A joint scientific paper on LiDAR for river bottom imaging in very shallow waters led by RIEGL has won the 2019 ISPRS Best Paper Award. The best article of the year is selected by ISPRS (International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing) each year from a wide range of articles published in ISPRS magazine in the field of photogrammetry and remote sensing. The 2019 Award goes to Mr. Schwartz et al., Entitled "Design and Evaluation of a Full-Wave Surface and Bottom-Detection Algorithm for LiDAR Bathymetry of Very Shallow."

In collaboration with the Vienna University of Technology and the University of Stuttgart, Roland Schwartz and colleagues from the RIEGL research team were able to demonstrate a new and innovative model in underwater topographic mapping with the SVB (surface, volume and floor) algorithm. A significant advantage of their method is that it relies on only one laser wavelength. The jury was impressed with the precise modeling of the return waveform, the clarity of the description, the convincing experimental results, and the potential for wider application of the method.