Coral reef presents quite unique geomorphologic characteristics. The change of terrain is very drastic, which frequently generates navigation threats. With airborne bathymetric Lidar, area with coral reef systems could be surveyed for the seafloor topography. In 2010, a mission was carried out to map Dongsha atoll with an AHAB Hawkeye Ⅱ system. Besides the laser waveforms, RGB images are also collected with a digital camera operated together with the lidar. These images provide useful information for data editing. During the editing process, those points identified as not on the seafloor are tagged as non-floor and not included in the interpolation process. After reviewing the final edited dataset, it is found that some sounding points identified as non-floor were the top of Porites, one type of coral. This study reports the finding of Porites from the soundings and the aerial image. Both the geomorphological and image characteristics of Porties are investigated.
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