红边波段在水稻生育期识别中的应用研究

为了研究红边波段对水稻生育期识别的影响,利用无人机多光谱影像,基于随机森林（random forest,RF）和支持向量机（support vector machine,SVM）两种算法,对水稻的分蘖期、拔节孕穗期、抽穗扬花期、成熟期进行识别。结果表明,归一化差值红边指数（normalized difference red edge index,NDRE）、红边叶绿素指数（chlorophyll index-red edge,CIrededge）识别的总体精度明显高于归一化植被指数（normalized differential vegetation index,NDVI）、绿边叶绿素指数（chlorophyll index-green,CIgreen）、增强型植被指数（enhanced vegetation index,EVI）的总体精度。NDRE在拔节孕穗期的用户精度比NDVI低,而在分蘖期、抽穗扬花期、成熟期的识别精度比NDVI高。相比于CIgreen,CIrededge在抽穗扬花期识别精度更高;各波段组合识别水稻生育期的总体精度表现为RGB+RE>RGB+NIR+RE&g...     

结合随机森林的高分一号分类最优组合研究

选取高分一号(GF-1)PMS多光谱影像,提取该数据的指数、共生矩阵纹理等特征与原始多光谱影像叠加,对叠加后影像进行随机森林分类并提取各波段重要性系数。根据重要性系数进行最优波段组合初选择,在此基础上利用最佳指数法(OIF)选取土地覆盖分类最优波段组合,利用随机森林分类器对该组合进行土地覆盖分类,与传统的OIF最优波段选取结果进行分类精度对比。结果表明,提出的方法能够有效提取最优波段组合,最优波段组合为B2-B5-CON,与传统方法相比,在随机森林分类中总精度要高出20.49%。     

基于k-均值聚类算法的无人机雪域识别测绘

本文介绍了基于k-均值聚类算法无人机航测技术在雪域自动测绘中的应用,通过k-均值聚类算法完成正射影像中的雪域边界识别,区分无雪面域和雪覆盖面域。本文以JD项目中Riz、Piz-E、Piz-W三个实验区块为例,运用无人机在连续积雪和斑块积雪两种情况下进行了现场测绘实验。通过无人机正射影像与红-绿-蓝(RGB)影像、近红外-红-绿(NIRRG)影像、近红外-绿-蓝(NIRGB)影像分别对比分析,证实了在红、绿、蓝波段下均可以完成无人机航测影像雪域识别任务,也进一步说明了在任意波段下无人机均能完成雪域自动识别任务。     

基于多特征CRF的无人机影像松材线虫病监测方法

利用无人机遥感技术进行林业调查,可以获取低成本、高分辨率、高时间密度的遥感数据,特别是为小尺度范围的森林病虫害监测提供了非常有效的监测手段。本文以小型无人机为影像获取平台,航摄获取可见光RGB影像,基于高分辨率影像进行松材线虫病松树提取方法研究。根据影像特点,提取影像中地物颜色、纹理特征,并采用CRF方法进行分类,识别出病害松树。通过比较多种分类方法的提取结果,验证了基于多特征CRF方法在松材线虫病监测中的可行性和有效性。     

集成学习和条件随机场的影像招弧角识别

无人机巡检是目前电力部门主推的一种巡检方式,招弧角是一种重要的电网设备、但其呈现细长的几何形状特征,其测量需要优于1 cm空间分辨率的影像.为了从无人机获取的高分辨率影像上提取招弧角,该文提出了基于随机森林、集成学习、全连接条件随机场的无人机影像分类和招弧角提取方法.首先,提取了影像的12个光谱和纹理特征.接着,建立训练样本库,训练了多个独立的随机森林分类器、并形成随机森林集成模型进行影像分类.最后,利用全连接条件随机场优化分类结果.该文采用5000张无人机影像进行了实验.实验表明,该文提出方法的整体分类精度达到85.5％,招弧角识别的正确率为98.3％、完整率为74.3％,表明该方法具有潜在的工程应用价值.     

基于多进制小波遥感影像融合的研究

为监测地面沉陷区的动态演化信息,探讨了基于多进制小波变换与RGB特征融合相结合的遥感影像融合方法。在融合过程中,首先对高分辨率全色影像和多光谱影像进行M进制小波分解,再将高分辨率影像的高频分量分别与多光谱影像的R,G,B波段高频分量以区域能量为融合准则进行特征融合,形成新的高频分量,然后与多光谱影像的低频分量进行多进制小波逆变换,最后经RGB合成为彩色影像。结果表明,该方法既改善了影像的清晰度和分辨率,同时也保留了原影像的光谱信息,利用融合后的影像进行地面沉陷区监测,效果明显提高。     

ALOS影像在土地覆被分类中最佳波段选取的研究

选定长江口北岸ALOS影像为实验遥感数据,以影像土地覆被分类为目的,根据信息量最大、相关性小、地物光谱差异大可分性好的原则,进行ALOS影像各光谱波段影像特性统计分析和波段组合的实验分析,结合基于信息量的波段选择指数和地物光谱特征分析方法,选取ALOS最佳组合波段为4,3,2.     

无人机载单CCD四波段多光谱相机的几何预处理

无人机遥感具有机动灵活、时效性强等众多优点,在减灾灭灾和其他应急事件中具有快速获取遥感影像的能力,成为卫星、航空遥感有力的补充。单CCD四波段多光谱相机,以其性能可靠、方便灵活、小巧便携及适用性强等特点,能同时适用于多种航空遥感平台(如小型机、无人机、飞艇及气球等)。因此无人机载单CCD四波段相机在环境监测、资源调查、地质勘探和农业调查等多个领域,具有较好的应用前景。对无人机载单CCD四波段多光谱相机进行几何预处理,以便后期进一步的遥感影像研究。     

无人机多光谱数据反演叶面积指数方法研究

利用顾及敏感性分析的PROSAIL模型和植被指数模型,以青岛地区玉米作物为研究对象,对无人机多光谱影像的叶面积指数反演进行研究.反演结果显示顾及敏感性分析PROSAIL模型的R2为0.79,GNDVI植被指数反演结果的R2为0.82.实验表明利用无人机多光谱数据可进行玉米叶面积指数的反演,且效果较好.     

基于GF-5高光谱特征分析的水体提取方法研究

针对山区水体、山体阴影与裸地等地类光谱混淆性,基于高分五号(GF-5)影像数据,结合高光谱特征分析构建了山区水体决策树提取模型. 先对水体和相关干扰地类进行高光谱特征分析实现特征波段选取,应用单波段阈值法、多波段谱间关系法、归一化水指数(NDWI)法进行提取实验. 通过比较以上实验不足之处,提出了单波段阈值法与构建的阴影水体指数(SWI)相结合的决策树水体提取模型,以Google Earth高清影像为参考结合实地采样得到的混淆矩阵进行精度评价. 实验结果表明:单波段阈值法与NDWI法易将山体阴影识别为水体,受裸地影响较小;多波段谱间关系法对山体阴影有一定抑制作用,受小面积裸地影响;决策树提取模型能有效抑制山体阴影和裸地影响提取完整水体. 其总体精度为89.39%,Kappa系数为0.82,显著提升了山区水体提取精度.      

Individual tree crown delineation using localized contour tree method and airborne LiDAR data in coniferous forests

Individual tree crown delineation is of great importance for forest inventory and management. The increasing availability of high-resolution airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data makes it possible to delineate the crown structure of individual trees and deduce their geometric properties with high accuracy. In this study, we developed an automated segmentation method that is able to fully utilize high-resolution LiDAR data for detecting, extracting, and characterizing individual tree crowns with a multitude of geometric and topological properties. The proposed approach captures topological structure of forest and quantifies topological relationships of tree crowns by using a graph theory-based localized contour tree method, and finally segments individual tree crowns by analogy of recognizing hills from a topographic map. This approach consists of five key technical components: (1) derivation of canopy height model from airborne LiDAR data; (2) generation of contours based on the canopy height model; (3) extraction of hierarchical structures of tree crowns using the localized contour tree method; (4) delineation of individual tree crowns by segmenting hierarchical crown structure; and (5) calculation of geometric and topological properties of individual trees. We applied our new method to the Medicine Bow National Forest in the southwest of Laramie, Wyoming and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest in the central portion of the Cascade Range of Oregon, U.S. The results reveal that the overall accuracy of individual tree crown delineation for the two study areas achieved 94.21% and 75.07%, respectively. Our method holds great potential for segmenting individual tree crowns under various forest conditions. Furthermore, the geometric and topological attributes derived from our method provide comprehensive and essential information for forest management.     

Accounting for density reduction and structural loss in standing dead trees: Implications for forest biomass and carbon stock estimates in the United States

Background  

Standing dead trees are one component of forest ecosystem dead wood carbon (C) pools, whose national stock is estimated by the U.S. as required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Historically, standing dead tree C has been estimated as a function of live tree growing stock volume in the U.S.'s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Initiated in 1998, the USDA Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis program (responsible for compiling the Nation's forest C estimates) began consistent nationwide sampling of standing dead trees, which may now supplant previous purely model-based approaches to standing dead biomass and C stock estimation. A substantial hurdle to estimating standing dead tree biomass and C attributes is that traditional estimation procedures are based on merchantability paradigms that may not reflect density reductions or structural loss due to decomposition common in standing dead trees. The goal of this study was to incorporate standing dead tree adjustments into the current estimation procedures and assess how biomass and C stocks change at multiple spatial scales.     

A bottom-up approach to segment individual deciduous trees using leaf-off lidar point cloud data

Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) can generate three-dimensional (3D) point cloud which can be used to characterize horizontal and vertical forest structure, so it has become a popular tool for forest research. Recently, various methods based on top-down scheme have been developed to segment individual tree from lidar data. Some of these methods, such as the one developed by Li et al. (2012), can obtain the accuracy up to 90% when applied in coniferous forests. However, the accuracy will decrease when they are applied in deciduous forest because the interlacing tree branches can increase the difficulty to determine the tree top. In order to solve challenges of the tree segmentation in deciduous forests, we develop a new bottom-up method based on the intensity and 3D structure of leaf-off lidar point cloud data in this study. We applied our algorithm to segment trees in a forest at the Shavers Creek Watershed in Pennsylvania. Three indices were used to assess the accuracy of our method: recall, precision and F-score. The results show that the algorithm can detect 84% of the tree (recall), 97% of the segmented trees are correct (precision) and the overall F-score is 90%. The result implies that our method has good potential for segmenting individual trees in deciduous broadleaf forest.     

Tree Detection in Urban Regions Using Aerial Lidar and Image Data

In this letter, we present an approach to detecting trees in registered aerial image and range data obtained via lidar. The motivation for this problem comes from automated 3-D city modeling, in which such data are used to generate the models. Representing the trees in these models is problematic because the data are usually too sparsely sampled in tree regions to create an accurate 3-D model of the trees. Furthermore, including the tree data points interferes with the polygonization step of the building roof top models. Therefore, it is advantageous to detect and remove points that represent trees in both lidar and aerial imagery. In this letter, we propose a two-step method for tree detection consisting of segmentation followed by classification. The segmentation is done using a simple region-growing algorithm using weighted features from aerial image and lidar, such as height, texture map, height variation, and normal vector estimates. The weights for the features are determined using a learning method on random walks. The classification is done using the weighted support vector machines, allowing us to control the misclassification rate. The overall problem is formulated as a binary detection problem, and the results presented as receiver operating characteristic curves are shown to validate our approach     

Assessing Worldview-3 multispectral imaging abilities to map the tree diversity in semi-arid parklands

Semi-arid parkland agrosystems are strongly sensitive to climate change and anthropic pressure. In the context of sustainability research, trees are considered critical for various ecosystem services covering environment quality as well as food security and health. But their actual ecological impact on both cropland and natural vegetation is not well understood yet, and collecting spatial and structural information around agroforestry systems is becoming an important issue. Tree mapping in semi-arid parklands could be one of these prerequisites. While for obtaining an exhaustive inventory of individual trees and for analysing their spatial distribution, remote sensing is the ideal tool. However, it has been noted that depending on the spatial resolution and sensor spectral characteristics, tree species cannot be distinguished clearly, even in the sparsely vegetated semi-arid ecosystems of West Africa. Thus, this work focuses on assessing the capabilities of Worldview-3 imagery, acquired in 8 spectral bands, to detect, delineate, and identify certain key tree species in the Faidherbia albida parkland in Bambey, Senegal, based on a ground-truth database corresponding to 5000 trees. The tree crowns are delineated through NDVI thresholding and consecutive filtering to provide object-based radiometric signatures, radiometric indices, and textural information. A factorial discriminant analysis is then performed, which indicates that only four out of the seven most abundant species in the study area can be discriminated: “Faidherbia albida”,” Azadirachta indica”, “Balanites aegyptiaca” and “Tamarindus indica”. Next, random forest and support vector machine classifiers are employed to identify the optimal combination of classifier parameters to discriminate these classes with a high accuracy, robustness, and stability. The linear support vector machine with cost=1 and gamma=0.01 provides the optimal results with a global accuracy of 88 % and kappa of 0.71. This classifier is applied to the whole study area to map all the trees with crowns larger than 2 m, sorted in four identified species and a fifth common group of unidentified species. This map thus enables analysing the variability in tree density and the spatial distribution of different species. Such information can afterwards be correlated to the ecological functioning of the parkland and local practices, and offers promising opportunities to help future sustainability initiatives in different socio-ecological contexts.     

Mapping trees in high resolution imagery across large areas using locally variable thresholds guided by medium resolution tree maps

Large area tree maps, important for environmental monitoring and natural resource management, are often based on medium resolution satellite imagery. These data have difficulty in detecting trees in fragmented woodlands, and have significant omission errors in modified agricultural areas. High resolution imagery can better detect these trees, however, as most high resolution imagery is not normalised it is difficult to automate a tree classification method over large areas. The method developed here used an existing medium resolution map derived from either Landsat or SPOT5 satellite imagery to guide the classification of the high resolution imagery. It selected a spatially-variable threshold on the green band, calculated based on the spatially-variable percentage of trees in the existing map of tree cover. The green band proved more consistent at classifying trees across different images than several common band combinations. The method was tested on 0.5 m resolution imagery from airborne digital sensor (ADS) imagery across New South Wales (NSW), Australia using both Landsat and SPOT5 derived tree maps to guide the threshold selection. Accuracy was assessed across 6 large image mosaics revealing a more accurate result when the more accurate tree map from SPOT5 imagery was used. The resulting maps achieved an overall accuracy with 95% confidence intervals of 93% (90–95%), while the overall accuracy of the previous SPOT5 tree map was 87% (86–89%). The method reduced omission errors by mapping more scattered trees, although it did increase commission errors caused by dark pixels from water, building shadows, topographic shadows, and some soils and crops. The method allows trees to be automatically mapped at 5 m resolution from high resolution imagery, provided a medium resolution tree map already exists.     

PTrees: A point-based approach to forest tree extraction from lidar data

This paper introduces PTrees, a multi-scale dynamic point cloud segmentation dedicated to forest tree extraction from lidar point clouds. The method process the point data using the raw elevation values (Z) and compute height (H = Z − ground elevation) during post-processing using an innovative procedure allowing to preserve the geometry of crown points. Multiple segmentations are done at different scales. Segmentation criteria are then applied to dynamically select the best set of apices from the tree segments extracted at the various scales. The selected set of apices is then used to generate a final segmentation. PTrees has been tested in 3 different forest types, allowing to detect 82% of the trees with under 10% of false detection rate. Future development will integrate crown profile estimation during the segmentation process in order to both maximize the detection of suppressed trees and minimize false detections.     

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for assessment of qualitative classification of Norway spruce in temperate forest stands

Abstract

The study investigates the potential of UAV-based remote sensing technique for monitoring of Norway spruce health condition in the affected forest areas. The objectives are: (1) to test the applicability of UAV visible an near-infrared (VNIR) and geometrical data based on Z values of point dense cloud (PDC) raster to separate forest species and dead trees in the study area; (2) to explore the relationship between UAV VNIR data and individual spruce health indicators from field sampling; and (3) to explore the possibility of the qualitative classification of spruce health indicators. Analysis based on NDVI and PDC raster was successfully applied for separation of spruce and silver fir, and for identification of dead tree category. Separation between common beech and fir was distinguished by the object-oriented image analysis. NDVI was able to identify the presence of key indicators of spruce health, such as mechanical damage on stems and stem resin exudation linked to honey fungus infestation, while stem damage by peeling was identified at the significance margin. The results contributed to improving separation of coniferous (spruce and fir) tree species based on VNIR and PDC raster UAV data, and newly demonstrated the potential of NDVI for qualitative classification of spruce trees. The proposed methodology can be applicable for monitoring of spruce health condition in the local forest sites.     

Estimation of aboveground biomass of Robinia pseudoacacia forest in the Yellow River Delta based on UAV and Backpack LiDAR point clouds

Forest plantations are an important source of terrestrial carbon sequestration. The forest of Robinia pseudoacacia in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) is the largest artificial ecological protection forest in China. However, more than half of the forest has appeared different degrees of dieback and even death since the 1990s. Timely and accurate estimation of the forest aboveground biomass (AGB) is a basis for studying the carbon cycle of forests. Light Detecting and Ranging (LiDAR) has been proved to be one of the most powerful methods for forest biomass estimation. However, because of an irregular and overlapping shape of the broadleaved forest canopy in a growing season, it is difficult to segment individual trees and estimate the tree biomass from airborne LiDAR data. In this study, a new method was proposed to solve this problem of individual tree detection in the Robinia pseudoacacia forest based on a combination of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Light Detecting and Ranging (UAV-LiDAR) with the Backpack-LiDAR. The proposed method mainly consists of following steps: (i) at a plot level, trees in the UAV-LiDAR data were detected by seed points obtained by an individual tree segmentation (ITS) method from the Backpack-LiDAR data; (ii) height and diameter at breast height (DBH) of an individual tree would be extracted from UAV and Backpack LiDAR data, respectively; (iii) the individual tree AGB would be calculated through an allometric equation and the forest AGB at the plot level was accumulated; and (iv) the plot-level forest AGB was taken as a dependent variable, and various metrics extracted from UAV-LiDAR point cloud data as independent variables to estimate forest AGB distribution in the study area by using both multiple linear regression (MLR) and random forest (RF) models. The results demonstrate that: (1) the seed points extracted from Backpack-LiDAR could significantly improve the overall accuracy of individual tree detection (F = 0.99), and thus increase the forest AGB estimation accuracy; (2) compared with MLR model, the RF model led to a higher estimation accuracy (p < 0.05); and (3) LiDAR intensity information selected by both MLR and RF models and laser penetration rate (LP) played an important role in estimating healthy forest AGB.     

Tree Crown Detection,Delineation and Counting in UAV Remote Sensed Images: A Neural Network Based Spectral–Spatial Method

UAVs are fast emerging as a remote sensing platform to complement satellite based remote sensing. Agriculture and ecology is one of the important applications of UAV remote sensing, also known as low altitude remote sensing (LARS). This work demonstrates the use and potential of LARS in agriculture, particularly small holder open field agriculture. Two UAVs are used for remote sensing. The first UAV is a fixed wing aircraft with a high spatial resolution visible spectrum also known as RGB camera as a payload. The second UAV is a quadrotor UAV with an RGB camera interfaced to an on-board single board computer as the payload. LARS was carried out to acquire aerial high spatial resolution RGB images of different farms. Spectral–spatial classification of high spatial resolution RGB images for detection, delineation and counting of tree crowns in the image is presented. Supervised classification is carried out using extreme learning machine (ELM), a single hidden layer feed forward network neural network classifier. ELM was modelled for RGB values as input feature vectors and binary (tree and non-tree pixels) output class. Due to similarities in spectral intensities, some of the non-tree pixels were classified as tree pixels and in order to remove them, spatial classification was performed on the image. Spatial classification was carried out using thresholded geometrical property filtering techniques. Threshold values chosen for carrying out spatial classification were analysed to obtain optimal values. Finally in the delineation and counting, the connected tree crowns were segmented using Watershed algorithm performed on the image after marking individual tree crowns using Distance Transform method. Five representative UAV images captured at different altitudes with different crowns of banana plant, mango trees and coconut trees were used to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. The performance was compared with the traditional KMeans spectral–spatial method of clustering. Results and comparison of performance parameters of KMeans spectral–spatial and ELM spectral–spatial classification methods are presented. Results indicate that ELM performed better than KMeans.