Study on Application of Three-dimensional Laser Scanning Imaging System in Tree Measuring

In this paper, 3-D laser scanning imaging system was introduced to forestry measurement for data collection. Then the paper discussed the method for stand volume measure and crown measure by the new equipment. There are three methods to measure the stand volumes: using cylindricals and truncated cones to model the tree stem, collecting the point clouds of the tree stem to produce the surface of the stem to calculate volumes, the method of subsection integration to estimate the tree volume. Different methods fit to different trees with different shapes. In the measurement of stand crown volume, there are two methods to get the 3D models of the crown. The first is based on the point cloud data; the other method is to take the whole crown of the single tree as the components of the single small truncated cones. The method of using 3-D laser scanning imaging system could replace the traditional one in forestry was first to discuss. In experiment, 15 trees was selected to prove that 3-D laser scanning imaging system can be used in diameter breast height and tree height measurement. In stand volume estimation, the scanning system compared traditional sectional measurement method also showed high precision.