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Suzhou Celebrities

  • Zhang Zuxun“张祖勋”

Life story

Zhang Zuxun , an expert in photogrammetry and remote sensing. He is a native of Suzhou though his ancestral home was in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. Zhang is a member of the Communist Party of China. During the period from 1943 to 1954, he studied successively in the former Suzhou Wanbin Primary School, Taowu Middle School, Heqing Middle School and Suzhou No.1 Middle School. The year 1955 saw his admission to the Department of Surveying of Tongji University in Shanghai. He graduated from the Department of Aerophotogrammetry of Wuhan Technical Institute of Surveying and Mapping in 1960. Upon his graduation, Zhang stayed and became a teacher of the Institute. In 1968, he received his master’s degree. From 1970 to 1975, he was transferred to the PLA Institute of Surveying and Mapping to teach. From 1988 to 1997, he first served as a lecturer and then associate professor of Wuhan Science and Technology University of Surveying and Mapping; professor and director of the Department of Aerophotogrammetry and Remote Sensing, and vice president of Wuhan Science and Technology University of Surveying; and director of the State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering of Surveying and Remote Sensing of the University. Now he serves as a professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Remote Sensing Information Engineering of Wuhan University, and the honorary chairman of Imaging Information Engineering Research Institute of Suzhou Institute of Wuhan University, Co., Ltd. Zhang is an academic leader of photogrammetry in China. He helped systematically and comprehensively develop the theories of photogrammetry and made breakthroughs in the theories of digital photogrammetry and theories and methodology of image matching, etc. He also directed a number of major national and ministerial scientific research projects. It took him 14 years to complete the fruitful research on total digital auto-mapping. Zhang’s “VirtuoZo Digital Photogrammetric Workstation” and the Digital Photogrammetric Grid (DPGrid), a new generation of digital photogrammetric processing platform for aerospace industry, brought the study of photogrammetry to a cross-era phase. They not only filled the corresponding technical vacuum in China but also marked that the country’s digital photogrammetric technology in general reached the internationally advanced level. His efforts contributed significantly to the industrial revolution and international influence of China’s photogrammetry. Over the last few years, Zhang worked on and successfully developed the advanced production system of Zi Yuan-3 (ZY-3) remote sensing satellite which is characteristic of total automatic operation. This success opened up a new field in the study of photogrammetry and achieved a breakthrough in the processing technology of domestically made remote sensing satellites. Zhang has committed himself to applying the latest progress in digital photogrammetry to such new fields as engineering design, engineering survey, archaeology and the establishment of digital cities. What he has achieved in total digital auto-mapping won him the second prize of the National Natural Science Award in 1993 and the second prize of the State Science and Technology Progress Award in 1999. Zhang’s other honors include the title of “National Advanced Scientific and Technological Worker in Higher Education Institutions” issued by the Ministry of Education and the State Science and Technology Commission, and “National Young and Middle-aged Expert with Outstanding Contributions” by the Ministry of Personnel. He has authored such books as Digital Photogrammetry, etc. In 1995, he was elected as an academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences. The year 2003 witnessed his election as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

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