GGI 3203

Point Cloud processing

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Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR)
Photogrammetric (UAV) Dense point cloud
LIDAR
• Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR)
• An active Remote Sensing System
• Lidar platforms can be
• Airborne
• Ground-based
• Satellite based
Lidar data Acquisition
• Modern lidar acquisition begins with a “photogrammetric
aircraft equipped with
• Airborne GPS (for x, y, z sensor location)
• Inertial measurement Unit –IMU (for measuring the angular
orientation of the sensor with respect to the ground)
• A rapidly pulsing (20k-50k pulses/sec) laser
• A highly accurate clock
• Onboard computer support
• Reliable electronics
• Robust data storage
Lidar data Acquisition – some considerations
• Flights are conducted using a digital flight plan, (to facilitate
data capture at night)
• Sufficient overlap (30% to 50%) is required esp. over steep
terrain to avoid data gaps.
• Areas with dense vegetation require a narrow FOV so that
the lidar pulses are pointing nearly straight down.
• Spectral regions used are green and NIR
 Lidar data Acquisition
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Operation of an airborne lidar scanning system
• Lidar systems require a
surveyed ground base location
• A calibrated alignment process
for the GPS position of the
sensor and the orientation
parameters is required to
assure and verify the accuracy
of the lidar data sets.
 Lidar data Acquisition
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Operation of an airborne lidar scanning system
• light is emitted from a rapidly
firing laser.
• This light travels to the ground
and reflects off of objects like
buildings and tree branches.
• The reflected light energy then
returns to the LiDAR sensor
where it is recorded.
 Lidar data Acquisition
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Operation of an airborne lidar scanning system
• A LiDAR system measures the
time it takes for emitted light to
travel to the ground and back.
• That time is used to calculate
distance traveled.
• Distance traveled is then
converted to elevation.
• These measurements are made
using the key components of a
lidar system including a GPS
and an Internal Measurement
Unit (IMU).
 Lidar data Acquisition
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Pulse and returns
• Lidar systems can record
several returns (commonly up
to 5 returns) per pulse -discrete
• This means that lidar can
discriminate the canopy, bare
ground and surfaces in
between)
• The first return typically
measures the elevations of tree
canopies, building roofs and
other unobstructed surfaces
• Typical suburban area lidar
produces in excess of 250,000
points per square km
 Lidar data Acquisition
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Pulse and returns
• The distribution of energy that
returns to the sensor creates
what is called a waveform.
• The amount of energy that
returns to the LiDAR sensor is
known as “intensity”.
Discrete vs. Full Waveform LiDAR
• A Discrete Return LiDAR System records individual (discrete) points for
the peaks in the waveform curve. Discrete return LiDAR systems
identify peaks and record a point at each peak location in the
waveform curve. These discrete or individual points are called returns.
A discrete system may record 1-4 (and sometimes more) returns from
each laser pulse.
• A Full Waveform LiDAR System records a distribution of returned light
energy. Full waveform LiDAR data are thus more complex to process;
however, they can often capture more information compared to
discrete return LiDAR systems.
 Lidar data Attributes
• LiDAR data attributes can vary, depending upon how the data were
collected and processed.
• You can determine what attributes are available for each lidar point
by looking at the metadata.
• All lidar data points will have:
• X,Y Location information: This determines the x,y coordinate location of the
object
• Z (elevation values): representing the elevation of the object
• Most lidar data points will have:
• Intensity: representing the amount of light energy recorded by the sensor.
• Some LiDAR point cloud data will also be “classified”.
 Lidar data Attributes - classification
• Classification refers to tagging each point with the object off which it
reflected. It is an additional processing step.
• E.g. if a pulse reflects off a tree branch, you would assign it to the
class “vegetation”. If the pulse reflects off the ground, you would
assign it to the class “ground”.
• Some LiDAR products will be classified as “ground/non-ground”.

• Some datasets will be further processed to determine which points

reflected off of buildings and other infrastructure.
• Some LiDAR data will be classified according to the vegetation type.
 Lidar data Acquisition - Common applications
• LiDAR data have also been used to derive information about
vegetation structure including
• Canopy Height
• Canopy Cover
• Leaf Area Index
• Vertical Forest Structure
• Species identification (in less dense forests with high point density
LiDAR)
 Lidar File Formats
• Whether it is collected as discrete points or full waveform, most
often LiDAR data are available as discrete points.
• A collection of discrete return LiDAR points is known as a LiDAR
point cloud.
• The commonly used file format to store LIDAR point cloud data is
the .las format.
• The .laz format is a highly compressed version of .las and is
becoming more widely used.
 Lidar Data products – point cloud
• The point cloud is one of the commonly found lidar products
• It is the native format for discrete return lidar data
 Lidar Data products – Raster
• Point clouds can be difficult to work with given the size of the data
and tools that are available to handle large volumes of points.
• Lidar data products are often created and stored in a gridded/ raster
data format. (smaller in size and availability of tools to work with)
• There are different ways to create a raster from Lidar point clouds
• Gridding
• Point to raster conversion/ interpolation
 Lidar Data products – Raster gridding
• Gridding calculates a value for each pixel or cell in your raster
dataset using the points that are spatially located within that cell.
• A grid is placed on top of the LiDAR data in geographic space.
• Each cell in the grid has the same spatial dimensions. These dimensions
represent that particular area on the ground.
• If you want to derive a 1 m resolution raster from the lidar data, you will
overlay a 1m by 1m grid over the LiDAR data points etc
• Within each 1 m x 1 m cell (or any other dimension) you calculate a value to
be applied to that cell, using the LiDAR points found within that cell.
• The simplest method of doing this is to take the max, min or mean height
value of all lidar points found within the 1 m cell.
• If you use this approach, you might have cells in the raster that do not
contain any lidar points. These cells will have a “no data” value if you process
your raster in this way.
 Lidar Data products – Raster interpolation
• A different approach is to interpolate the value for each cell.
• Interpolation considers the values of points outside of the cell in
addition to points within the cell to calculate a value.
• Interpolation also often uses statistical operations to calculate the
cell value.
• Interpolation is useful because it can provide you with some ability
to predict or calculate cell values in areas where there are no data
(or no points), and to quantify the error associated with those
predictions.
 Lidar Data products – DTM, DSM, CHM
• Digital Terrain Model (or DTM): ground elevation.
• Digital Surface Model (or DSM): top of the surface (imagine draping
a sheet over the canopy of a forest
• Canopy Height Model (CHM): the height or residual distance
between the ground and the top of the of objects above the ground.
This includes the actual heights of trees, builds and any other
objects on the earth’s surface. This CHM is created by subtracting
the DTM from the DSM.
 Lidar Data products – DTM, DSM, CHM
• Digital Terrain Model (or DTM
• Digital Surface Model (or DSM)
• Canopy Height Model (CHM)
Explore Lidar Data

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