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Laser Pulse Interaction with Forest Canopy: Geometric and Radiometric Issues

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Forestry Applications of Airborne Laser Scanning

Part of the book series: Managing Forest Ecosystems ((MAFE,volume 27))

Abstract

This chapter focuses upon retrieving forest biophysical parameters by extracting three-dimensional point cloud information from small-footprint full-waveform airborne laser scanner data. This full waveform gives the end user the possibility to gain control over range determination and the subsequent derivation of the point clouds. Furthermore, the attribution of physical parameters to the single points using these waveforms becomes additionally possible. The underlying physical principles form the begin of this chapter, followed by forward modeling of waveforms over simulated forested areas, the treatment of real waveforms and an example for validating the results of full-waveform analysis.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Most commercial ALS systems employ adaptive thresholding to avoid “trigger walk”, making discrete return data less susceptible to changes in object reflectance.

  2. 2.

    Or leave its width unchanged in the case of direct reflection.

  3. 3.

    In the literature, varying pulse energies E S and peak powers \(\hat{S}\) are reported for this instrument w.r.t. the pulse repetition rate. E.g. in Chasmer et al. (2006), for pulse repetition rates of 33, 71 and 100 kHz, the respective FWHM resulted in 7. 0, 10. 8 and 14. 9 ns, using Eq. (2.6) and \(s = E_{S}/(\hat{S}\sqrt{2\pi })\). Næsset (2009) reports FWHM values of 10 ns at 50 kHz and 16 ns at 100 kHz pulse repetition rate.

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Acknowledgements

Andreas Roncat has been supported by a Karl Neumaier PhD scholarship.

The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology is based on an international cooperation of the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (Austria), the University of Vienna (Austria), the Vienna University of Technology (Austria), the Austrian Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, the office of the provincial government of Lower Austria, Airborne Technologies GmbH (Austria), RGZM (Roman-Germanic Central Museum Mainz, Germany), RA (Swedish National Heritage Board), VISTA (Visual and Spatial Technology Centre, University of Birmingham, UK) and NIKU (Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Groups Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria

    Andreas Roncat, Christian Briese, Wolfgang Wagner & Norbert Pfeifer

  2. Remote Sensing Laboratories, Department of Geography, University of Zurich – Irchel, Zurich, Switzerland

    Felix Morsdorf

  3. Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology, Vienna, Austria

    Christian Briese

Authors
  1. Andreas Roncat
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  2. Felix Morsdorf
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  3. Christian Briese
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  4. Wolfgang Wagner
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  5. Norbert Pfeifer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andreas Roncat .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Matti Maltamo

  2. Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway

    Erik Næsset

  3. Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Jari Vauhkonen

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Roncat, A., Morsdorf, F., Briese, C., Wagner, W., Pfeifer, N. (2014). Laser Pulse Interaction with Forest Canopy: Geometric and Radiometric Issues. In: Maltamo, M., Næsset, E., Vauhkonen, J. (eds) Forestry Applications of Airborne Laser Scanning. Managing Forest Ecosystems, vol 27. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8663-8_2

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