Timo Balz was born in Stuttgart, Germany. He received the Doctoral degree (Dr.-Ing.) in aerospace engineering and geodesy from the Universitaet Stuttgart, Stuttgart, in 2007.From fall 2001 to the end of 2007, he was a Research Assistant with the Institute for Photogrammetry, Universitaet Stuttgart. Between 2004 and 2005, he was a Visiting Scholar with Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.