Use of airborne LiDAR and aerial photography in the estimation of individual tree heights in forestry

This paper describes the use of aerial photography and airborne LiDAR to estimate individual tree heights in forest stands. The advantages and disadvantages in the use of LiDAR systems are revised and a data fusion analysis with digital aerial photography is proposed. An example of the use of these techniques in a forested area in Scotland is presented. An algorithm has been developed to extract a high-resolution digital terrain model of the bare ground. This provided a tree canopy model as the difference between the laser first pulse and the model of the underlying terrain. Information about individual trees was obtained by image segmentation and classification. This analysis provided a good method of estimating individual tree canopies and heights.