Friedrich Töpfer (geodesist)

Friedrich Töpfer

Friedrich Karl Töpfer (born October 18, 1925 in Weißensee , Province of Saxony , † March 19, 2013 in Etzleben ) was a German geodesist and cartographer .

Life

After being in the autumn of 1945 in the agricultural had worked his father's business in Weissensee (Thüringen), Friedrich potter completed a three-month internship at the land registry office Erfurt and received in 1946 at the high school in Erfurt, the High School before he said from July 1, 1946 as an intern and down August 1st of the same year worked as a draftsman again at the land registry office in Erfurt. From 1947 to 1952 he studied surveying at the Technical University of Dresden . He was then employed as a graduate engineer by the Land Survey Office Thuringia and a few months later he became a topography consultant at the Surveying Service Thuringia in Erfurt, which corresponds to the former and later the Land Survey Office.

In 1954 he returned to the Technical University of Dresden, where he worked as an assistant or from 1956 as a senior assistant at the Chair of Surveying at the Geodetic Institute and was a research assistant at the Institute for Cartography at the Technical University from 1960 to 1966 and from 1961 at the Technical University of Dresden. He received his doctorate in 1956. In 1961 he completed his habilitation and received the Facultas Docendi for topography and topographic cartography . In 1966 he became a lecturer in topography and topographical cartography at the Institute for Cartography and was acting head of this institute from 1970 to 1972 , which was now called the Cartography Department . In 1990 he was appointed Extraordinary Professor and appointed the first director of the from the field of science Cartography incurred Institute of Cartography and Geography at the Faculty building, water and forestry chosen.

Friedrich Töpfer gained particular importance through his extensive work on cartographic generalization and, in particular, through the development of the law of roots, which is the basis for many generalization algorithms to this day . Some even take the view that all generalization tasks can be solved with this law of roots - a view that is judged differently by experts. In 1968 Friedrich Töpfer initiated research into the automation of the production of topographical and thematic maps , which at the time had been declared the main focus of research, and contributed important solutions of his own. Until 1975 he was responsible for this branch of research and supervised 30 diploma students and ten doctoral students.

Friedrich Töpfer was married and had two daughters and a son.

Main publications

• Deriving the angles of superordinate triangles from triangular networks (dissertation); 1956
• Surveying for cartographers . Part II: Land surveying ; 1957
• Investigations for the assessment of topographical layer line representations (habilitation); 1961
• The law of roots and its application in relief generalization . In: Surveying Technology; Berlin 10 (1962); Pages 37-42
• The Principles of Selection . In: The Cartographic Journal; Volume 3, Number 1, May 1966; Pages 10–16 (together with Wolfgang Pillewizer)
• Lawful generalization and map design . In: Vermessungstechnik 15 (1967) 2; Pages 65-71. Reprinted in: Cartographic Writings. Volume 5, 2000, pages 42-47
• Basics and methods of contour generalization . Works from the surveying and mapping of the GDR. Volume 27; Leipzig 1972
• Cartographic generalization ; Gotha 1974; 2nd edition 1979
• To study the exponential distribution of river networks . In: Contributions to theoretical cartography. Festschrift for Erik Arnberger ; Franz Deuticke, Vienna 1977; Pages 141-161
• Generalization tasks in GIS . In: GEO information systems; Issue 3 Volume 5 (1992); Pages 7-12

Honors

• 1974: Bronze badge of honor of the Chamber of Technology of the German Democratic Republic (KdT)

See also

• Dresden School of Cartography

literature

• Wolf Günther Koch: Friedrich Töpfer 80 years . In: Kartographische Nachrichten 2/2006; Page 93
• Dorit Petschel : 175 years of TU Dresden. Volume 3: The professors of the TU Dresden 1828–2003. Edited on behalf of the Society of Friends and Supporters of the TU Dresden e. V. von Reiner Pommerin , Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2003, ISBN 3-412-02503-8 .
• Various authors: TU Dresden (editor): Cartographic building blocks KB 8th honorary colloquium Friedrich Töpfer ; Institute for Cartography, Cartographic-Technical Facility, Dresden 1992

Other sources

1. ^ Technical University of Dresden, University archive : Personal files Friedrich Töpfer