Dear eCognition Community,

With Trimble’s announcement this year transitioning eCognition to a legacy model—meaning it is no longer actively sold as a new product, though it remains fully supported—I found myself reflecting on my long history with this remarkable software.

Twenty-five years ago, eCognition’s image object approach completely fascinated me. It opened the door to an entirely new form of data fusion and dynamic data analysis. I was so captivated by its potential that I knew exactly what I wanted: I absolutely had to work with this software, and eventually, I wanted to work for it.

I first started using eCognition in 2001, and although I have only been using it for smaller image analysis tasks since 2018, it has been a massive part of my professional life. Looking back, here are a few of my personal eCognition milestones:

• 2001 – eCognition version 2.0: Full of bugs but bursting with potential, this was my first real hands-on contact with the software.

• 2005 – Joining the team: I achieved my goal and officially became part of the eCognition team as a Consultant.

• 2010 – A new chapter: The Definiens Earth Business Unit was acquired by Trimble.

• 2011 – eCognition version 8.7: Introducing SVM, CART, and point cloud handling. This was incredibly special to me as it was my first version as eCognition Product Manager.

• 2014 – eCognition version 9.3: Featuring native vector handling, template matching, and a 3D point cloud viewer. This was my final version as eCognition Product Manager.

While the software itself is moving into a legacy phase, I am absolutely certain that the core "eCognition idea" will live on and continue to be developed in other forms in the future. At least, I certainly hope so!

Thank you to everyone in this community for keeping the passion for object-based image analysis alive.

Best regards,

Christian