Canopy Extraction Using Airborne Laser Scanning Data in Forestry Areas

To understand the biomass condition in the forestry areas, the detection for individual trees becomes an important topic. For forestry management, the canopy may be described with several parameters, e.g., number of stems, stand position, tree height, timber volume, canopy cover, etc. Traditional methods rely on field measurements, imagery, and radar data to derive the canopy information. Following the development of airborne light detection and ranging (LIDAR) systems, this paper proposes a scheme to extract forestry canopy using raw data, i.e., discrete point clouds. In this study, the proposed scheme analyzes vertical profiles to detect elevation gaps and delineates canopy boundaries. The experimental results indicate that the proposed scheme is effective. * Corresponding author.