Abstract
Airborne laser scanning (LiDAR) point clouds over large forested areas can be processed to segment individual trees and subsequently extract tree-level information. Existing segmentation procedures typically detect more than 90% of overstory trees, yet they barely detect 60% of understory trees because of the occlusion effect of higher canopy layers. Although understory trees provide limited financial value, they are an essential component of ecosystem functioning by offering habitat for numerous wildlife species and influencing stand development. Here we model the occlusion effect in terms of point density. We estimate the fractions of points representing different canopy layers (one overstory and multiple understory) and also pinpoint the required density for reasonable tree segmentation (where accuracy plateaus). We show that at a density of ~170 pt/m² understory trees can likely be segmented as accurately as overstory trees. Given the advancements of LiDAR sensor technology, point clouds will affordably reach this required density. Using modern computational approaches for big data, the denser point clouds can efficiently be processed to ultimately allow accurate remote quantification of forest resources. The methodology can also be adopted for other similar remote sensing or advanced imaging applications such as geological subsurface modelling or biomedical tissue analysis.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-28-2017
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-07200-0
Funding Information
This work was supported by: (1) the Department of Forestry at the University of Kentucky and the McIntire-Stennis project KY009026 Accession 1001477, (ii) the Kentucky Science and Engineering Foundation under the grant KSEF-3405-RDE-018, and (iii) the University of Kentucky Centre for Computational Sciences. The authors would also like to thank Chase Clark for helping with creation of Figure 1 and specially Prof. Dr. Kenneth L. Calvert for providing funds for open access publication.
Repository Citation
Hamraz, Hamid; Contreras, Marco A.; and Zhang, Jun, "Forest Understory Trees Can Be Segmented Accurately Within Sufficiently Dense Airborne Laser Scanning Point Clouds" (2017). Computer Science Faculty Publications. 12.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cs_facpub/12
Notes/Citation Information
Published in Scientific Reports, v. 7, article no.: 6770, p. 1-9.
© The Author(s) 2017
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