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Modeling laser altimeter return waveforms over complex vegetation using high‐resolution elevation data
Author(s) -
Blair J. Bryan,
Hofton Michelle A.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/1999gl010484
Subject(s) - altimeter , waveform , elevation (ballistics) , remote sensing , laser , lidar , footprint , geology , vegetation (pathology) , data set , geodesy , environmental science , optics , computer science , physics , telecommunications , geometry , mathematics , medicine , radar , pathology , paleontology , artificial intelligence
The upcoming generation of laser altimeters record the interaction of emitted laser radiation with terrestrial surfaces in the form of a digitized waveform. We model these laser altimeter return waveforms as the sum of the reflections from individual surfaces within laser footprints, accounting for instrument‐specific properties. We compare over 1000 modeled and recorded waveform pairs using the Pearson correlation. We show that we reliably synthesize the vertical structure information for vegetation canopies contained in a medium‐large diameter laser footprint from a high‐resolution elevation data set.