was held from 30th March to the 3rd April at the Gasteig Centre and adjacent hotels in Munich, Germany. A Central Symposium, split into five parallel sessions ran concurrently with four further "satellite" symposia and in total attracted approximately 2000 registered participants. There were 358 registered Central Symposium papers and 229 Satellite Symposium papers all of which had a common thread: the development of space technology including topics such as Meteorology, Mission Planning, High Energy Astrophysics. Space based Navigation Systems, Mapping/GIS and others.
The formal presentations were supported by an exhibition and a poster gallery of 162 items, though some failed to appear. An additional exhibition was held nearby and was open to the public. This described man's exploits in space through videos, holograms, a range of posters (offered free of charge), models and manufacturer's stands. This seemed to be well attended and one could imagine many of the school children leaving inspired by their visit. Munich also joined in the celebration by offering a programme of space-related films at the local cinemas.
Three recpetions were held; on the initial evening at the MiJnchner Residenz; a never-to-beforgotten "Bavarian Evening" hosted by the German Aerospace Industry and finally a reception at the extensive Deutsches Museum. The latter ended with a short but dramatic laser show specially commissioned for the evening. The show included a rotating globe, space vehicles and other features emphasising European involvement in space.
The conference formally opened with an introduction from the German Federal Minister for Research and Technology. This was followed by introductory papers linking space activity with the Columbus 500th anniversary and the 35th anniversary of the International Geophysical Year (1957). Each event was identified as a springboard for future discovery and man's accomplishments.
This report is confined to Satellite Symposium II: "Image Processing, GIS and Space Assisted Mapping". The subject content of the four days was put together by OEEPE and headed for the week by Ian Dowman of UCL (University College London). The theme of the first session was 'Mapping from Satellite Data' and attracted one of the best audiences of the week with approximately 80 participants.
Dowman delivered a resume of space-related OEEPE activity such as tests using LFC (Large Format Camera) photography, SPOT triangulation, SPOT image interpretation etc. Baudoin (CNES, Paris) followed covering "Future Observation Satellites " emphasising user needs of GIS, DTMs and thematic requirements to serve a range of important applications. He saw space techniques developing further: triangulation, correlation will be supplemented by new techniques such as SAR Interferometry in DTM creation and pattern recognition using artificial intelligence. Advanced sensors will be required and he expected the SPOT-NG (New Generation) series, i.e. SPOT-5 and beyond, to include fore/aft arrays with 5 m or possibly 2.5 m pixel resolution. He also revealed that a SPOT SAR sensor is being considered.
SPOT was also the subject of papers by Rivereau (SPOT Image, Toulouse) and Galtier (IGN-Espace, France). Both described work undertaken using SPOT imagery such as line-mapping and in particular the preparation of imagemaps. IGN have doubled production of SPOT-based