Identification of tree species from airborne lidar point clouds. Early approaches

Resumen

LIDAR flights with multi-objective are every day more widespread. Governments are aware of the high potential that can be derived from point clouds obtained from these flights. One of the major fields in which applications are developed is the agroforestry field, especially related to forest management of large numbers of trees. Quickly parameters forests and even individual trees are achieved. [DW1] [ME1] In this paper, we intend to initiate a new guidance on the use of LIDAR data in order to identify tree species through the envelope profile of the cloud of points composing each individual tree. The projection of the point cloud of individual trees and the study of their convex hull, will characterize a given forest stand and assign a particular species. The method used is based primarily on the analysis of twodimensional projection of the point cloud of an individual tree and obtaining their convex hull. The study of the geometrical characteristics of said envelope to a representative number of trees and their association with forest parameters such as the maximum width or height glass plant mass , will assign the woodland studied a typology of particular species. [MA1]