Milestones in Remote Sensing

1759
First statements by Lambert (France) of principles underlying photogrammetry
1839
First ever photographs by Daguerre and Nepce, in France
1840
French used photos in making topographic maps.
1850's
Photographs important in documenting exploration of the U.S. West (through 1870's).
1855
Maxwell proposed proof of trichromatic color vision by photographic experiments (1861; Sutton).
1858
Pictures of Paris from cameras mounted in free and captive balloons.
1862
Du Hauron analyzed multispectral imagery with single-lens beam splitter technique.
1860's
Claims of photos for military observations from balloons during American Civil War; none survive.
1870's
Simple additive color projection and viewing developed.
1880's
Camera airborne on kites in England, France, Russia.
1895
First color separations produced.
1895
Photos used by Seville in topographical surveys in Canada.
1900
Ives invented three-lens multispectral camera.
1903
Cameras attached to carrier pigeons.
1909
Wilbur Wright took first photos (movies) from an airplane.
1909
Berthon's lenticular color film process for additive system.
1910
Orel-Zeiss Stereoautograph: precursor to serial stereo-photos.
1915
Aerial photos used by British R.A.F. for reconnaissance, changing tactics of work in W.W.I.
1917
Unites States Signal corps used aerial photos in Mexican border war.
1920
Aerial photos used by petroleum geologists for exploration.
1923
Zeiss Stereoplanegraph.
1924
Multilayered color film developed.
1930
First aerial spectrophotography of the Earth by Krinov and colleagues (Russia).
1930's
Extensive use of aerial photos in Earth sciences and agriculture.
1931
Testing of aerial IR sensitive film from stratospheric balloon.
1935
Kodachrome appeared on market.
1937
Color film used in aerial surveys.
1938
Bausch and Lomb multiplex photogrammetric plotter.
1940
Kelsh plotters came into wide use.
1940
to
1943
Rapid advances in development of black-and-white and color IR (CIR) film for camouflage detection and haze penetration.
1941
Eardley's Aerial Photos: Their Use and Interpretation published
1940
to
1945
Tremendous strides in aerial photography and photogrammetry resulting from W.W.II military needs.
1944 First edition of AS's Manual of Photogrammetry.
1944 Military studies of water-depth penetration by two-band aerial photography.
1947 Publication of Krinov's Spectral Reflectance Properties of Natural Materials.
1950's Orthophoto mapping became popular.
1952 Color aerial photos used in geological mapping.
1953 Colwell (U.S.) demonstrated detection of disease and stress in vegetation (published 1956).
1950's Term "Remote Sensing" first used (generally ascribed to Evelyn Pruitt; see footnote on page Intro-1).
1956 Soviets published on spectro-zonal photography for mapping soils.
1960's Color film entered into common use in aerial photography.
1960 Colwell's Manual of Photointerpretation and Ray's Aerial Photographs in Geologic Interpretation and Mapping published.
1960's Considerable activity in multispectral photography applications.
1960 Wheeler's colorvision additive multispectral system.
1962 United States and Russian nine-lens multispectral cameras; Itek camera (ten lens) in 1963.
1963 USAF built Additive Color Viewer-Printer
1964 NASA inaugurated programs in testing usefulness of multiband photography for Earth resources.
1965 Multispectral additive color system developed by Yost and Wenderoth.
1967 First practical uses of UV photography.
1967 Two-volume Earth Resources Surveys from Space prepared by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
1968 ASP's Manual of Color Aerial Photography.
1968 SO65 multispectral photography experiment on Apollo-9
1975 Publication of ASP's Manual of Remote Sensing.
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