Individual tree segmentation and biomass estimation based on UAV Digital aerial photograph

Digital aerial photograph(DAP)data is processed based on Structure from Motion(Sf M)algorithm and regional net adjustment method to generate digital surface discrete point clouds similar to Light Detection and Ranging(LiDAR)and digital orthophoto mosaic(DOM)similar to optical remote sensing image.In this study,we obtained highresolution images of mature forests of Chinese fir by unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)flying through crossroute flight,and then reconstructed the threedimensional point clouds in the UAV aerial area by SfM technique.The point cloud segmentation(PCS)algorithm was used for the individual tree segmentation,and the F-score of the three sample plots were 0.91,0.94,and 0.94,respectively.Individual tree biomass modeling was conducted using 155 mature Chinese fir forests which were correctly segmented.The relative root mean squared error(rRMSE)values of random forest(RF),bagged tree(BT)and support vector regression(SVR)were 34.48%,35.74%and 40.93%,respectively.Our study demonstrated that DAP point clouds had great potential to extract forest vertical parameters and could be applied successfully in individual tree segmentation and individual tree biomass modeling.

Nyström-based spectral clustering using airborne LiDAR point cloud data for individual tree segmentation

The spectral clustering method has notable advantages in segmentation.But the high computational complexity and time consuming limit its application in large-scale and dense airborne Light Detection and Ranging(LiDAR)point cloud data.We proposed the Nyström-based spectral clustering(NSC)algorithm to decrease the computational burden.This novel NSC method showed accurate and rapid in individual tree segmentation using point cloud data.The K-nearest neighbour-based sampling(KNNS)was proposed for the Nyström approximation of voxels to improve the efficiency.The NSC algorithm showed good performance for 32 plots in China and Europe.The overall matching rate and extraction rate of proposed algorithm reached 69%and 103%.For all trees located by Global Navigation Satellite System(GNSS)calibrated tape-measures,the tree height regression of the matching results showed an value of 0.88 and a relative root mean square error(RMSE)of 5.97%.For all trees located by GNSS calibrated total-station measures,the values were 0.89 and 4.49%.The method also showed good performance in a benchmark dataset with an improvement of 7%for the average matching rate.The results demonstrate that the proposed NSC algorithm provides an accurate individual tree segmentation and parameter estimation using airborne LiDAR point cloud data.