Airborne laser scanning (ALS), often referred to as lidar or laser altimetry, is a remote sensing technique which was originally designed to measure the topography of the Earth’s surface. While the first commercially available airborne laser scanners recorded only the time of one backscattered pulse, state-of-the-art systems record several echoes for each emitted laser pulse. Thereby a 3D data ...

The possibilities of the raster-GlS topoclimatic modelling and its applicability in the Karst bioclimatology have been generally presented. The short descriptions of the particular models derived from the digital elevation model include: terrain slope, relative terrain orientation, terrain curvature, direct and diffuse insolation, altitude in the sinkhole, flow accumulation and exposure to wind...

A new method for determination of Most Likely Initiation Points and the evaluation of Digital Terrain Model scale in terrain stability mapping P. Tarolli and D. G. Tarboton Department of Land and Agroforest Environments, AGRIPOLIS, University of Padova, 35020 Legnaro, Padova, Italy Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA Received: 10 January 20...

Based on the study of Digital Elevation Simplification Model and fractal theory, this paper put forward a new method to simulate complex terrain. That use simplified DEM data to construct terrain frame based on the quad tree at first, and then use fractal to generate the details of every node of the tree. In the process of construction, the LOD theory is used to simplify the terrain and get its...

The WGS84 ellipsoid is tessellated using quadrilaterals of roughly the same size. The tessellation scheme is developed for the purpose of storing, distributing and analysing global as well as local digital terrain models. Compared with DTED, the new grid has a more uniform distribution of cell sizes. This equal area property of the tiles of the grid is an attractive characteristic in geostatist...

For true 3D navigation applications that combine terrain data, city models, landmarks, and other 3D geo data, also a real 3D street network is necessary for the route calculations. In this paper we describe how such a network can be derived automatically using detailed digital terrain models. Furthermore a method is described how the terrain model can be enhanced by integrating the roads direct...

This document 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. The work shows an example of these techniques in a forested area in Scotland. An algorithm has been devised to extract a high...

Mountainous areas with rugged terrains are widely distributed around the world. Remotely sensed values of the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR) suffer from the effect of rugged terrain. In this study, the effect of rugged terrain was incorporated into the FAPAR model based on recollision probability (FAPAR-P), which was improved in two aspects: calculating the sky...