Multispectral LiDAR Research Articles

AN INSTRUMENTAL BASIS FOR MULTISPECTRAL LIDAR WITH SPECTRALLY-RESOLVED DISTANCE MEASUREMENTS

Abstract. Hyperspectral solutions augment laser scanning technology with material probing capabilities by measuring target reflectance along with topography. We propose a novel instrumental basis that enables also spectrally-resolved distance measurement with sufficient sensitivity as to access dispersive phenomena on the reflecting target and along the propagation medium, further enhancing the material analysis capabilities of hyperspectral approaches. To this end we have extended distance metrology using intermode beat notes of a mode-locked femtosecond laser to cover flexibly selected spectral regions. The approach is based on an ultra-broadband source derived from a femtosecond laser via coherent supercontinuum generation. Herein we provide a first demonstration of the successful application of this technique to reflectorless measurements and thus its feasibility for multispectral LiDAR. We use a table-top experimental set-up to assess the approach by measuring distance, spectrally-resolved relative distance and reflectance to 5 different material samples on 5 multiplexed contiguous spectral bands of 50 nm in the range of 600 nm to 850 nm. We have achieved a distance measurement precision and accuracy better than 100 μm using integration times of about 30 ms, with promising perspectives regarding scalability to practical distances. The spectrally-resolved distance measurements also show repeatable material-dependent profiles with differences between materials up to several tenths of mm in some spectral bands. Combined with simultaneously acquired reflectance estimations, these profiles enable collecting additional target information, indicating the potential of the approach to enhance the material probing capabilities of prospective multispectral laser scanners.

Multispectral Airborne LiDAR Data in the Prediction of Boreal Tree Species Composition

Multispectral light detection and ranging (LiDAR) instruments, such as Optech Titan, record intensities at multiple wavelengths and these intensities can be used for tree species prediction in the same way as multispectral image data. In this paper, our main objective was to compare the accuracy of tree species prediction in a boreal forest area using multispectral LiDAR, the 1064-nm wavelength channel (“unispectral LiDAR”), and unispectral LiDAR with auxiliary aerial image data. We also evaluated the effect of the widely used intensity range correction method. We classified the main tree species of field plots using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and predicted the species-specific volume proportions (%) for Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), Norway spruce (Picea abies), and broadleaved trees using the k -nearest neighbor imputation. The effect of intensity correction on prediction errors for the dominant tree species was evaluated using optimal parameters derived from: 1) minimal intensity difference between flight lines; 2) parameters suggested by theory; and 3) uncorrected data. Although the range correction increased the classification accuracy slightly, it was observed to be ambiguous, and not consistent with theory for canopy echoes. Regardless, the intensity values were useful for the prediction of dominant tree species and species' volume proportions. The results for the dominant tree species classification using multispectral LiDAR [overall accuracy (OA) 88.2%, kappa 0.79] were comparable to the use of unispectral LiDAR and aerial images (OA 89.1%, kappa 0.81). We conclude that the multispectral LiDAR may become a useful tool in operational species-specific forest inventories.

Advanced Multi-Sensor Optical Remote Sensing for Urban Land Use and Land Cover Classification: Outcome of the 2018 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest

This paper presents the scientific outcomes of the 2018 Data Fusion Contest organized by the Image Analysis and Data Fusion Technical Committee of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society. The 2018 Contest addressed the problem of urban observation and monitoring with advanced multi-source optical remote sensing (multispectral LiDAR, hyperspectral imaging, and very high-resolution imagery). The competition was based on urban land use and land cover classification, aiming to distinguish between very diverse and detailed classes of urban objects, materials, and vegetation. Besides data fusion, it also quantified the respective assets of the novel sensors used to collect the data. Participants proposed elaborate approaches rooted in remote-sensing, and also in machine learning and computer vision, to make the most of the available data. Winning approaches combine convolutional neural networks with subtle earth-observation data scientist expertise.

A Simplified End-User Approach to Lidar Very Shallow Water Bathymetric Correction

Airborne lidar bathymetry has been evolving in recent years, and the introduction of multispectral (MS) lidar, such as the Titan sensor from Teledyne Optech, Toronto, ON, Canada, allows for comprehensive mapping of aquatic and riparian areas. However, to derive useful riverbed geomorphology data, bathymetric correction should be applied to raw data based on the proximity of individual points within the laser point cloud to the overlying water surface. Current algorithms within off-the-shelf (OTS) software were developed for flat coastal waters and lakes and, therefore, may have difficulty with shallow river channels possessing discernible surface water gradients and/or complex riparian environments. A proposed simplified correction algorithm is based on a shift (scaling with k = 0.76) in depth values. Riverbed returns are normalized toward the overlying water surface, disregarding laser beam angle of incidence for each point. The resultant simplified bathymetric correction is, therefore, available to most end users and does not rely on black box OTS solutions. Validation of the method with an MS lidar data set is presented, and the expected neglectable introduced bias (sd = 1.4 cm) for very shallow (<2 m) water is confirmed.

Automatic land-water classification using multispectral airborne LiDAR data for near-shore and river environments

Rapid mapping of near-shore and coastal regions has become an indispensable task for the local authority to serve the purpose of coastal management and post-disaster monitoring. Aerial photogrammetry and satellite remote sensing have been utilized to fulfill such a task in the last few decades. Airborne LiDAR can further compensate the drawbacks of these image capturing approaches as a result of the direct geo-referenced 3D point cloud. The recent introduction of multispectral airborne LiDAR, such as the Teledyne Optech Titan, can potentially enhance the capability of water mapping, minimize the involvement of manual intervention and reduce the use of supplementary information or ancillary data. This study demonstrates the use of multispectral airborne LiDAR data for automatic land-water classification under different coastal and inland river environments. Two automatic training data selection methods are proposed. The first method utilizes Gaussian mixture model (GMM) to split preliminarily the land and water region based on the elevation/intensity histogram, and the second method is developed based on the use of scan line intensity-elevation ratio (SLIER). Subsequently, various LiDAR-derived feature sets, particularly based on the multispectral LiDAR intensity, are constructed in order to serve as an input for the log-likelihood classification model. Two optional post-classification enhancements can be implemented to further adjust the misclassified data points. The proposed workflow was evaluated with four Optech Titan datasets collected for different near-shore and river environments that are located nearby Lake Ontario, Ontario, Canada. Our experimental work demonstrated that the multispectral LiDAR intensity data was capable of enhancing the classification capability, where an overall accuracy better than 96% was achieved in most of the cases.

Scan Line Intensity-Elevation Ratio (SLIER): An Airborne LiDAR Ratio Index for Automatic Water Surface Mapping

Owing to the characteristics of how a laser interacts with the water surface and water column, the measured Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) intensity values are different with respect to the laser wavelength, the scanning geometry and the reflection mechanism. Depending on the instantaneous water condition and the laser incidence angle, laser dropouts can appear, causing null returns or empty holes found in the collected LiDAR data. This variable intensity response offers a valuable opportunity for using airborne LiDAR sensors for automatic identification of water regions, and thus, we previously proposed an airborne LiDAR-based ratio index named the scan line intensity-elevation ratio (SLIER). Over the water surface, airborne LiDAR data are always found to have a high fluctuation of the intensity value and low variation of the elevation along each scan line, and thus, the water region has a higher SLIER value compared to the land. We examined the SLIER on a multispectral airborne LiDAR dataset collected by Optech Titan and a monochromatic airborne LiDAR dataset collected by Optech Galaxy on a natural rocky shore and a man-made shore. Our experiments showed that SLIER was able to provide a high separability between land and water regions and was able to outperform the traditional normalized difference water index (NDWI) for estimation of the water surface. With the use of SLIER as a mechanism for training data selection, our case studies demonstrated an overall accuracy of 98% in the use of either monochromatic or multispectral LiDAR data, regardless of the laser channel being used.

A Comparative Land-Cover Classification Feature Study of Learning Algorithms: DBM, PCA, and RF Using Multispectral LiDAR Data

Multispectral LiDAR, characterization of completeness, and consistency of spectrum and spatial geometric data provide a new data source for land cover classification. However, how to choose the optimal features for a given set of land covers is an open problem for effective land cover classification. To address this problem, we propose a comparative scheme, which investigates a popular deep learning (deep Boltzmann machine, DBM) model for high-level feature representation and widely used machine learning methods for low-level feature extraction and selection [principal component analysis (PCA) and random forest (RF)] in land cover classification. The comparative study was conducted on the multispectral LiDAR point clouds, acquired by a Teledyne Optech's Titan airborne system. The deep learning-based high-level feature representation experimental results showed that, on an ordinary personal computer or workstation, this method required larger training samples and more computational complexity than the machine learning-based low-level feature extraction and selection methods. However, our comparative experiments demonstrated that the classification accuracies of the DBM-based method were higher than those of the RF-based and PCA-based methods using multispectral LiDAR data.

Urban Tree Species Classification Using a WorldView-2/3 and LiDAR Data Fusion Approach and Deep Learning.

Urban areas feature complex and heterogeneous land covers which create challenging issues for tree species classification. The increased availability of high spatial resolution multispectral satellite imagery and LiDAR datasets combined with the recent evolution of deep learning within remote sensing for object detection and scene classification, provide promising opportunities to map individual tree species with greater accuracy and resolution. However, there are knowledge gaps that are related to the contribution of Worldview-3 SWIR bands, very high resolution PAN band and LiDAR data in detailed tree species mapping. Additionally, contemporary deep learning methods are hampered by lack of training samples and difficulties of preparing training data. The objective of this study was to examine the potential of a novel deep learning method, Dense Convolutional Network (DenseNet), to identify dominant individual tree species in a complex urban environment within a fused image of WorldView-2 VNIR, Worldview-3 SWIR and LiDAR datasets. DenseNet results were compared against two popular machine classifiers in remote sensing image analysis, Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Our results demonstrated that: (1) utilizing a data fusion approach beginning with VNIR and adding SWIR, LiDAR, and panchromatic (PAN) bands increased the overall accuracy of the DenseNet classifier from 75.9% to 76.8%, 81.1% and 82.6%, respectively. (2) DenseNet significantly outperformed RF and SVM for the classification of eight dominant tree species with an overall accuracy of 82.6%, compared to 51.8% and 52% for SVM and RF classifiers, respectively. (3) DenseNet maintained superior performance over RF and SVM classifiers under restricted training sample quantities which is a major limiting factor for deep learning techniques. Overall, the study reveals that DenseNet is more effective for urban tree species classification as it outperforms the popular RF and SVM techniques when working with highly complex image scenes regardless of training sample size.

A new waveform decomposition method for multispectral LiDAR

Information derived from waveform decomposition of full-waveform light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data has been widely used in vegetation detection and three-dimensional urban terrain modeling to investigate and interpret the structural diversity of surface coverage. Most prevailing waveform decomposition methods involve only a single wavelength, but these methods do not apply to full-waveform multispectral LiDAR (FWMSL) systems that simultaneously acquire spectral and geometric information. In this paper, we propose a new multispectral waveform decomposition (MSWD) method in order to explore the potential advantages of the FWMSL system. Both simulated data and measured data from our FWMSL system were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The coefficient of determination (R2), root mean square error (RMSE), and relative error (rRMSE) metrics suggest that the decomposition results derived from MSWD exhibit a comparable overall fitting accuracy as a single wavelength waveform decomposition (SWWD) method. We also propose a new evaluation indicator, relative neighbor distance error (RNDE), to represent the relative error in the distance between adjacent targets. The simulation results present clear superiority of MSWD over SWWD in terms of discovering weak or overlapping components and retrieving accurate waveform parameters. The experimental results demonstrated a considerable improvement in RNDE (0.0100–0.0610) over the prevailing SWWD method (0.0566–0.2833). Unlike SWWD, MSWD initializes waveform components using mutually complementary wavelengths thus delivering higher completeness and accuracy. MSWD can be extended to other FWMSL or full-waveform hyperspectral LiDAR systems with additional wavelengths.

Utilizing multispectral lidar in the detection of declined trees

Utilizing multispectral lidar in the detection of declined trees

Seismic line impacts on proximal boreal forest and wetland environments in Alberta

Seismic lines are corridors cut through forest and wetland land covers for geophysical exploration of oil and gas deposits. Here we present a localised case study of the impacts of seismic lines on proximal boreal forest and wetland ecosystem vegetation structural characteristics. The study concentrates on a relatively undisturbed area of the Oil Sands Region of the Boreal zone in north central Alberta using airborne multi-spectral lidar and publically available geospatial data. The results of this study indicate that significant variations in adjacent forest/wetland edge vegetation structure occur proximal to 30 seismic lines identified within the study area. The variations observed in this area depend on the environmental characteristics of the seismic lines. Often taller trees and greater fractional cover extends to a distance of up to 55 m from the seismic line, especially in land covers adjacent to wider seismic lines. Random forest analysis of spatial correspondence between environmental and proximity-based variability associated with seismic lines indicates that distance, incident radiation and the potential for accumulation of surface water based on local geomorphology (inferred from topographic position) are the most important variables affecting height and fractional cover of proximal vegetation. Combined variables including distance from the seismic line, width of the seismic line, cardinal direction and incident radiation, topographic position and underlying surface geology may be used to predict spatial variability of vegetation height to an accuracy of 70% (adjusted (adj.) R2). From this research, we suggest continued sampling/testing of lidar/high resolution optical imagery and geospatial data to examine the impacts of seismic lines in other parts of the Oil Sands Region using the methods developed in this case study. Reclamation management plans for oil and gas exploration areas should focus on reclaiming wider seismic lines first as these have the greatest impact on proximal ecosystems.

Wavelength selection of the multispectral lidar system for estimating leaf chlorophyll and water contents through the PROSPECT model

The estimation of leaf biochemical constituents is of high interest for the physiological and ecological applications of remote sensing. The multispectral lidar (MSL) system emerges as a promising active remote sensing technology with the ability to acquire both three-dimensional and spectral characteristics of targets. The detection wavelengths of the MSL system can be geared toward the specific application purposes. Therefore, it’s important to conduct the wavelength selection work to maximize the potential of the MSL system in vegetation monitoring. Traditional strategies of wavelength selection attempt to establish an empirical relationship between large quantities of observed reflectance and foliar biochemical constituents. By contrast, this study proposed to select wavelengths through the radiative transfer model PROSPECT. A five-wavelength combination was established to estimate leaf chlorophyll and water contents: 680, 716, 1104, 1882 and 1920 nm. The consistency of the wavelengths selected were tested by running different versions of PROSPECT model. Model inversion using simulated and experimental datasets showed that the selected wavelengths have the ability to retrieve leaf chlorophyll and water contents accurately. Overall, this study demonstrated the potential of the MSL system in vegetation monitoring and can serve as a guide in the design of new MSL systems for the application community.

Bathymetry retrieval from optical images with spatially distributed support vector machines

This paper presents a spatially distributed support vector machine (SVM) system for estimating shallow water bathymetry from optical satellite images. Unlike the traditional global models that make predictions from a unified global model for the entire study area, our system uses locally trained SVMs and spatially weighted votes to make predictions. By using IKONOS-2 multi-spectral image and airborne bathymetric LiDAR water depth samples, we developed a spatially distributed SVM system for bathymetry estimates. The distributed model outperformed the global SVM model in predicting bathymetry from optical satellite images, and it worked well at the scenarios with a low number of training data samples. The experiments showed the localized model reduced the bathymetry estimation error by 60% from RMSE of 1.23 m to 0.48 m. Different from the traditional global model that underestimates water depth near shore and overestimates water depth offshore, the spatially distributed SVM system did not produce regional prediction bias and its prediction residual exhibited a random pattern. Our model worked well even if the sample density was much lower: The model trained with 10% of the samples was still able to obtain similar prediction accuracy as the global SVM model with the full training set.

Supervised spatial classification of multispectral LiDAR data in urban areas.

Multispectral LiDAR (light detection and ranging) data have been initially used for land cover classification. However, there are still high classification uncertainties, especially in urban areas, where objects are often mixed and confounded. This study investigated the efficiency of combining advanced statistical methods and LiDAR metrics derived from multispectral LiDAR data for improving land cover classification accuracy in urban areas. The study area is located in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, on the Lake Ontario shoreline. Multispectral Optech Titan LiDAR data over the study area were acquired on 3 September 2014 in a single strip of 3 km2. Using the channels at 1,550 nm (C1), 1,064 nm (C2) and 532 nm (C3), LiDAR intensity data, normalized digital surface model (nDSM), pseudo normalized difference vegetation index (PseudoNDVI), morphological profiles (MP), and a novel hierarchical morphological profiles (HMP) were derived and used as features for the classification. A support vector machine classifier with a radial basis function (RBF) kernel was applied in the classification stage, where the optimal parameters for the classifier were selected by a grid search procedure. The combination of intensity, pseudoNDVI, nDSM and HMP resulted in the best land cover classification, with an overall accuracy of 93.28%.

A new method for 3D individual tree extraction using multispectral airborne LiDAR point clouds

Characterization of individual trees is essential for many applications in forest management and ecology. Previous studies relied on single tree detection from monochromatic wavelength airborne laser scanning (ALS) systems and they focused on the use of the geometric spatial information of the point clouds (i.e., X, Y, and Z coordinates). However, there is quite often a difficulty dealing with clumped trees when only the geometric spatial information is considered. The emergence of multispectral LiDAR sensors provides a new solution for individual tree structure acquisition. The aim of this paper is to investigate the performance of multispectral ALS data for delineating individual trees which are challenging by using the monochromatic wavelength ALS system. The proposed workflow utilizes the mean shift segmentation method on different feature spaces for crown isolation. In addition, both spatial domain and multispectral domain are used to refine the under-segmentation crown segments. Ten plots (2 sets of different structural complexity) located in the dense coniferous forest area in Tobermory, Ontario, Canada are selected as experiment data. Results show that the developed method correctly detects 88% and 82% of the dominant trees with and without multispectral information, respectively. Compared with segmentation using geometric spatial information solely, the main improvements are achieved for clumped tree segment with the distinguished multispectral features. This study demonstrates that multispectral airborne laser scanning data is more capable for individual tree delineation than monochromatic wavelength laser scanning data in dealing with forests with clumped crowns in dense forests.

Variability of Multispectral Lidar 3D and Intensity Features with Individual Tree Height and Its Influence on Needleleaf Tree Species Identification

Tree species identification is important in forest management. The multispectral lidar Titan of Teledyne Optech Inc. can improve tree species separation by providing classification features computed from the three-channel intensities, ratios and normalized differences. However, the value of features used in classification algorithms (e.g., random forest, RF) may vary with tree size. The focus of the present study is to show how tree height influences the 3D and intensity features, how this relationship may affect the species classification accuracy, and how different classification strategies may circumvent this problem. Six needleleaf species (Pinus resinosa, Pinus strobus, Pinus sylvestris, Larix laricina, Picea abies and Picea glauca), found in plantations of different ages, were sampled to train classifiers. Some features yielded a good discriminatory power for species identification, despite their relation to tree height (r2 up to 0.6). Two classification strategies—a) using only size-invariant features (SIF) and b) training separate classifiers per tree height strata (HSC)—were compared to a standard classification (STD: all features, without height stratification). The accuracy of the SIF approach was lowest, useful variables being removed due to their relationship to tree height. The HSC provided only a minor improvement over the STD results.

Mapping Urban Land Cover of a Large Area Using Multiple Sensors Multiple Features

Concerning the strengths and limitations of multispectral and airborne LiDAR data, the fusion of such datasets can compensate for the weakness of each other. This work have investigated the integration of multispectral and airborne LiDAR data for the land cover mapping of large urban area. Different LiDAR-derived features are involoved, including height, intensity, and multiple-return features. However, there is limited knowledge relating to the integration of multispectral and LiDAR data including three feature types for the classification task. Furthermore, a little contribution has been devoted to the relative importance of input features and the impact on the classification uncertainty by using multispectral and LiDAR. The key goal of this study is to explore the potenial improvement by using both multispectral and LiDAR data and to evaluate the importance and uncertainty of input features. Experimental results revealed that using the LiDAR-derived height features produced the lowest classification accuracy (83.17%). The addition of intensity information increased the map accuracy by 3.92 percentage points. The accuracy was further improved to 87.69% with the addition multiple-return features. A SPOT-5 image produced an overall classification accuracy of 86.51%. Combining spectral and spatial features increased the map accuracy by 6.03 percentage points. The best result (94.59%) was obtained by the combination of SPOT-5 and LiDAR data using all available input variables. Analysis of feature relevance demonstrated that the normalized digital surface model (nDSM) was the most beneficial feature in the classification of land cover. LiDAR-derived height features were more conducive to the classification of urban area as compared to LiDAR-derived intensity and multiple-return features. Selecting only 10 most important features can result in higher overall classification accuracy than all scenarios of input variables except the feature of entry scenario using all available input features. The variable importance varied a very large extent in the light of feature importance per land cover class. Results of classification uncertainty suggested that feature combination can tend to decrease classification uncertainty for different land cover classes, but there is no “one-feature-combination-fits-all” solution. The values of classification uncertainty exhibited significant differences between the land cover classes, and extremely low uncertainties were revealed for the water class. However, it should be noted that using all input variables resulted in relatively lower classification uncertainty values for most of the classes when compared to other input features scenarios.

Classification of Airborne Multispectral Lidar Point Clouds for Land Cover Mapping

Airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) data are widely used for high-resolution land cover mapping. The lidar elevation data are typically used as complementary information to passive multispectral or hyperspectral imagery to enable higher land cover classification accuracy. In this paper, we examine the capabilities of a recently developed multispectral airborne laser scanner, manufactured by Teledyne Optech, for direct classification of multispectral point clouds into ten land cover classes including grass, trees, two classes of soil, four classes of pavement, and two classes of buildings. The scanner, Titan MW, collects point clouds at three different laser wavelengths simultaneously, opening the door to new possibilities in land cover classification using only lidar data. We show that the recorded intensities of laser returns together with spatial metrics calculated from the three-dimensional (3D) locations of laser returns are sufficient for classifying the point cloud into ten distinct land cover classes. Our classification methods achieved an overall accuracy of 94.7% with a kappa coefficient of 0.94 using the support vector machine (SVM) method to classify single-return points and an overall accuracy of 79.7% and kappa coefficient of 0.77 using a rule-based classifier on multireturn points. A land cover map is then generated from the classified point cloud. We show that our results outperform the common approach of rasterizing the point cloud prior to classification by ∼4% in overall accuracy, 0.04 in kappa coefficient, and by up to 16% in commission and omission errors. This improvement however comes at the price of increased complexity and computational burden.

WATER MAPPING USING MULTISPECTRAL AIRBORNE LIDAR DATA

Abstract. This study investigates the use of the world’s first multispectral airborne LiDAR sensor, Optech Titan, manufactured by Teledyne Optech to serve the purpose of automatic land-water classification with a particular focus on near shore region and river environment. Although there exist recent studies utilizing airborne LiDAR data for shoreline detection and water surface mapping, the majority of them only perform experimental testing on clipped data subset or rely on data fusion with aerial/satellite image. In addition, most of the existing approaches require manual intervention or existing tidal/datum data for sample collection of training data. To tackle the drawbacks of previous approaches, we propose and develop an automatic data processing workflow for land-water classification using multispectral airborne LiDAR data. Depending on the nature of the study scene, two methods are proposed for automatic training data selection. The first method utilizes the elevation/intensity histogram fitted with Gaussian mixture model (GMM) to preliminarily split the land and water bodies. The second method mainly relies on the use of a newly developed scan line elevation intensity ratio (SLIER) to estimate the water surface data points. Regardless of the training methods being used, feature spaces can be constructed using the multispectral LiDAR intensity, elevation and other features derived from these parameters. The comprehensive workflow was tested with two datasets collected for different near shore region and river environment, where the overall accuracy yielded better than 96 %.

METHODS FROM INFORMATION EXTRACTION FROM LIDAR INTENSITY DATA AND MULTISPECTRAL LIDAR TECHNOLOGY

Abstract. LiDAR is a consolidated technology for topographic mapping and 3D reconstruction, which is implemented in several platforms On the other hand, the exploitation of the geometric information has been coupled by the use of laser intensity, which may provide additional data for multiple purposes. This option has been emphasized by the availability of sensors working on different wavelength, thus able to provide additional information for classification of surfaces and objects. Several applications ofmonochromatic and multi-spectral LiDAR data have been already developed in different fields: geosciences, agriculture, forestry, building and cultural heritage. The use of intensity data to extract measures of point cloud quality has been also developed. The paper would like to give an overview on the state-of-the-art of these techniques, and to present the modern technologies for the acquisition of multispectral LiDAR data. In addition, the ISPRS WG III/5 on ‘Information Extraction from LiDAR Intensity Data’ has collected and made available a few open data sets to support scholars to do research on this field. This service is presented and data sets delivered so far as are described.