Detection of Trees Using Airborne Lidar data based on ArcGIS

摘要

In this article, we use the height difference between the first pulse and last pulse recorded by the airborne laser scanning system to implement a strategy for detection of trees, especially for relatively tall trees. The airborne lidar data we use include 3D coordinates and intensity information of first pulse and last pulse respectively, and the image file of the test area are also available. ArcGIS version 9.0, has been used as the implementation platform as which as effective data processing function and outstanding performance of data analysis such as TIN interpolation and 3D display. To extract trees from the raw data, the data is loaded into ArcGIS to create shapefile recognized by ArcGIS at first, and the corresponding attributes, coordinates, intensity and height difference computed by programming are stored. Then we select the data accord with the filtering condition, a threshold for height difference is given. All the comparisons of 3D coordinates and intensity occur between point data in the same row, in other words, between the first pulse and last pulse. We accept the first pulse which satisfies the height difference threshold as vegetation points. At last, a considerable result of detection of trees has been achieved.