TREE SPECIES CLASSIFICATION USING RADIOMETRY, TEXTURE AND SHAPE BASED FEATURES

International audienceWe consider the problem of tree species classification from high resolution aerial images based on radiometry, texture and a shape modeling. We use the notion of shape space proposed by Klassen et al., which provides a shape description invariant to translation, rotation and scaling. The shape features are extracted within a geodesic distance in the shape space. We then perform a classification using a SVM approach. We are able to show that the shape descriptors improve the classification performance relative to a classifier based on radiometric and textural descriptors alone. We obtain these results using high resolution Colour InfraRed (CIR) aerial images provided by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The image viewpoint is close to the nadir, i.e. the tree crowns are seen from above

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in environmental biology: A Review

Acquiring information about the environment is a key step during each study in the field of environmental biology at different levels, from an individual species to community and biome. However, obtaining information about the environment is frequently difficult because of, for example, the phenological timing, spatial distribution of a species or limited accessibility of a particular area for the field survey. Moreover, remote sensing technology, which enables the observation of the Earth’s surface and is currently very common in environmental research, has many limitations such as insufficient spatial, spectral and temporal resolution and a high cost of data acquisition. Since the 1990s, researchers have been exploring the potential of different types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for monitoring Earth’s surface. The present study reviews recent scientific literature dealing with the use of UAV in environmental biology. Amongst numerous papers, short communications and conference abstracts, we selected 110 original studies of how UAVs can be used in environmental biology and which organisms can be studied in this manner. Most of these studies concerned the use of UAV to measure the vegetation parameters such as crown height, volume, number of individuals (14 studies) and quantification of the spatio-temporal dynamics of vegetation changes (12 studies). UAVs were also frequently applied to count birds and mammals, especially those living in the water. Generally, the analytical part of the present study was divided into following sections: (1) detecting, assessing and predicting threats on vegetation, (2) measuring the biophysical parameters of vegetation, (3) quantifying the dynamics of changes in plants and habitats and (4) population and behaviour studies of animals. At the end, we also synthesised all the information showing, amongst others, the advances in environmental biology because of UAV application. Considering that 33% of studies found and included in this review were published in 2017 and 2018, it is expected that the number and variety of applications of UAVs in environmental biology will increase in the future

Earth resources. A continuing bibliography with indexes, issue 23

This bibliography lists 226 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system between July 1, 1979 and September 30, 1979. Emphasis is placed on the use of remote sensing and geophysical instrumentation in spacecraft and aircraft to survey and inventory natural resources and urban areas. Subject matter is grouped according to agriculture and forestry, environmental changes and cultural resources, geodesy and cartography, geology and mineral resources, hydrology and water management, data processing and distribution systems, instrumentation and sensors, and economic analysis

A Non-Bayesian Model for Tree Crown Extraction using Marked Point Processes

High resolution aerial and satellite images of forests have a key role to play in natural resource management. As they enable forestry managers to study forests at the scale of trees, it is now possible to get a more accurate evaluation of the resources. Automatic algorithms are needed in that prospect to assist human operators in the exploitation of these data. In this paper, we present a stochastic geometry approach to extract 2D and 3D parameters of the trees, by modelling the stands as some realizations of a marked point process of ellipses or ellipsoids, whose points are the locations of the trees and marks their geometric features. As a result we obtain the number of stems, their position, and their size. This approach yields an energy minimization problem, where the energy embeds a regularization term (prior density), which introduces some interactions between the objects, and a data term, which links the objects to the features to be extracted, in 2D and 3D. Results are shown on Colour Infrared aerial images provided by the French National Forest Inventory (IFN

Integrating elevation data and multispectral high-resolution images for an improved hybrid Land Use/Land Cover mapping

ABSTRACTThe combination of elevation data together with multispectral high-resolution images is a new methodology for obtaining land use/land cover classification. It represents a step forward for both the accuracy and automation of LULC applications and allows users to setup thematic assignments through rules based on feature attributes and human expert interpretation of land usage. The synergy between different types of information means that LiDAR can give new hints at both the segmentation and hybrid classification steps, leading to a joint use of multispectral, spatial and elevation data. The output is a thematic map characterized by a custom-designed legend that is able to discriminate between land cover classes with similar spectral characteristics (level 3 of the CLC legend). Experimental results from a hilly farmland area with some urban structures (Musone river basin, Ancona, Italy) are used to highlight how the proposed methodology enhances land cover classification in heterogeneous environments

Multisource Data Integration in Remote Sensing

Papers presented at the workshop on Multisource Data Integration in Remote Sensing are compiled. The full text of these papers is included. New instruments and new sensors are discussed that can provide us with a large variety of new views of the real world. This huge amount of data has to be combined and integrated in a (computer-) model of this world. Multiple sources may give complimentary views of the world - consistent observations from different (and independent) data sources support each other and increase their credibility, while contradictions may be caused by noise, errors during processing, or misinterpretations, and can be identified as such. As a consequence, integration results are very reliable and represent a valid source of information for any geographical information system

Improving tree species classification using UAS multispectral images and texture measures

This paper focuses on the use of ultra-high resolution Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) imagery to classify tree species. Multispectral surveys were performed on a plant nursery to produce Digital Surface Models and orthophotos with ground sample distance equal to 0.01 m. Different combinations of multispectral images, multi-temporal data, and texture measures were employed to improve classification. The Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix was used to generate texture images with different window sizes and procedures for optimal texture features and window size selection were investigated. The study evaluates how methods used in Remote Sensing could be applied on ultra-high resolution UAS images. Combinations of original and derived bands were classified with the Maximum Likelihood algorithm, and Principal Component Analysis was conducted in order to understand the correlation between bands. The study proves that the use of texture features produces a significant increase of the Overall Accuracy, whose values change from 58% to 78% or 87%, depending on components reduction. The improvement given by the introduction of texture measures is highlighted even in terms of User's and Producer's Accuracy. For classification purposes, the inclusion of texture can compensate for difficulties of performing multi-temporal surveys

Earth resources: A continuing bibliography with indexes (issue 62)

This bibliography lists 544 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system between April 1 and June 30, 1989. Emphasis is placed on the use of remote sensing and geophysical instrumentation in spacecraft and aircraft to survey and inventory natural resources and urban areas. Subject matter is grouped according to agriculture and forestry, environmental changes and cultural resources, geodesy and cartography, geology and mineral resources, hydrology and water management, data processing and distribution systems, instrumentation and sensors, and economic analysis

Earth resources: A continuing bibliography (issue 26)

This bibliography lists 480 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system between April 1, 1980 and June 30, 1980. Emphasis is placed on the use of remote sensing and geophysical instrumentation in spacecraft and aircraft to survey and inventory natural resources and urban areas. Subject matter is grouped according to agriculture and forestry, environmental changes and cultural resources, geodesy and cartography, geology and mineral resources, hydrology and water management, data processing and distribution systems, instrumentation and sensors, and economic analysis