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Automatic extraction and delineation of single trees from remote sensing data

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Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel approach for the automatic extraction of trees and the delineation of the tree crowns from remote sensing data, and report and evaluate the results obtained with different test data sets. The approach is scale-invariant and is based on co-registered colour-infrared aerial imagery and a digital surface model (DSM). Our primary assumption is that the coarse structure of the crown, if represented at the appropriate level in scale-space, can be approximated with the help of an ellipsoid. The fine structure of the crown is suppressed at this scale level and can be ignored. Our approach is based on a tree model with three geometric parameters (size, circularity and convexity of the tree crown) and one radiometric parameter for the tree vitality. The processing strategy comprises three steps. First, we segment a wide range of scale levels of a pre-processed version of the DSM. In the second step, we select the best hypothesis for a crown from the overlapping segments of all levels based on the tree model. The selection is achieved with the help of fuzzy functions for the tree model parameters. Finally, the crown boundary is refined using active contour models (snakes). The approach was tested with four data sets from different sensors and exhibiting different resolutions. The results are very promising and prove the feasibility of the new approach for automatic tree extraction from remote sensing data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SOLVing3D GmbH, Osteriede 5, 30927, Garbsen, Germany

    Bernd-Michael Wolf (né Straub)

  2. Institute of Photogrammetry and GeoInformation, University of Hannover, Nienburger Str. 1, 30167, Hannover, Germany

    Christian Heipke

Authors
  1. Bernd-Michael Wolf (né Straub)
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  2. Christian Heipke
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Correspondence to Christian Heipke.

Additional information

The major part of this work was carried out while both authors worked together at the Institute of Photogrammetry and GeoInformation, University of Hannover.

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Wolf (né Straub), BM., Heipke, C. Automatic extraction and delineation of single trees from remote sensing data. Machine Vision and Applications 18, 317–330 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00138-006-0064-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00138-006-0064-9

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