Franz W. Leberl

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Franz Leberl (2006)

Franz W. Leberl (* 1945 in Gersdorf ) is an Austrian photogrammeter and professor for computer graphics and vision at the Graz University of Technology .

Life

Born in Germany, Franz W. Leberl grew up in Austria, where he studied geodesy at the Vienna University of Technology in 1967 as a Dipl.-Ing. completed. In 1972 the Dr. techn. in applied sciences with a specialization in the field of photogrammetry . In 1977 he completed his habilitation at Graz University of Technology with a thesis on satellite radar image analysis.

His career began in 1969 at the ITC (International Training Center), now the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation in the Netherlands. In 1974 he moved to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) / California Institute of Technology ( National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Pasadena, California), where he was responsible for mapping the planet Venus with the help of imaging radar systems as part of the Magellan mission. After his return to Austria in 1976, Leberl held a professorship for photogrammetry and remote sensing at TU Graz, during which he founded the research institute for digital image processing at Joanneum Research in Graz in 1980 . When he returned to the USA in 1984, he first worked as managing director of the Markhurd Corporation (Minneapolis, 1984–1985), then he founded two companies in Colorado, the Vexcel Corp. (1985) and Vexcel Imaging Corp. (1992). The recent return to Austria was in 1992 as a professor for computer-aided geometry and graphics (later renamed to machine vision and representation) at the ICG of Graz University of Technology, which he founded himself, followed in 1993 by the founding of an Austrian branch of his company Vexcel (Vexcel Imaging Austria) in Graz . Between 1996 and 1998 Leberl was on leave from the ICG as CEO of the Research Center Seiberdorf (with over 700 employees).

Vexcel has meanwhile been sold to Microsoft ; Since October 1, 2007, Leberl has devoted himself exclusively to his work at the university.

Franz W. Leberl is married and has three children.

Act

Franz Leberl has published around 300 scientific papers, reports and books, supervised over 40 dissertations as a first reviewer and holds 15 patents. In 1989, with his book "Radargrammetric Image Processing" (Artech House, Boston), he made a significant contribution to the emergence of radargrammetry as a discipline related to photogrammetry related to radar image data . He is also an advocate of interdisciplinary collaboration in the fields of photogrammetry and computer vision, which led to the motto "Photogrammetric Computer Vision", which he coined. Similarly, he has always emphasized the commonalities of the separately developed scientific areas of computer graphics and computer vision and supervised them together in his environment.

He established the Austrian Working Group for Pattern Recognition in 1980 and received honorary membership of this association. The Seibersdorf Research Center was increasingly internationalized under his leadership (hence the name change to "Austrian Research Centers", today the Austrian Institute of Technology AIT), activities in the federal states were added and its focus on nuclear research changed to other topics. In addition, the previously cameralistic administration was replaced by a modern management of business areas based on profit and loss presentation.

The work in the company Vexcel Corp. (USA) led to a deep specialization in radar image and signal processing, including several world-leading innovations in interferometry, polarimetry, direct recording of satellite data streams on disks instead of magnetic tapes. In the field of remote sensing, a number of satellite receiving stations have been developed and installed worldwide. The Graz-based company Vexcel Imaging GmbH exploited various inventions, initially in the area of ​​film digitization using the UltraScan scanning system, and most recently through the construction and sale of the world's most powerful, digital, large-format aerial cameras, UltraCam.

A particular concern of the academic work at TU Graz are innovations in the creation of computer models of urban areas in 3 dimensions (3D Virtual Habitat). The first applications emerged towards the end of 1990 in the calculation of signal strengths for mobile telephony. Since 2006, these developments have provided significant impulses for location-based Internet searches.

Awards

  • 2005: Great Silver Medal of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria
  • Otto von Gruber Prize of the International Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing (ISPRS)
  • Fairchild Photogrammetric Award from the American Society of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing (ASPRS)
  • Best Paper Awards (including those from the IEEE Society for Geosciences and Remote Sensing)
  • NASA Achievement Award
  • Fellow status of the IEEE
  • Golden Brock Medal for his life's work in the field of remote sensing from the ISPRS

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Revolutionary aerial camera: Universal talent Franz Leberl receives top-class US award. Retrieved March 23, 2012 .
  2. ↑ www.ITC.nl
  3. ↑ www.vexcel.com
  4. ^ TU Graz
  5. ↑ Austrian working group for pattern recognition
  6. ↑ Austrian Institute of Technology AIT ( Memento of the original from November 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arcs.ac.at
  7. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
  8. ^ "Golden Brock Medal" for Graz researcher Leberl on ORF from August 29, 2012, accessed on August 29, 2012.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Leberl, Franz W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian photogrammeter and professor
DATE OF BIRTH 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Germany