VII.2: "Information Extraction from SAR Data.

This WG has not been very active the last two years. One of the two Co-Chairs, Dr. Wang Changling, has resigned, because of a change in his function (now running the Secretariat of the International Society on Digital Earth)

Fortunately the other Co-Chair, Dr. Rudi Gens of ALASKA SAR Facility arranged the SAR sessions at the Mid-Term Symposium. There, it was decided to ask Mrs Dr. Fusan Balik to be a Co-Chair. She is from Turkey, and has made an immediate impact.

2.3: WG VII.3: "Information Extraction from Hyperspectral Data."

One of the Co-chairs, Dr.Walter de Bruijn has been replaced, as he changed his job function at VITO. The new Co-Chair is Dr. Pieter Kempeniers, also of VITO in Belgium. For the rest, this WG is functioning well.

2.4: WG VII.4:"Advanced Classification Techniques"

This WG is running well, and has some good plans for 2007. (see below)

2.5 WG VII.5:" Processing of Multi-Temporal Data and Change Detection"

This WG is active and running very well. All WG Officers are pulling their weight.

2.6 .WG VII.6:" Remote Sensing Data Fusion"

This WG is running very well, extremely active, and no changes in WG Officers, all of whom are quite active!

2.7. WG VII.7:"Innovative Problem Solving Methodologies for Less Developed Countries"

This WG is also working well, and has organized several nice Special Sessions at various international conferences.

2.8. Inter-Commission WG on" Derivation of Global Data, Environmental Change and Sustainability Indicators" (TC IV/VII)

This WG is also active, and there are no changes in WG officers.

3. INTER-ORGANIZATION RELATIONSHIPS

As TC 7 is a new RS Commission within ISPRS, we have spent much emphasis on co-operation with other international/regional remote sensing organizations. Over the past two years, we have organized joint events with the following organizations:

i) IEEE-GRSS

ii) ACRS

iii) EARSeL

iv) SPIE

v) U.N.-GOFC-GOLD

vi) ICORSE.

For 2007 we have Joint Events scheduled with: IEEE-GRSS, SPIE, EARSeL, and ICORSE (see below).In addition to these inter-organizational co-operation efforts, we have also fostered Intra-Organizational co-operation with other WG in other ISPRS TC's., by means of joint events. (See below for details).

4. ACTIVITIES HELD DURING 2006.

Although the main activity for 2006 was the ISPRS Mid-Term Symposium at ITC in May, TC7 still managed to organize and promote ISPRS by means of co-sponsorship and involvement in quite a few other events during the year.

4.1 Mid-Term Symposium at ITC in May, 2006 (see section 1 above)

4.2 GOFC-GOLD (UN Global Observation of Forest Cover, Global Observations of Land Cover Dynamics), together with ISPRS Inter Commission WG IV/VII on Derivation of Global Data, Environmental Change and Sustainability Indicators, organized a successful conference in Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia, entitled:" Second International Conference on Land Cover/Land Use Studies using RS/GIS" on 8 and 9^th June, 2006.Digital Proceedings were produced.

4.3 IEEE-IGARRS: July 31^st to 4^th August, 2006, in Denver Colorado. USA

WG VII.1 organized a large Special Session on imaging spectroscopy at this Major event. The Special Session was called: State of Science of Environmental Applications of Imaging Spectroscopy" in honor of Dr. A.Goetz. It consisted of 20 Invited Keynote Speakers in the domain, and more than 200 participants attended this special ISPRS TC7WGVII.1 session.

4.4 27^th ACRS, 9-13 October 2006, Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia.

A Special Session was organized by TC7 WG VII.7 on: "Innovative Problem Solving Methodologies for Less Developed Countries", together with the Local Organizing Committee led by Dr. Saandar. However, just four weeks before the event was to take place, Prof. Murai informed us he did not support this event, and we had to withdraw the Special Session. It will be rescheduled for the next ACRS in Kuala Lumpur, in November, 2007.

4.7 WG VII.5 has organized "Geoinformatics 2006: Wuhan, China from 28-29 October4, 2006.

Together with ISPRS WG II.2, VI.5, TC7 WG VII.5 has organized this event in Wuhan, which will also mark the 50^th Anniversary of the former Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping (now part of Wuhan University). The Proceedings, (four volumes) were published again by SPIE, which also published the 5 volume Proceedings of our TC7 event there in 2005. This meeting was also co-sponsored by IEEE-GRSS.

Hence, 2006 has been another very productive year for TC 7 Next year, 2007 promises to be even better!! See following section.

5. ACTIVITIES PLANNED FOR 2007

TC7 has scheduled a number of events for 2007, which have all already been approved by ISPRS Council. There is one additional proposal under preparation which will be submitted to Council for approval soon. All of the approved events are already listed in the ISPRS Calendar of Events Website.

5.1 WGVII.1: This WG has organized the 10^th International Symposium on Physical Measurements and Signatures in Remote Sensing from 12 to 14^th March, 2007 in Davos, Switzerland.

.The Chair and Co-Chair have done a good job to prepare an excellent programme, plus attracted ten thousand euro sponsorship for this ISPRS event from the European Space Agency.

5.2 Joint Meeting with IEEE-GRSS: 4^th Joint Workshop on RS and Data Fusion over Urban Areas, 11-13^th April, 2007

(WG III.2 and III.5 plus WG VII.4 and VIII.1) This event will be held in Paris France.

5.3 Workshop: Imaging Spectroscopy: Innovations in Environmental Research"

This will be held 23-25 April, in Bruges, Belgium this is a joint event organized by EARSeL SIG and by TC7 WG VII.3.

5.4 WG VII.2 and WGVII.7 have organized a Conference in Istanbul, Turkey from 17 to 19^th May, 2007.

The Call for Papers is out, and the Website is up and running.

5.5 Joint Session, TC7 WGT VII.4 and IEEE-IGARSS on Advanced Classification, during the IGARSS Conference in Barcelona, Spain, from 23 to 27^th June, 2007.

This will be one of the largest Remote Sensing meetings in Europe in 2007.

5.6 Special Session WGVII.6 at the 32^nd International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment, to be held in San Jose, Costa Rica, from 25 to 29^th June, 2007.

TC6 and TC8 will probably also have some special sessions at this event. Organized by ICORSE the Technical Sessions are organized around the nine "GEO" societal benefit themes.

5.7 TC7 WGVII.6 and WGVII.7 plus TC2 WGII.1 are organizing a Joint Conference on "Techniques and Applications of Optical and SAR Imagery Fusion: Mapping Without the Sun" to be held in Chengdu, China, from 25 to 27^th September.2007

5.8 WGVII.7 has organized a Workshop in Saudi Arabia for the period 15-17 November, 2007.

This meeting will be hosted by the University of Alqassim and will include some interesting cultural events as well.

5.9 WGVII.5 and WGVII.6: Workshop on Updating Geo-spatial Databases with Imagery.August, 28-29, Urumqi, Xingjiang, P.R.China

This ISPRS Workshop will follow on from the next Joint Meeting of the full ISPRS Council with the Technical Commission Presidents, to be held in Beijing in 2007.

6 MISCELLANEOUS.

6.1 Several Special Issues of internationally refereed journals have being planned as additional outputs of these events. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't! For example, we had approval from International Journal of Remote Sensing for a special issue on WGVII.1:Fundamental Physics", with the many papers we had from the Mid-Term Symposium, but not enough authors finally submitted full-length papers for this issue, and we has to cancel it. (However, about six papers will be published in one issue, with a reference to the ISPRS Mid-Term Symposium.

6.2 We have started to think about the following items for the next ISPRS CONGRESS:

i) Resolutions

ii) Revised structure of TC7 WG's

iii) Possible candidate countries to host TC7 for next four year period.

iv) Start preparing Technical Sessions

6.3. The Intercommission Working Group IV/VII Derivation of Global Data, Environmental Change and Sustainability Indicators" has received a research grant from ISPRS Council, under the "Science Initiative "scheme. In next year's report, we will report on the results of that project.

These, then, will be our Technical Commission's main focus for the coming 12 months, plus supporting the WG Officers, to ensure our many ISPRS TC7 events for 2007 will be successful. We invite all remote sensing scientists, practitioners, etc to participate actively in ISPRS in 2007!!