Extraction of Spatial Information in the Environmen of Irish Roads Using Airborne Laser Scanning

This paper describes the first phase of a three year PhD research project which aims at extracting road and roadside information accurately and robustly from airborne sensor data and assessing its suitability for integration in a spatial analysis system. The context for this research is road safety and the requirements of the European noise directive for noise mapping. Phase 1 concentrated on using existing and widely available software and techniques for extracting spatial information from LiDAR data. Geometric and raster approaches were used. Results are encouraging indicating that existing systems and techniques can yield roadside objects successfully with appropriately designed workflows. However the degree of automation is limited. Phase 2 of the research, which has just begun, will address the combination of LiDAR with other sensor data and attempt to improve the degree of automation through the development of specialist algorithms. * Corresponding author.