The luminosity calibration of the uvby-$β$ photometry

The ESA HIPPARCOS satellite has provided astrometry of unprecedented accuracy, allowing to reassess, improve and refine the pre-HIPPARCOS luminosity calibrations. We review the "classical" absolute magnitude calibrations with the Stroemgren-Crawford intermediate-band photometric system. A small zero point correction of about 2-4% seems necessary, as well as to refine the dependences on metallicity and projected rotational velocity. The need of a rigorous statistical treatment of the extremely precise HIPPARCOS to derive definite dependences of the luminosity on physical stellar parameters is emphasized.