Airborne LiDAR for forest mapping Poate Degei1, Fabian Enßle², Wolf Forstreuter 1 Barbara Koch² 1 SPC/SOPAC GIS/RS ²Department of Remote Sensing and Landscape Information Systems - FeLIS

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 2 Introduction to Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) ALS data recorded at Nadi Various capabilities of LiDAR data TreesVIS software Summary & Conclusion Outline

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 3 ALS is an active remote sensing technique Laser scanner can be mounted on airplanes, helicopters or UAV’s Laser scanner technology has several advantages 3D mapping of vegetation Laser penetrates thru canopy Principals and data will be described in next slides Airborne Laserscanning (ALS) Source:

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 4 Easting Northing ElevationIntensity L ILLESAND ET AL T SOULIS 2006 C. Brenner ISPRS Summer school 2006 Airborne Laserscanning (ALS)

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 5 Airborne Laserscanning (ALS)

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 6 First ALS data recorded in Viti Levu ALS data flight in Nadi area A subset is used in next slides Financed by World Bank May, 2012 Island Hoppers helicopter Light Detection & Ranging equipment Demonstration area

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 7 Bird view A B Look from Mark B towards A Airborne Laserscanning (ALS) Cross section between mark A and mark B (depth 5m)

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 8 Airborne Laserscanning (ALS) Calculation of Digital Terrain Models (DTM)

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 9 Airborne Laserscanning (ALS) Calculation of Digital Surface Models (DSM)

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 10 Airborne Laserscanning (ALS) normalized DSM (nDSM) Height of objects Vegetation Buildings

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 11 Airborne Laserscanning (ALS) Inclination (surface slope) calculation Precise DTM‘s important Accessibility to forests Environmental modeling Soil erosion Water drainage

12 Assessment of multilayer structure within the vegetation Wang et al FeLis Double layer forest stand Single layer forest stand with trees of mixed height – PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE Airborne Laserscanning (ALS)

Assessment of canopy closure and height Airborne Laserscanning (ALS) – PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE Example from a German forest (by Christoph Straub) Forest segmentation By height Canopy closure Species composition

14 3D real-time visualisation Calculation of DSM, DTM, nDSM True orthophoto calculation Processing and filtering of raw data Modules for object extraction Combining TLS and ALS data Laser flight simulation TreesVIS – Software skills Data processed with TreesVIS Developed at Dep. of Remote Sensing; University Freiburg Special prices for research and students – PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 15 Summary & Conclusion Various capabilities of LiDAR technology 3D point information Precise Digital Surface Models Precise Digital Terrain Models even under forest canopy Data is useful for multiple purposes Forest mapping Environmental and Disaster modeling/mapping Urban area mapping (houses, transmission lines) Data acquisition is expensive, but of high value due to its use for multiple purposes

– PACIFIC GIS/RS USER CONFERENCE 16 Thank you for your attention The authors are greatful to: The ReCover consortium within the FP7 programme (no ) Vinaka Vakalevu