Successful PhD defense of Günther Sagl

December, 17, 2012 Günther Sagl successfully defended his PhD Thesis, entitled "Spatio-Temporal Analyses of Environmental and Social In Situ Sensor Data".

Günther Sagl convincingly presented and defended his research work. Prof. Blaschke served as the chair of the examination panel, Prof. Siegfried Reich (director of Salzburg Research) and Prof. Martin Raubal (ETH Zürich, Switzerland) acted as discussants. After the presentation of the major achievements by the candidate a lively and challenging discussion examined the major achievements of the research work.  Nearly 50 visitors followed this interesting defence, and some participants took the chance to actively engage in this discussion.

This was the first defence in the context of the Doctoral College “GIScience”. Günther Sagl was one of currently 10 associated students of the DK. His defence offered him the opportunity to establish himself as an expert in the field of his work of research. With this degree Günther has achieved the next step in his career and we congratulate him to his performance and wish him all the best for his future career as a scientist!

Successful LiDAR Intensive Course

LiDAR @ Paris-Lodron University

The Department of Geoinformatics - Z_GIS hosted a LiDAR Intensive Programme  from November 30 – December 5, 2012 in Salzburg, Austria. The event was supported by the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) which took place December 4-5, 2012 at Salzburg Congress.  

Twenty-five participants (from 15 nations) from industry, higher education (including UNIGIS students), research institutions and governmental entities attended the course at the Natural Sciences Faculty of the University of Salzburg. In a series of lectures, tutorials and hands-on sessions participants studied LiDAR (aerial, terrestrial and mobile) sensors, various spatial analysis tools and novel applications in the field.

Representatives from academia and the LiDAR industries (University of Heidelberg, Microsoft, Intergraph, Technical University of Vienna, Exelis, Riegl, LAStools, ESRI, Trimble etc) shared their knowledge and expertise with the students and discussed future developments and challenges of LiDAR technologies. Course keynotes featured “LiDAR aerial sensors” by Norbert Pfeifer (Technical University of Vienna) and “Mapping the future as an intelligent 3D map” by Lawrie Jordan (Director of Imagery, ESRI). The ELMF provided an international platform for networking and communicating with conference participants and LiDAR associated enterprises.  Thank you to all speakers, sponsors and participants of the LiDAR Short Intensive Programme for sharing in the lively exchange!