Extraction of Individual Tree Height Using a Combination of Large-Scale Aerial Photo and LiDAR

Abstract

With the LiangShui forestry centre as study area, high-density LiDAR data and to synchronously processed high-resolution digital image are taken as data source to extract Individual Tree Height. The LiDAR data of the study area is filtered and classified, using TIN Filter to extract the ground echo points and trees echo points. Then these ground echo points generate Digital Elevation Model (DEM), and these trees echo points generate Digital Surface Model (DSM). Then the DEM and DSM are Taken as a subtraction to obtain Canopy Height Model (CHM), then the object-oriented approach is used to segment air digital image. Through multi-scale and canopy-model which create image objects and class division level, with the nearest neighbor distance and member function, the image objects are classified, and re-segmentation is based on classification results. And the edge is optimized to accurately identify individual tree. The canopy polygon obtained after image segmentation and CHM were superimposed to calculate polygon maximum elevation difference from LiDAR data as a tree height. Associated with the measured height analysis, the accuracy is 92.04%.