616
August 2015
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
those who want a great overview in context with the rest
of the materials covered in this book. It is not sufficient
nor was it designed for a course dedicated solely to digital
image analysis nor for the practitioner who needs an entire
book or books on this topic. However, as a chapter in this
introductory book, it provides an excellent overview of this
important material. The book ends with Chapter 8 providing
applications of remote sensing to a dozen or so disciplines
including land cover mapping, forestry, wildlife, and disaster
assessment to list but a few.
This book has been tested by time. Owners of previous
editions will recognize lots of familiar figures and tables
many of which show up in presentations all around the
world. However, there is also significant new information
and updates that make this edition extremely valuable. Our
discipline is changing faster than ever and the number of
sensing devices is growing exponentially. While one can
and should look up the latest information on appropriate
websites, it is extremely valuable and quite comforting to
have a single source of this information right on the shelf
next to me. I appreciate the thorough and yet compact way
in which all this information is provided.
In a world today where algorithms and statistics are first
line of defense used by most students and practitioners when
approaching a challenge this book continues to embrace and
governance model for ASPRS. Doug Fuller, Chair of the By-
laws Committee, is crafting a completely new set of Bylaws
for ASPRS that built to allow implementation of the recom-
mendations of the Streamlining Task Force. The members of
the Streamlining Task Force are proceeding to implement the
recommendations.
Among the recommendations being implemented are refor-
mation of the Board of Directors to include only nine voting
members; restructuring of member categories to include only
three member types, individual, organization, and friend;
elimination of the Executive and Strategic Planning Com-
mittees; merger to reduce the total number of committees
and eliminate overlapping Committee charges; recommend-
ed merger of regions as has already begun with Heartland
and Pacific Southwest. The recommendations are designed to
make ASPRS a more nimble organization capable of quick-
ly adapting to changes in technology, society, and the imag-
ing and geospatial landscape. As President of ASPRS, I am
committed to implement the changes recommended by the
Streamlining Task Force and approved by the Board of Direc-
tors and to have the new organization in place for the Imaging
and Geospatial Technology Forum in Fort Worth, Texas, April
11 - 15, 2016.
ASPRS President
E. Lynn Usery
Letter from ASPRS President, E. Lynn Usery
continued from page
GeoBytes!
ASPRS GIS
D
ivision
— F
ree
O
nline
S
eminars
The ASPRS GIS Division, in
cooperation with CaGIS and
GLIS, is sponsoring free online
live seminars throughout the
year.
Attention those seeking ASPRS Certification:
ASPRS Online Seminars are a great way to
gain Professional Development Hours!
/
GISD-Division/Online-
Seminars.html
teach old school techniques of photo interpretation that are
absolutely vital to the understanding and usefulness of image
resources. And as we continue to try to emulate the cognitive
abilities of human photo interpretation with algorithms this
book is one of very few new books that continues to teach
the important and powerful observational skills required for
meaningful human cognitive image interpretation. Given the
rapid advances in remote sensing technologies and increases
in spatial and spectral resolution of the imagery available, it
is especially important to know the fundamentals of image
analysis that are presented so well in the first three chapters
of this book and to combine them with the more advanced
digital analysis presented in rest of the book. The authors
have clearly met their goals of creating a book that meets
the educational needs of students in remote sensing classes
while also providing a book that introduces these concepts
and methods to a growing number of geospatial analysis
professionals. For those that cannot afford a hardcopy of this
book, it is available in electronic format at a significantly
lower price.
