A Full-Waveform Airborne Laser Scanning Metric Extraction Tool for Forest Structure Modelling. Do Scan Angle and Radiometric Correction Matter?

Remote Sensing

LuisA. Ruiz¹  Pablo Crespo-Peremarch¹ 

[1] Geo-Environmental Cartography and Remote Sensing Group (CGAT), Department of Cartographic Engineering, Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camí de Vera s/n, 46022 València, Spain;

关键词: lidar;    software tool;    processing tool;    relative radiometric correction;    forest fuel;    understory vegetation;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs12020292

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In the last decade, full-waveform airborne laser scanning (ALS_FW) has proven to be a promising tool for forestry applications. Compared to traditional discrete airborne laser scanning (ALS_D), it is capable of registering the complete signal going through the different vertical layers of the vegetation, allowing for a better characterization of the forest structure. However, there is a lack of ALS_FW software tools for taking greater advantage of these data. Additionally, most of the existing software tools do not include radiometric correction, which is essential for the use of ALS_FW data, since extracted metrics depend on radiometric values. This paper describes and presents a software tool named WoLFeX for clipping, radiometrically correcting, voxelizing the waves, and extracting object-oriented metrics from ALS_FW data. Moreover, extracted metrics can be used as input for generating either classification or regression models for forestry, ecology, and fire sciences applications. An example application of WoLFeX was carried out to test the influence of the relative radiometric correction and the acquisition scan angle (1) on the ALS_FW metric return waveform energy (RWE) values, and (2) on the estimation of three forest fuel variables (CFL: canopy fuel load, CH: canopy height, and CBH: canopy base height). Results show that radiometric differences in RWE values computed from different scan angle intervals (0°−5° and 15°−20°) were reduced, but not removed, when the relative radiometric correction was applied. Additionally, the estimation of height variables (i.e., CH and CBH) was not strongly influenced by the relative radiometric correction, while the model obtained for CFL improved from R² = 0.62 up to R² = 0.79 after applying the correction. These results show the significance of the relative radiometric correction for reducing radiometric differences measured from different scan angles and for modelling some stand-level forest fuel variables.

【 授权许可】

Unknown