Lidar

Written By Catherine James

Airborne and terrestrial lidar products and research

Background

Government agencies acquire lidar data for a range of applications such as elevation, vegetation assessment, habitat modelling and change analysis. Much of the data is used only for its original purpose, although it could be a valuable data source for many projects.

The research is enabling airborne and terrestrial lidar archives to be utilised and transformed into operational products. This is done by developing code to process lidar point clouds efficiently into standard raster datasets, thereby saving time and making data more discoverable and easily integrated into spatial systems.

How

The research involves the creation and refinement of operational code to process airborne and terrestrial lidar to generate downstream products. There is a focus on having an automated process in place so all products generated can be easily discovered through standard naming conventions. The process is being applied to Queensland and New South Wales data collections for Government and University access.

Additionally, research and development continues to test new workflows for terrestrial laser scanner and drone lidar data collection.

Products

Terrestrial lidar surveys are processed to the following:

  • Minimum gridded elevation

  • Digital elevation model using a progressive morphological filter

  • Maximum gridded elevation height of returns above ground

  • Tree stem number and diameters

  • Total stem volume (plot scale)

  • Foliage projective cover

  • Canopy height profiles

Airborne lidar surveys are processed to the following raster mosaics:

  • Digital elevation model

  • Maximum gridded height of returns above ground

  • Percentiles of height above ground

  • Foliage projective cover

  • Pulse density

Applications

  • JRSRP satellite modelling

  • Habitat modelling

  • Vegetation change analysis

  • Forestry

  • Carbon farming

  • Vegetation biomass

  • Flood and erosion analysis

Where to next

Research continues to test methods of deriving vegetation structure from lidar point clouds, and comparing data from airborne, TLS and drone lidar collection. For example, the influence of flying parameters for drone lidar acquisition on derived vegetation products are being investigated.

Acknowledgements

  • QLD Government – Department of Environment and Science

  • NSW Government - Department of Planning and Environment

  • The University of Queensland

  • University of NSW

To find out more

Publications

  • Fisher A; Armston J; Goodwin N; Scarth P, (2020) Modelling canopy gap probability, foliage projective cover and crown projective cover from airborne lidar metrics in Australian forests and woodlands, Remote Sensing of Environment, 237, 111520 - 111520, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.111520

  • Goodwin NR; Armston, J; Muir, J; Stiller, I, (2017) Monitoring gully change: A comparison of airborne and terrestrial laser scanning using a case study from Aratula, Queensland. Geomorphology, 282, 195-208, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2017.01.001

  • Muir, J; Goodwin, N; Armston, J; Phinn, S; Scarth, P, (2017) An Accuracy Assessment of Derived Digital Elevation Models from Terrestrial Laser Scanning in a Sub-Tropical Forested Environment. Remote Sensing, 9, 843. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs9080843

  • Goodwin NR; Armston, J; Stiller, I; Muir, J, (2016) Assessing the repeatability of terrestrial laser scanning for monitoring gully topography: A case study from Aratula, Queensland, Australia. Geomorphology, 262, 24-36, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2016.03.007

version 1.0

Catherine James
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