Dear SilviLaser community!
The year 2020 was a huge challenge for all of us due to the Covid-19 pandemic and also 2021 starts very troublesome. Currently, there are still lockdowns in many countries and many international travel restrictions are still in place. How the situation will develop until the end of September 2021 can only be predicted with great uncertainty. We (TU Wien together with the company Umweltdata) as the organizing team of the SilviLaser 2021 have decided to organize and to carry out the SilviLaser 2021. In any case, the SilviLaser 2021 will take place in Vienna.
We will definitely provide the possibility of digital participation for presenters, exhibitors and participants at SilviLaser 2021 in order to enable all those colleagues to participate who cannot come to Vienna in September 29th to October 1st 2021 – no matter if this is due to travel restrictions, avoid a long flight due to climate protection, financial restrictions or other reasons. For virtual participation in SilviLaser 2021, all barriers will be reduced as good as possible. But we do hope, that travel restrictions will be relieved until then and we want to warmly invite the community to gather physically in Vienna.
From the current perspective, we expect to hold SilviLaser 2021 as a hybrid conference. We will comply with all applicable safety regulations on site and also planning an on-site health check, if needed. You can be sure, that all precautionary measures will be provided to keep our guests safe and sane during the conference and the excursions
We will make the final decision on the format of SilviLaser 2021 until the end of April 2021. Apart from that, we are of course very happy to welcome you physically here in Vienna.
In addition to the conference program (live and/or video presentations, exhibition stands), an attractive benchmark will be organized in several field-sites near Vienna where companies and institutions can demonstrate their measurement equipment. The recorded data will be made available to the community as open-access data. In the context of this benchmark you will have the unique opportunity to get in contact with the companies and experience the data acquisition live and thus get a deep understanding of the characteristics of the individual LiDAR systems.
In the next days, the first call for abstracts will be published. We would therefore be very pleased if you already plan your active participation in SilviLaser 2021, be it physically in Vienna or via video. The call for benchmark participants will be published as well.
If you are interested in organized cultural trips on the weekends before or after the conference, please let us know.
On behalf of the organizing team, I wish the entire community to get well through the pandemic. We surely will have an exciting and interesting SilviLaser 2021.
Best regards,
Markus Hollaus
(Chair of the Organizing Committee)