Abstract
Abstract. Backpack laser scanning systems have emerged recently enabling fast data collection and flexibility to make measurements also in areas that cannot be reached with, for example, vehicle-based laser scanners. Backpack laser scanning systems have been developed both for indoor and outdoor use. We have developed a quality analysis process in which the quality of backpack laser scanning data is evaluated in the forest environment. The reference data was collected with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) laser scanning system. The workflow included noise filtering, division of data into smaller patches, ground point extraction, ground data decimation, and ICP registration. As a result, we managed to observe the misalignments of backpack laser scanning data for 97 patches each including data from circa 10 seconds period of time. This evaluation revealed initial average misalignments of 0.227 m, 0.073 and -0.083 in the easting, northing and elevation directions, respectively. Furthermore, backpack data was corrected according to the ICP registration results. Our correction algorithm utilized the time-based linear transformation of backpack laser scanning point clouds. After the correction of data, the ICP registration was run again. This revealed remaining misalignments between the corrected backpack laser scanning data and the original UAV data. We found average misalignments of 0.084, 0.020 and -0.005 meters in the easting, northing and elevation directions, respectively.
Highlights
Recent development of mobile mapping systems (MMS) has enabled appearance of backpack laser scanning (BLS) systems (e.g., Ellum and El-sheimy, 2000; El-Sheimy, 2005; Naikal et al, 2009; Chen et al, 2010; Kukko et al, 2012; Elseber et al, 2013)
Decimated ground point clouds from BLS and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) data were registered in 97 patches
Our goal was to evaluate the quality of BLS data
Summary
Recent development of mobile mapping systems (MMS) has enabled appearance of backpack laser scanning (BLS) systems (e.g., Ellum and El-sheimy, 2000; El-Sheimy, 2005; Naikal et al, 2009; Chen et al, 2010; Kukko et al, 2012; Elseber et al, 2013). Commercial BLS systems are emerging such as Leica Pegasus Backpack (Leica). The advantage of BLS systems is that they allow access to areas that cannot be reached with vehicles. BLS allows collection of the data in more detail in areas which deserve more accuracy or careful measurements. Data collection is rapid when compared to static terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). BLS systems have been applied for indoor mapping (Nüchter et al, 2015), DEM creation in open palsa mire and river bed areas (Kukko et al, 2012; Kukko et al, 2015), and forest mapping (Liang et al, 2014), for example
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