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A model‐based approach for reconstructing a terrain surface from airborne LIDAR data
Author(s) -
Sohn Gunho,
Dowman Ian J.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the photogrammetric record
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.638
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1477-9730
pISSN - 0031-868X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1477-9730.2008.00483.x
Subject(s) - terrain , lidar , point cloud , remote sensing , computer science , raised relief map , piecewise , digital elevation model , point (geometry) , filter (signal processing) , computer vision , artificial intelligence , geology , geography , mathematics , cartography , geometry , mathematical analysis
A lidar filtering technique is used to differentiate on‐terrain points and off‐terrain points from a cloud of 3D point data collected by a lidar system. A major issue of concern in this low‐level filter is to design a methodology to ensure a continual adaptation to variations of terrain slopes and object scales. In this paper, a new lidar filtering technique which hierarchically fragments lidar data into piecewise planar terrain models is introduced. Once a number of hypothetical planar terrain models are generated to fit the terrain surface of the underlying area, the optimal terrain model to produce the minimum labelling errors is determined based on minimum description length (MDL) principles. This hypothesis‐verification optimisation is achieved in a coarse‐to‐fine strategy by which the entire terrain surface is incrementally reconstructed by increasing the number of planar terrain models fitted. The proposed technique was successfully applied to a digital surface model provided within an OEEPE lidar trial, showing 0·94% of Type I errors and 6·75% of Type II errors compared to manually classified reference data.