1. What’s new in FUSION? Bob McGaughey
USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station
Resource Monitoring and Assessment program
Vegetation Monitoring and Remote Sensing Team

2. Overview Changes Overview of workflow tools
“Standard” metrics for large acquisitions
Tree segmentation

3. FUSION changes (Oct 2016) New tools
AreaProcessor (includes batch files for processing)
TreeSeg
Better behavior on “managed” computers
Several minor changes
Soon
Better support for LAS version 1.4 files
Improved methods to deal with forced reboots

4. Command line tools
Tools to work with points, surfaces, and raster data
Tools are designed with forestry applications in mind
The FUSION manual provides an explanation of switches and options for all tools

5. Using the command line tools
Some form of scripting is required
DOS batch files (windows scripting)
Other “languages” (VB, Python, R)
Most of the tools have limits on the number of points they can process
Basic philosophy: Divide and conquer
Split areas into tiles that will work with all tools
Re-tile data
Create virtual tiles on the fly

6. Workflow tools
The goal is to create a basic processing flow and let the user provides the details

7. LTKProcessor

8. Workflow tools--LTKProcessor
Included in the initial release of FUSION
Works well for small- and moderate-size areas (1,000 to 100,000 ha)
Provides basic processing structure
Creates a DOS batch file to manage processing
Re-tiles on the fly with option to save or delete the new tiles
Extracts and merges outputs from each tile
User only has to modify the script run on each tile to customize the processing

9. LTKProcessor workflow
Configuration
Batch file
Clip
Process
Check for errors
User-defined processing steps
Extract & merge

10. LTKProcessor – why it isn’t the best approach
Processing runs on a single processor
Outputs for large areas become unwieldy
Raster products span the entire extent

11. New tool -- AreaProcessor
GUI is cleaner
Provides more control over the size of outputs (outputs can be tiled)
Supports multi-processor architectures
Much better logic (compared to LTKProcessor) for designing and controlling the processing layout

12. AP workflow Extract & merge Processing runs on several cores/threads
Configuration
GUI interface
Batch file
Processing runs on several cores/threads
Clip
Process
Check for errors
User-defined processing steps
Extract & merge
In the scripts provided with the AP distribution, the setup batch file turns various products on/off and sets options to control merging of products, cell sizes, and ground surface options. The configuration parameters specified in the GUI are more general and serve to identify the overall run.

13. AreaProcessor (AP)
Uses new terms to describe the processing arrangement
Delivery tiles: Point tiles (LAS or LAZ) delivered by the data provider
Processing tile: Set of points submitted to all of the tools
Processing block: Collection of processing tiles that will be processed by a single processing thread. Processing blocks also provide a structure for outputs.

14. Delivery tiles 535,000 ha (1,321,000 acres) 8+ pulses/m2
55 billion returns

15. Processing tiles

16. Processing tiles

17. Processing blocks

18. AreaProcessor

19. AP workflow
AP can generate a single batch file to do all processing (pretty much the same as LTKProcessor…single processor)
AP can also generate separate batch files for each processing block
Blocks are grouped into processing threads
Threads are started on separate processors
User runs a single batch file to start all processing
Scripts are designed so processing can be restarted

20. Outputs Outputs can cover
Processing tiles
Processing blocks
Entire processing extent (entire acquisition)
FUSION tools to merge outputs can deal with large areas and high resolutions but some downstream analysis tools have trouble with large raster layers

21. Status monitoring
Status monitoring tool displays the status for all processing tiles
Shows overall progress
Provides estimates of processing time
Provides information to help restart processing if something goes wrong or computer restarts

22. Status monitoring

23. Scripts included with the distribution
Compute the following:
First-return metrics (elevation and intensity)
All-return metrics (elevation and intensity)
Metrics by height strata (all returns)
Metrics by height strata (first returns)
Canopy height models
Intensity images
Bare-ground surface models (optional)
Topographic metrics

24. Tree segmentation tool
Implements a watershed segmentation algorithm to identify clumps of vegetation
Also includes an edge tracing algorithm to develop polygons representing the clump edge
Outputs include:
Raster map showing the clumps
Raster map showing the height of each clump
CSV and point shapefile with highest point in each clump along with attributes for the clump
Polygon shapefile with segment outlines and attributes (overlapping polygons)

25. TreeSeg
Input: high-resolution canopy height model (CHM)

26. TreeSeg Watershed segmentation algorithm
Simple, relatively consistent across a variety of forest types

27. TreeSeg
Segment highpoints are used as starting points for an edge detection algorithm

28. TreeSeg Polygons delineate peaks in the CHM 1 polygon for each segment
Polygons can overlap
Same type of polygons added to CanopyMaxima

29. TreeSeg

30. Other changes
Made changes so you don’t need administrator privileges to run LTKProcessor jobs
Corrected the alignment of some output products
Changes to make command-line options more consistent across programs

31. FUSION on the web Old server (still works)
Training materials: google “RSAC”
Module is being developed to support AreaProcessor