Optimal Altitude, Overlap, and Weather Conditions for Computer Vision UAV Estimates of Forest Structure

By Jonathan P. Dandois, Marc Olano, Erle C. Ellis. Remote Sensing, 2015

413 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract: Ecological remote sensing is being transformed by three-dimensional (3D), multispectral measurements of forest canopies by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and computer vision structure from motion (SFM) algorithms. Yet applications of this technology have out-paced understanding of the relationship between collection method and data quality. Here, UAV-SFM remote sensing was used to produce 3D multispectral point clouds of Temperate Deciduous forests at different levels of UAV altitude, image overlap, weather, and image processing. Error in canopy height estimates was explained by the alignment of the canopy height model to the digital terrain model (R 2 = 0.81) due to differences in lighting and image overlap. Accounting for this, no significant differences were observed in height error at different levels of lighting, altitude, and side overlap. Overall, accurate estimates of canopy height compared to field measurements (R 2 = 0.86, RMSE = 3.6 m) and LIDAR (R

Subfields: Ecology, Environmental Engineering, Geology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/13619a5b10810832bb1d6cab3370bcd04be48a22

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

In Environmental Engineering

In Geology

Xiaoye Liu

Citations in the corpus

Individual tree detection from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) derived canopy height model in an open canopy mixed conifer forest (2017, background): “Also, environmental factors such as wind speed, lower visibility due to fog, shadows and temperature variations that can interfere in the efficacy of UAV operations should also be taken into consideration and addressed when working with forest remote sensing, especially for ITD [22,101,102].”
Quantifying Boreal Forest Structure and Composition Using UAV Structure from Motion (2018, background): “Wind can limit UAV flight range and may reduce the accuracy of the 3D point cloud reconstruction due to a decrease in viable foliage and branch tie points [26].”