PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
September 2017
597
A N I N T E R V I E W
PROFESSOR CLIVE FRASER
Professor Clive Fraser is currently
a Program Science Director in
the Cooperative Research Centre
for Spatial Information, and
a Professorial Fellow in the
Department of Infrastructure
Engineering at the University of
Melbourne, where prior to retire-
ment in 2010 he had served as a
professor.
Clive’s particular areas of research interest lie in digital close-
range photogrammetry, including 3D forensic analysis and
traffic accident reconstruction and industrial measurement
systems; and in the metric exploitation of high-resolution
satellite imagery.
He is a Fellow of both the Australian Academy of Technological
Sciences and Engineering, and the American Society for
Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS), and he is an
Honorary Member of The Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry
Society of the UK. In recognition of his academic and professional
work, which includes authorship of more than 380 scientific
publications, he has earned a number of international awards.
Clive also has varied industry experience, having been, from
1983 till 1993, Vice President of Geodetic Services, Inc. in
Florida, a world-leading company in industrial photogram-
metry systems and services. From 2003 to early 2007 he was a
founding director of Photometrix P/L, a software development
company specializing in systems for close-range photogram-
metry and vision metrology, and from 1998 to 2001 he served
as Technical Director of Geomatic Technologies P/L, a spatial
information technology services company based in Melbourne.
Clive has long been an active member of ASPRS, having joined
the society as a graduate student in 1977. He became a Certified
Photogrammetrist in 1985 and served as Associate Editor of
Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing (PE&RS)
from 1987 through to 1992. As an active researcher throughout
his career, he has supported ASPRS publications as an author
and reviewer, having published 27 papers in PE&RS, presented
and published 23 papers in ASPRS conference proceedings
and contributed 8 book chapters to ASPRS Manuals. These
and his other publications have attracted more than 5900
citations. He has also been fortunate enough to be awarded a
number of ASPRS honours over the years having received the
Bausch and Lomb Award in 1977, the Wild Heerbrugg (now
Leica) Award in 1978, the Fairchild Photogrammetric Award
in 1987, the APSRSOutstanding Technical Achievement Award
in 2013, along with the Talbert Abrams Award (5 times) and
the President’s, then John I. Davidson Award for Practical
Papers (3 times).
What are your thoughts on the Award?
I was both surprised and honored to be selected as one of the
two 2016-17 Honorary Life-Time Achievement Awardees.
While proud to receive this recognition from ASPRS, I am
at the same time humbled when I consider the very signif-
icant contributions to the Society and to the professions of
photogrammetry and remote sensing of the 23 colleagues who
comprise the balance of the current ASPRS Living Honorary
Membership. The Life-Time Achievement Award is perhaps
indicative of an approaching professional destination, made
more fulfilling by those whom I’ve met along the way.
How did you become associated with ASPRS?
As a graduate student at the University of New South Wales in
Sydney, I was a keen reader of
Photogrammetric Engineering
(now
PE&RS
) and once I arrived at the University of Washing-
ton in Seattle in 1977 to undertake PhD studies, I joined AS-
PRS primarily to ensure regular and early access to
PE&RS.
Then in early 1978 I was fortunate to win the Bausch and
Lomb Student Award which funded attendance at that year’s
ASPRS Annual Convention, in Washington DC. It was here
that I met for the first time many ASPRS members who were
to have a direct and positive influence on my professional ca-
reer over the next 40 years. Since then there have been many
other colleagues from the ASPRS ‘family’ with whom I have
been privileged to study, work and build lasting friendships.
What has been your most fulfilling accomplish-
ment as a scientist/engineer? Why?
I am in the fortunate position of having had a very satisfy-
ing career, the fulfilling accomplishments of which have been
both tangible and intangible. The intangibles center upon
my teaching and graduate student supervision, where I can
vicariously share the success of my students, especially the
many PhD students I’ve supervised. Recognition by peers and
the establishment of career-long professional associations
and friendships, especially in the international arena, have
also been fulfilling accomplishments. On the tangible side, as
an academic one should always aim for research relevance;
research outcomes should be useful to someone, somewhere.
In my own case, I have had the satisfying experience of tran-
sitioning research accomplishments into industry adopted
processes and procedures, and into commercial products and
services. This has been very satisfying. Finally, most academ-
ics are well aware of the all-too-true adage ‘publish or perish’.
It is all very well to publish a lot of research papers, but it’s
more satisfying to see that someone else is actually reading
your articles. Thus, the fact that at this point my publications
have been cited in nearly 6000 other published works is quite
a fulfilling accomplishment, at least to me.
