ASPRS Certification: Certified Photogrammetrist, Mapping Scientist and Technologist

ASPRS — the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing — runs a certification program for mapping professionals at two levels: Mapping Scientist and Technologist.

Certified Photogrammetrist sits inside the Mapping Scientist level.

The specialty areas are Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Lidar and UAS, with GIS added in the society's June 2026 certification guidelines.

The program is voluntary, open to non-members, and accredited by the Council of Engineering and Scientific Specialty Boards (CESB).

ASPRS also says state-licensed land surveyors may choose either level.

Which credential fits depends on where you are in your career, and the experience requirements do the sorting: six years for Certified Photogrammetrist, about three at the Technologist level.

For the job behind the credential, begin with the photogrammetrist career guide.

ASPRS publishes four requirements for Certified Photogrammetrist.

The core is experience: six years in photogrammetry, three of them in a position of professional responsibility demonstrating professional knowledge and competence.

The other three are references, ethics and an exam.

Candidates need four references from people in responsible photogrammetry positions, agreement to the ASPRS Code of Ethics, and a written exam.

Education counts toward the experience total rather than replacing it.

A bachelor's degree, a master's and a doctorate each add half a year of experience credit under ASPRS's published terms.

If you are short of the six-year bar, the Technologist level is the realistic entry point — the next section covers it.

The Technologist level is ASPRS's earlier-career credential, sitting inside the same program whose specialty areas span Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Lidar, UAS and — per the society's June 2026 guidelines — GIS.

ASPRS's guidelines set the experience requirement at three years total, two of them in the specialty category; ASPRS's certification page instead describes three years of active experience in the specialty category applied for.

Because the society's own materials differ, read the current guidelines for your specialty before you count your years.

Beyond experience, ASPRS's Technologist requirements are four references, a fee, and a written exam that follows peer review.

The specialty follows your work: for scanning and mobile-mapping staff, the Lidar specialty is the natural ASPRS track to look at, and the role itself is covered in the lidar technician guide.

Drone crews fit UAS — and that specialty is separate from the certificate a mapping pilot flies under, the FAA Remote Pilot Certificate; Part 107 for surveying covers the federal side.

ASPRS gives its exams through Prometric, at test centers or by remote proctoring.

Candidates may bring one bound reference and a hand-held calculator into the exam.

Exam length depends on the level.

Technologist exams last no longer than 2 hours; Mapping Scientist exams, including Certified Photogrammetrist, no longer than 4 hours.

Fees, as ASPRS publishes them in US dollars, are:

Prometric charges its own testing fees on top of the ASPRS fee.

Certifications are time-limited.

Scientist-level certifications, including Certified Photogrammetrist, run five years and renew with 100 PDHs plus four references.

Certified Technologists recertify every three years with 60 PDHs.

They are different instruments.

ASPRS certification is a voluntary credential from a professional society; a surveying license comes from a state licensing board, and it is the board's license — not any society certification — that authorizes the practice of surveying where a state requires one.

ASPRS itself says state-licensed land surveyors may choose either of its certification levels, which places the credential alongside licensure rather than instead of it.

The two meet at the deliverable.

NCEES's Model Rules — a model that states adapt into their own law, not a national rule — list activities that must be done by or under a professional surveyor.

The list includes creating maps or georeferenced databases showing authoritative boundary, fixed-works or topographic locations, certifying positional accuracy, adjusting raw survey data, and GIS parcel mapping used to define boundaries.

Original data acquisition for orthoimagery and elevation themes used for authoritative location is listed too.

The model also draws exclusions: transcribing previously georeferenced data into a GIS, maintaining it, and GIS tax-map or zoning cadastres stay outside surveying so long as the data are clearly not intended to show authoritative boundaries, earth shape or fixed works.

The Model Law adds a photogrammetrist-specific route.

It lets a board license photogrammetrists as professional surveyors through a time-limited grandfather clause requiring at least eight years' experience, two or more of them in responsible charge of photogrammetric mapping projects.

That is model language — whether a given state's board offers such a route, and on what terms, is that state's decision.

So the question of whether your photogrammetric work needs a license has a state-by-state answer, and the board that licenses surveyors in your state is the one that gives it.

For how state licensing is structured, see the land surveyor license guide.

Career information, not legal or licensing advice. Confirm certification requirements with ASPRS, and surveying practice rules with the board that licenses land surveyors in your state.