scholarly journals Aboveground biomass estimation in linear forest objects: 2D- vs. 3D-data

2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (No. 12) ◽  
pp. 523-532
Author(s):  
Stefan Lingner ◽  
Eiko Thiessen ◽  
Eberhard Hartung
Keyword(s):  
Vegetation Cover ◽  
Wood Chip ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Dry Mass ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Biomass Estimation ◽  
Constant Weight ◽  
Linear Forest ◽  
3D Data ◽  
Canopy Area

Wood-chips of linear forest objects (hedge banks and roadside plantings) are used as sustainable energy supply in wood-chip heating systems. However, wood yield of linear forest objects is very heterogeneous and hard to estimate in advance. The aim of the present study was to compare the dry mass estimation potentials of two different non-destructive data: (i) Canopy area (derived from aerial images) and mean age at stump level (2D), (ii) volume of vegetation cover based on structure from motion (SfM) via unmanned aerial vehicle (3D). These two types of data were separately used to predict reference dry mass (ground truth) in eleven objects (5 hedge banks and 6 roadside plantings) in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The predicting potentials were compared afterwards. The reference dry mass was ascertained by weighing after harvesting and drying samples to constant weight. The model predicting reference dry mass using canopy area and mean age at stump level achieved a relative root mean square error (RMSE) of 52% (42% at larger combined plot sizes). The model predicting reference dry mass using SfM volume achieved a relative RMSE of 30% (16% at larger combined plot sizes). This result indicates that biomass is better described by volume of vegetation cover than by canopy area and age.

scholarly journals Fusion of Spectral and Structural Information from Aerial Images for Improved Biomass Estimation

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 3164
Author(s):  
Bikram Pratap Banerjee ◽  
German Spangenberg ◽  
Surya Kant
Keyword(s):  
High Throughput ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Structural Information ◽  
Vegetation Indices ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Breeding Population ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Biomass Estimation ◽  
Growth Stages ◽  
Crop Species

Efficient, precise and timely measurement of plant traits is important in the assessment of a breeding population. Estimating crop biomass in breeding trials using high-throughput technologies is difficult, as reproductive and senescence stages do not relate to reflectance spectra, and multiple growth stages occur concurrently in diverse genotypes. Additionally, vegetation indices (VIs) saturate at high canopy coverage, and vertical growth profiles are difficult to capture using VIs. A novel approach was implemented involving a fusion of complementary spectral and structural information, to calculate intermediate metrics such as crop height model (CHM), crop coverage (CC) and crop volume (CV), which were finally used to calculate dry (DW) and fresh (FW) weight of above-ground biomass in wheat. The intermediate metrics, CHM (R2 = 0.81, SEE = 4.19 cm) and CC (OA = 99.2%, Κ = 0.98) were found to be accurate against equivalent ground truth measurements. The metrics CV and CV×VIs were used to develop an effective and accurate linear regression model relationship with DW (R2 = 0.96 and SEE = 69.2 g/m2) and FW (R2 = 0.89 and SEE = 333.54 g/m2). The implemented approach outperformed commonly used VIs for estimation of biomass at all growth stages in wheat. The achieved results strongly support the applicability of the proposed approach for high-throughput phenotyping of germplasm in wheat and other crop species.

scholarly journals Fig Plant Segmentation from Aerial Images Using a Deep Convolutional Encoder-Decoder Network

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Fuentes-Pacheco ◽  
Juan Torres-Olivares ◽  
Edgar Roman-Rangel ◽  
Salvador Cervantes ◽  
Porfirio Juarez-Lopez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Precision Agriculture ◽  
Image Data ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Aerial Image ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Visual Appearance ◽  
Aerial Robots ◽  
Lighting Conditions ◽  
Convolutional Encoder

Crop segmentation is an important task in Precision Agriculture, where the use of aerial robots with an on-board camera has contributed to the development of new solution alternatives. We address the problem of fig plant segmentation in top-view RGB (Red-Green-Blue) images of a crop grown under open-field difficult circumstances of complex lighting conditions and non-ideal crop maintenance practices defined by local farmers. We present a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) with an encoder-decoder architecture that classifies each pixel as crop or non-crop using only raw colour images as input. Our approach achieves a mean accuracy of 93.85% despite the complexity of the background and a highly variable visual appearance of the leaves. We make available our CNN code to the research community, as well as the aerial image data set and a hand-made ground truth segmentation with pixel precision to facilitate the comparison among different algorithms.

scholarly journals Rapid Evaluation and Validation Method of Above Ground Forest Biomass Estimation Using Optical Remote Sensing in Tundi Reserved Forest Area, India

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Praveen Kumar ◽  
Akhouri P. Krishna ◽  
Thorkild M. Rasmussen ◽  
Mahendra K. Pal
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Vegetation Cover ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Forest Area ◽  
Relational Model ◽  
Biomass Estimation ◽  
Optical Remote Sensing ◽  
Ground Sample ◽  
Sensing Data

Optical remote sensing data are freely available on a global scale. However, the satellite image processing and analysis for quick, accurate, and precise forest above ground biomass (AGB) evaluation are still challenging and difficult. This paper is aimed to develop a novel method for precise, accurate, and quick evaluation of the forest AGB from optical remote sensing data. Typically, the ground forest AGB was calculated using an empirical model from ground data for biophysical parameters such as tree density, height, and diameter at breast height (DBH) collected from the field at different elevation strata. The ground fraction of vegetation cover (FVC) in each ground sample location was calculated. Then, the fraction of vegetation cover (FVC) from optical remote sensing imagery was calculated. In the first stage of method implementation, the relation model between the ground FVC and ground forest AGB was developed. In the second stage, the relational model was established between image FVC and ground FVC. Finally, both models were fused to derive the relational model between image FVC and forest AGB. The validation of the developed method was demonstrated utilizing Sentinel-2 imagery as test data and the Tundi reserved forest area located in the Dhanbad district of Jharkhand state in eastern India was used as the test site. The result from the developed model was ground validated and also compared with the result from a previously developed crown projected area (CPA)-based forest AGB estimation approach. The results from the developed approach demonstrated superior capabilities in precision compared to the CPA-based method. The average forest AGB estimation of the test site obtained by this approach revealed 463 tons per hectare, which matches the previous estimate from this test site.

scholarly journals Towards Scalable Economic Photovoltaic Potential Analysis Using Aerial Images and Deep Learning

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 3800
Author(s):  
Sebastian Krapf ◽  
Nils Kemmerzell ◽  
Syed Khawaja Haseeb Khawaja Haseeb Uddin ◽  
Manuel Hack Hack Vázquez ◽  
Fabian Netzler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
System Analysis ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Semantic Segmentation ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Potential Analysis ◽  
3D Data ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities

Roof-mounted photovoltaic systems play a critical role in the global transition to renewable energy generation. An analysis of roof photovoltaic potential is an important tool for supporting decision-making and for accelerating new installations. State of the art uses 3D data to conduct potential analyses with high spatial resolution, limiting the study area to places with available 3D data. Recent advances in deep learning allow the required roof information from aerial images to be extracted. Furthermore, most publications consider the technical photovoltaic potential, and only a few publications determine the photovoltaic economic potential. Therefore, this paper extends state of the art by proposing and applying a methodology for scalable economic photovoltaic potential analysis using aerial images and deep learning. Two convolutional neural networks are trained for semantic segmentation of roof segments and superstructures and achieve an Intersection over Union values of 0.84 and 0.64, respectively. We calculated the internal rate of return of each roof segment for 71 buildings in a small study area. A comparison of this paper’s methodology with a 3D-based analysis discusses its benefits and disadvantages. The proposed methodology uses only publicly available data and is potentially scalable to the global level. However, this poses a variety of research challenges and opportunities, which are summarized with a focus on the application of deep learning, economic photovoltaic potential analysis, and energy system analysis.

scholarly journals Applications of High-Resolution Imaging for Open Field Container Nursery Counting

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying She ◽  
Reza Ehsani ◽  
James Robbins ◽  
Josué Nahún Leiva ◽  
Jim Owen
Keyword(s):  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Ground Cover ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Inventory Data ◽  
Cover Type ◽  
Canopy Area ◽  
Resolution Imaging ◽  
Container Nurseries ◽  
The Stability

Frequent inventory data of container nurseries is needed by growers to ensure proper management and marketing strategies. In this paper, inventory data are estimated from aerial images. Since there are thousands of nursery species, it is difficult to find a generic classification algorithm for all cases. In this paper, the development of classification methods was confined to three representative categories: green foliage, yellow foliage, and flowering plants. Vegetation index thresholding and the support vector machine (SVM) were used for classification. Classification accuracies greater than 97% were obtained for each case. Based on the classification results, an algorithm based on canopy area mapping was built for counting. The effects of flight altitude, container spacing, and ground cover type were evaluated. Results showed that container spacing and interaction of container spacing with ground cover type have a significant effect on counting accuracy. To mimic the practical shipping and moving process, incomplete blocks with different voids were created. Results showed that the more plants removed from the block, the higher the accuracy. The developed algorithm was tested on irregular- or regular-shaped plants and plants with and without flowers to test the stability of the algorithm, and accuracies greater than 94% were obtained.

scholarly journals CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF OBJECT SEGMENTATION IN AERIAL IMAGE USING GEO-HAUSDORFF DISTANCE

2016 ◽  
Vol XLI-B4 ◽  
pp. 187-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Sun ◽  
Y. Ding ◽  
Y. Huang ◽  
G. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Hausdorff Distance ◽  
Object Segmentation ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
Limited Resource ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Aerial Image ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Spatial Correspondence

Aerial Image records the large-range earth objects with the ever-improving spatial and radiometric resolution. It becomes a powerful tool for earth observation, land-coverage survey, geographical census, etc., and helps delineating the boundary of different kinds of objects on the earth both manually and automatically. In light of the geo-spatial correspondence between the pixel locations of aerial image and the spatial coordinates of ground objects, there is an increasing need of super-pixel segmentation and high-accuracy positioning of objects in aerial image. Besides the commercial software package of eCognition and ENVI, many algorithms have also been developed in the literature to segment objects of aerial images. But how to evaluate the segmentation results remains a challenge, especially in the context of the geo-spatial correspondence. The Geo-Hausdorff Distance (GHD) is proposed to measure the geo-spatial distance between the results of various object segmentation that can be done with the manual ground truth or with the automatic algorithms.Based on the early-breaking and random-sampling design, the GHD calculates the geographical Hausdorff distance with nearly-linear complexity. Segmentation results of several state-of-the-art algorithms, including those of the commercial packages, are evaluated with a diverse set of aerial images. They have different signal-to-noise ratio around the object boundaries and are hard to trace correctly even for human operators. The GHD value is analyzed to comprehensively measure the suitability of different object segmentation methods for aerial images of different spatial resolution. By critically assessing the strengths and limitations of the existing algorithms, the paper provides valuable insight and guideline for extensive research in automating object detection and classification of aerial image in the nation-wide geographic census. It is also promising for the optimal design of operational specification of remote sensing interpretation under the constraints of limited resource.

scholarly journals USING SEMANTICALLY PAIRED IMAGES TO IMPROVE DOMAIN ADAPTATION FOR THE SEMANTIC SEGMENTATION OF AERIAL IMAGES

2020 ◽  
Vol V-2-2020 ◽  
pp. 483-492
Author(s):  
D. Gritzner ◽  
J. Ostermann
Keyword(s):  
Time Window ◽  
Domain Adaptation ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Semantic Segmentation ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Target Domain ◽  
Training Examples

Abstract. Modern machine learning, especially deep learning, which is used in a variety of applications, requires a lot of labelled data for model training. Having an insufficient amount of training examples leads to models which do not generalize well to new input instances. This is a particular significant problem for tasks involving aerial images: often training data is only available for a limited geographical area and a narrow time window, thus leading to models which perform poorly in different regions, at different times of day, or during different seasons. Domain adaptation can mitigate this issue by using labelled source domain training examples and unlabeled target domain images to train a model which performs well on both domains. Modern adversarial domain adaptation approaches use unpaired data. We propose using pairs of semantically similar images, i.e., whose segmentations are accurate predictions of each other, for improved model performance. In this paper we show that, as an upper limit based on ground truth, using semantically paired aerial images during training almost always increases model performance with an average improvement of 4.2% accuracy and .036 mean intersection-over-union (mIoU). Using a practical estimate of semantic similarity, we still achieve improvements in more than half of all cases, with average improvements of 2.5% accuracy and .017 mIoU in those cases.

scholarly journals Biomass Estimation Using 3D Data from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Imagery in a Tropical Woodland

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 968 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daud Kachamba ◽  
Hans Ørka ◽  
Terje Gobakken ◽  
Tron Eid ◽  
Weston Mwase
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle ◽  
Biomass Estimation ◽  
3D Data ◽  
Aerial Vehicle ◽  
Tropical Woodland

scholarly journals Monitoring and Computation of the Volumes of Stockpiles of Bulk Material by Means of UAV Photogrammetric Surveying

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grazia Tucci ◽  
Antonio Gebbia ◽  
Alessandro Conti ◽  
Lidia Fiorini ◽  
Claudio Lubello
Keyword(s):  
Bulk Material ◽  
Laser Scanner ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
3D Models ◽  
Satellite System ◽  
3D Data ◽  
Current Survey ◽  
Close Range ◽  
Global Navigation Satellite

The monitoring and metric assessment of piles of natural or man-made materials plays a fundamental role in the production and management processes of multiple activities. Over time, the monitoring techniques have undergone an evolution linked to the progress of measure and data processing techniques; starting from classic topography to global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technologies up to the current survey systems like laser scanner and close-range photogrammetry. Last-generation 3D data management software allow for the processing of increasingly truer high-resolution 3D models. This study shows the results of a test for the monitoring and computing of stockpile volumes of material coming from the differentiated waste collection inserted in the recycling chain, performed by means of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photogrammetric survey and the generation of 3D models starting from point clouds. The test was carried out with two UAV flight sessions, with vertical and oblique camera configurations, and using a terrestrial laser scanner for measuring the ground control points and as ground truth for testing the two survey configurations. The computations of the volumes were carried out using two software and comparisons were made both with reference to the different survey configurations and to the computation software.

scholarly journals Vegetation Cover Change Detection and Assessment in Arid Environment Using Multi-temporal Remote Sensing images and Ecosystem Management Approach

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anwar Abdelrahman Aly ◽  
Abdulrasoul Mosa Al-Omran ◽  
Abdulazeam Shahwan Sallam ◽  
Mohammad Ibrahim Al-Wabel ◽  
Mohammad Shayaa Al-Shayaa
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Ecosystem Management ◽  
Vegetation Cover ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Arid Environment ◽  
Management Approach ◽  
Landsat Images ◽  
Ground Truth Data ◽  
Multi Temporal

Abstract. Vegetation cover (VC) changes detection is essential for a better understanding of the interactions and interrelationships between humans and their ecosystem. Remote sensing (RS) technology is one of the most beneficial tools to study spatial and temporal changes of VC. A case study has been conducted in the agro-ecosystem (AE) of Al-Kharj, in the centre of Saudi Arabia. Characteristics and dynamics of VC changes during a period of 26 years (1987–2013) were investigated. A multi-temporal set of images was processed using Landsat images; Landsat4 TM 1987, Landsat7 ETM+ 2000, and Landsat8 2013. The VC pattern and changes were linked to both natural and social processes to investigate the drivers responsible for the change. The analyses of the three satellite images concluded that the surface area of the VC increased by 107.4 % between 1987 and 2000, it was decreased by 27.5 % between years 2000 and 2013. The field study, review of secondary data and community problem diagnosis using the participatory rural appraisal (PRA) method suggested that the drivers for this change are the deterioration and salinization of both soil and water resources. Ground truth data indicated that the deteriorated soils in the eastern part of the Al-Kharj AE are frequently subjected to sand dune encroachment; while the south-western part is frequently subjected to soil and groundwater salinization. The groundwater in the western part of the ecosystem is highly saline, with a salinity ≥ 6 dS m−1. The ecosystem management approach applied in this study can be used to alike AE worldwide.

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