Full automatic detection of tree species based on delineated single tree crowns - a data fusion approach for airborne laser scanning data and aerial photographs.

A full automated classification of tree species was tested on single tree level. This approach intends to classify without any parameter input or predefined knowledge. In the forerun it was therefore necessary to build algorithms which combine the LiDAR data based 2D single tree delineation with the spectral information from colour infrared (CIR) images. During the tree species classification the LiDAR based classification is improved by means of spectral information. The overall accuracy of the classification is more than 83 % for the tree types beech, oak and conifer and more than 90 % for deciduous trees and conifers. Splitting LiDAR based single tree polygons by spectral features improves the results by 7.42 %.

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