Detecting and modeling urban furniture are of particular interest for urban management and the development of autonomous driving systems. This paper presents a novel method for detecting and classifying vertical urban objects and trees from unstructured three-dimensional mobile laser scanner (MLS) or terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) point cloud data. The method includes an automatic initial segm...

Vegetation provides important functions and services in urban areas, and vegetation heights divided into vertical and horizontal units can be used as indicators for its assessment. Conversely, detailed area-wide and updated height information is frequently missing for most urban areas. This study sought to assess three vegetation height classes from a globally available TanDEM-X digital elevati...

Accurate field data can be used to assess ecosystem services from trees and to improve urban forest management, yet little is known about the optimization of field data collection in the urban environment. Various field and Geographic Information System (GIS) tests were performed to help understand how time costs and precision of tree population estimates change with varying plot and sample siz...

We present two approaches for the automatic extraction of trees from high resolution aerial imagery. In the first approach we aim at isolated trees in rural areas. This approach is based on automatically generated digital surface models (DSM). It models trees as generalized ellipsoids of revolution which are fitted to the DSM. The parameters of the generated generalized ellipsoids of revolution...

Tree biomechanics studies using dynamic methods of analysis are reviewed. The emphasis in this review is on the biomechanics of open-grown trees typically found in urban areas, rather than trees in forests or plantations. The distinction is not based on species but on their form, because open-grown trees usually grow with considerable branch mass and the dynamic response in winds may be differe...

Melbourne has an extensive canopy of street trees that provides an important urban amenity and contributes both to human health and wellbeing and as food and habitat for non-human animals. There is some evidence that the composition of Melbourne’s street trees is likely to change as a result of climate change (Kendal et al. 2011). However, we know little about what these changes may be, and wha...

The idea of sustainable cities is linked to an older concept of sustainable plant communities. The theoretical basis for both is a closed system where everything is continuously recycled. Natural resources are renewed rather than depleted. In undisturbed natural areas a kind of sustainability is achieved through the natural cycles of the biosphere. However, this kind of sustainability for trees...

Urban space comprises not only physical forms buildings, streets, plazas, trees, etc. – but also the people 'acting on them'. The purpose of this thesis is to increase our awareness of behavior and environment relationships, focusing on local movement at the individual level in a pedestrian environment. The thesis describes the experiment Mouse.class, as a concept demonstration model, which all...

Guangzhou city in South China has experienced an accelerated urban development since the 1980s. This paper examines the impact of the urban development on urban heat islands through a historical analysis of urban-rural air temperature differences. Remote sensing techniques were applied to derive information on land use/cover and land surface temperatures and to assess the thermal response patte...