Laser altimetry, more commonly referred to in the commercial sector as LiDAR mapping, is becoming a commonplace operational tool in photogrammetry, survey and mapping firms. Its use has grown rapidly over the past five years due to the increasing availability of commercial off-the-shelf sensors, advancements in the design and capabilities of the sensors themselves and an increased awareness of ...

Leaf area index (LAI) and vertical foliage profile (VFP) are among the important canopy structural variables. Recent advances in lidar remote sensing technology have demonstrated the capability of accurately mapping LAI and VFP over large areas. The primary objective of this study was to derive and validate a LAI and VFP product over the contiguous United States (CONUS) using spaceborne wavefor...

In contrast to conventional airborne multi-echo laser scanner systems, full-waveform (FW) lidar systems are able to record the entire emitted and backscattered signals of each laser pulse. Instead of clouds of individual 3D points, FW devices provide 1D profiles of the 3D scene, which allows gaining additional and more detailed observations of the illuminated surfaces. Indeed, lidar waveforms a...

Forest canopy height is an important input for ecosystem and highly correlated with aboveground biomass at the landscape scale. In this paper, we make efforts to extracte the maximum canopy height using GLAS waveform combination with the terrain index in sloped area where LiDAR data were present. Where LiDAR data were not present, the optical remote sensing data were used to estimate the canopy...

Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is a widely used technology for the acquisition of three-dimensional (3D) information about wide variety physical objects environments. However, before conducting campaign, test typically conducted to assess potential utilized algorithm retrieval. It might not be real campaign but rather simulation save time costs. Here, multi-platform LiDAR model considering...

There is increasing demand for reliable, high-resolution vegetation maps covering large areas. Airborne laser scanning data is available for large areas with high resolution and supports automatic processing, therefore, it is well suited for habitat mapping. Lowland hay meadows are widespread habitat types in European grasslands, and also have one of the highest species richness. The objective ...

Canopy structure, the vertical distribution of canopy material, is an important element of forest ecosystem dynamics and habitat preference. Although vertical stratification, or “canopy layering,” is a basic characterization of canopy structure for research and forest management, it is difficult to quantify at landscape scales. In this paper we describe canopy structure and develop methodologie...

In order to retrieve results comparable under different flight parameters and among different flight campaigns, passive remote sensing data such as hyperspectral imagery need to undergo a radiometric calibration. While this calibration, aiming at the derivation of physically meaningful surface attributes such as a reflectance value, is quite cumbersome for passively sensed data and relies on a ...