scholarly journals EVALUATION OF VERTICAL LACUNARITY PROFILES IN FORESTED AREAS USING AIRBORNE LASER SCANNING POINT CLOUDS

Author(s):  
B. Székely ◽  
A. Kania ◽  
T. Standovár ◽  
H. Heilmeier

The horizontal variation and vertical layering of the vegetation are important properties of the canopy structure determining the habitat; three-dimensional (3D) distribution of objects (shrub layers, understory vegetation, etc.) is related to the environmental factors (e.g., illumination, visibility). It has been shown that gaps in forests, mosaic-like structures are essential to biodiversity; various methods have been introduced to quantify this property. As the distribution of gaps in the vegetation is a multi-scale phenomenon, in order to capture it in its entirety, scale-independent methods are preferred; one of these is the calculation of lacunarity. <br><br> We used Airborne Laser Scanning point clouds measured over a forest plantation situated in a former floodplain. The flat topographic relief ensured that the tree growth is independent of the topographic effects. The tree pattern in the plantation crops provided various quasi-regular and irregular patterns, as well as various ages of the stands. The point clouds were voxelized and layers of voxels were considered as images for two-dimensional input. These images calculated for a certain vicinity of reference points were taken as images for the computation of lacunarity curves, providing a stack of lacunarity curves for each reference points. These sets of curves have been compared to reveal spatial changes of this property. As the dynamic range of the lacunarity values is very large, the natural logarithms of the values were considered. Logarithms of lacunarity functions show canopy-related variations, we analysed these variations along transects. The spatial variation can be related to forest properties and ecology-specific aspects.

Author(s):  
B. Székely ◽  
A. Kania ◽  
T. Standovár ◽  
H. Heilmeier

The horizontal variation and vertical layering of the vegetation are important properties of the canopy structure determining the habitat; three-dimensional (3D) distribution of objects (shrub layers, understory vegetation, etc.) is related to the environmental factors (e.g., illumination, visibility). It has been shown that gaps in forests, mosaic-like structures are essential to biodiversity; various methods have been introduced to quantify this property. As the distribution of gaps in the vegetation is a multi-scale phenomenon, in order to capture it in its entirety, scale-independent methods are preferred; one of these is the calculation of lacunarity. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt; We used Airborne Laser Scanning point clouds measured over a forest plantation situated in a former floodplain. The flat topographic relief ensured that the tree growth is independent of the topographic effects. The tree pattern in the plantation crops provided various quasi-regular and irregular patterns, as well as various ages of the stands. The point clouds were voxelized and layers of voxels were considered as images for two-dimensional input. These images calculated for a certain vicinity of reference points were taken as images for the computation of lacunarity curves, providing a stack of lacunarity curves for each reference points. These sets of curves have been compared to reveal spatial changes of this property. As the dynamic range of the lacunarity values is very large, the natural logarithms of the values were considered. Logarithms of lacunarity functions show canopy-related variations, we analysed these variations along transects. The spatial variation can be related to forest properties and ecology-specific aspects.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 2938
Author(s):  
Feng Li ◽  
Haihong Zhu ◽  
Zhenwei Luo ◽  
Hang Shen ◽  
Lin Li

Separating point clouds into ground and nonground points is an essential step in the processing of airborne laser scanning (ALS) data for various applications. Interpolation-based filtering algorithms have been commonly used for filtering ALS point cloud data. However, most conventional interpolation-based algorithms have exhibited a drawback in terms of retaining abrupt terrain characteristics, resulting in poor algorithmic precision in these regions. To overcome this drawback, this paper proposes an improved adaptive surface interpolation filter with a multilevel hierarchy by using a cloth simulation and relief amplitude. This method uses three hierarchy levels of provisional digital elevation model (DEM) raster surfaces with thin plate spline (TPS) interpolation to separate ground points from unclassified points based on adaptive residual thresholds. A cloth simulation algorithm is adopted to generate sufficient effective initial ground seeds for constructing topographic surfaces with high quality. Residual thresholds are adaptively constructed by the relief amplitude of the examined area to capture complex landscape characteristics during the classification process. Fifteen samples from the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) commission are used to assess the performance of the proposed algorithm. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method can produce satisfying results in both flat areas and steep areas. In a comparison with other approaches, this method demonstrates its superior performance in terms of filtering results with the lowest omission error rate; in particular, the proposed approach retains discontinuous terrain features with steep slopes and terraces.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 261
Author(s):  
Francisco Mauro ◽  
Andrew T. Hudak ◽  
Patrick A. Fekety ◽  
Bryce Frank ◽  
Hailemariam Temesgen ◽  
...  

Airborne laser scanning (ALS) acquisitions provide piecemeal coverage across the western US, as collections are organized by local managers of individual project areas. In this study, we analyze different factors that can contribute to developing a regional strategy to use information from completed ALS data acquisitions and develop maps of multiple forest attributes in new ALS project areas in a rapid manner. This study is located in Oregon, USA, and analyzes six forest structural attributes for differences between: (1) synthetic (i.e., not-calibrated), and calibrated predictions, (2) parametric linear and semiparametric models, and (3) models developed with predictors computed for point clouds enclosed in the areas where field measurements were taken, i.e., “point-cloud predictors”, and models developed using predictors extracted from pre-rasterized layers, i.e., “rasterized predictors”. Forest structural attributes under consideration are aboveground biomass, downed woody biomass, canopy bulk density, canopy height, canopy base height, and canopy fuel load. Results from our study indicate that semiparametric models perform better than parametric models if no calibration is performed. However, the effect of the calibration is substantial in reducing the bias of parametric models but minimal for the semiparametric models and, once calibrations are performed, differences between parametric and semiparametric models become negligible for all responses. In addition, minimal differences between models using point-cloud predictors and models using rasterized predictors were found. We conclude that the approach that applies semiparametric models and rasterized predictors, which represents the easiest workflow and leads to the most rapid results, is justified with little loss in accuracy or precision even if no calibration is performed.


Author(s):  
Yuzhou Zhou ◽  
Ronggang Huang ◽  
Tengping Jiang ◽  
Zhen Dong ◽  
Bisheng Yang

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 882-893 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Doneus ◽  
Christian Briese ◽  
Martin Fera ◽  
Martin Janner

Author(s):  
Leena Matikainen ◽  
Juha Hyyppä ◽  
Paula Litkey

During the last 20 years, airborne laser scanning (ALS), often combined with multispectral information from aerial images, has shown its high feasibility for automated mapping processes. Recently, the first multispectral airborne laser scanners have been launched, and multispectral information is for the first time directly available for 3D ALS point clouds. This article discusses the potential of this new single-sensor technology in map updating, especially in automated object detection and change detection. For our study, Optech Titan multispectral ALS data over a suburban area in Finland were acquired. Results from a random forests analysis suggest that the multispectral intensity information is useful for land cover classification, also when considering ground surface objects and classes, such as roads. An out-of-bag estimate for classification error was about 3% for separating classes asphalt, gravel, rocky areas and low vegetation from each other. For buildings and trees, it was under 1%. According to feature importance analyses, multispectral features based on several channels were more useful that those based on one channel. Automatic change detection utilizing the new multispectral ALS data, an old digital surface model (DSM) and old building vectors was also demonstrated. Overall, our first analyses suggest that the new data are very promising for further increasing the automation level in mapping. The multispectral ALS technology is independent of external illumination conditions, and intensity images produced from the data do not include shadows. These are significant advantages when the development of automated classification and change detection procedures is considered.


Author(s):  
W. Ostrowski ◽  
M. Pilarska ◽  
J. Charyton ◽  
K. Bakuła

Creating 3D building models in large scale is becoming more popular and finds many applications. Nowadays, a wide term “3D building models” can be applied to several types of products: well-known CityGML solid models (available on few Levels of Detail), which are mainly generated from Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data, as well as 3D mesh models that can be created from both nadir and oblique aerial images. City authorities and national mapping agencies are interested in obtaining the 3D building models. Apart from the completeness of the models, the accuracy aspect is also important. Final accuracy of a building model depends on various factors (accuracy of the source data, complexity of the roof shapes, etc.). In this paper the methodology of inspection of dataset containing 3D models is presented. The proposed approach check all building in dataset with comparison to ALS point clouds testing both: accuracy and level of details. Using analysis of statistical parameters for normal heights for reference point cloud and tested planes and segmentation of point cloud provides the tool that can indicate which building and which roof plane in do not fulfill requirement of model accuracy and detail correctness. Proposed method was tested on two datasets: solid and mesh model.


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