Home page for leberl

Head of Institute

Curriculum Vitae
I am a chaired professor of Computer Graphics and Vision and direct the Institute of the same name at Graz University of Technology. I founded the Institute in 1992 after I returned from a period in private business in the United States. From 1996 to 1999 I was on an extended leave of absence, initially (1996-1998) as CEO of the Austrian Research Center Seibersdorf (today Austrian Institute of Technology AIT with a total staff of almost 1000 people), and then in the USA. From 2003 to 2007, I went on another 4-year partial leave to focus on the development and market introduction of large format digital aerial precision cameras at Vexcel Imaging GmbH in Graz.

Born in 1945 in Germany, I grew up in Austria and graduated in 1967 from the Technical University in Vienna with a Dipl.-Ing. and in 1972 with a Dr. techn. (Applied Science), specializing in photogrammetry. I was awarded the Habilitation (venia docendi) from the University of Technology Graz in 1977 with a thesis on satellite radar image analysis. My career started in the Netherlands (1969-74) with a position in bringing technology to the Third World. I then worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology (NASA-Pasadena, California, 1974-76) and focused on the idea of mapping planet Venus by means of a cloud penetrating radar sensor. In a first professional period in Austria I was professor of photogrammetry and remote sensing at the Graz University of Technology (1976-84) and started the Research Institute for Digital Image Processing at Joanneum Research in Graz (1980). My return to the United States in 1984 resulted in two Colorado companies, Vexcel Corporation (1985) and Vexcel Imaging Corp. (1992). I also am the founder of an Austrian company, Vexcel Imaging GmbH (1993). Vexcel Corp. and Vexcel Imaging GmbH where acquired by Microsoft Corporation in 2006 to support its Virtual-Earth initiative (today Bing Maps). Vexcel Imaging GmbH has become Microsoft-Photogrammetry in Graz and I was at Microsoft Corporation between 2006-2007 as a Director of the Microsoft Virtual Earth Business Unit.

My “harvest” of doctoral projects produced more than 40 people with a degree of Dr. techn.  My publication records with papers, reports and books stands at about 300. In addition I hold about 14 patents. I received the Otto-von-Gruber Gold Medal from the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, the Fairchild Photogrammetric Award from the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, won several best paper awards, for example from the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, and an Achievement Award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for scientific work performed as part of NASA's Magellan mission to planet Venus. Since 1996, I am a Fellow of the IEEE. The President of the Republic of Austria awarded me the Grand Decoration of Honor in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria.

My 3 children now are grown, but at the time they did, and my patient wife Traudl still does, support a life that has moved back and forth between business/entrepreneurship and academic/research management, and between Austria and the USA.

Research Interests

Photogrammetric Computer Vision

3D Object Reconstruction

Highlights from a 40 Year Career

Streaming Links:
Video Material in English, November 2008: Innestonia-Talk in Tallinn (Estonia) "Microsoft Virtual Earth - Business Model, Future Development"

Video Material in German, May 2007: Leberl-Interview with Georg Holzer, Journalist in Graz (Austria) "About Vexcel, the Ultracam and Microsoft"

Video Material in German, June 2009: Colloquium at the Hasso-Plattner-Institute in Potsdam (Germany) "Representing the Human Habitat in the Internet"