Individual tree point clouds and tree measurements from multi-platform laser scanning in German forests
- 13DGeo Research Group, Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University, Germany
- 2Institute of Geography and Geoecology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
- 3Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), Heidelberg University, Germany
- 13DGeo Research Group, Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University, Germany
- 2Institute of Geography and Geoecology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
- 3Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), Heidelberg University, Germany
Abstract. Laser scanning from different acquisition platforms enables collecting 3D point clouds from different perspectives and with varying resolutions. Such point clouds allow us to e.g., retrieve information about the forest structure and individual tree properties, or to model individual trees in 3D. We conducted airborne laser scanning (ALS), UAV-borne laser scanning (ULS) and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) in German mixed forests with species typical for Central Europe. We provide the spatially overlapping, georeferenced point clouds of the different acquisitions. As a result of individual tree extraction, we furthermore present a comprehensive database of tree point clouds and corresponding tree metrics, both measured in the field and derived from the point clouds. Our dataset may be used for the creation of 3D tree models for radiative transfer modeling or LiDAR simulation studies or to fit allometric equations between point cloud metrics and forest inventory variables. It can further serve as a benchmark dataset for different algorithms and machine learning tasks, in particular automated individual tree segmentation, tree species classification or forest inventory metric prediction. The dataset and supplementary metadata are available for download on the PANGAEA data publisher at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.933426 (Weiser et al., 2021b).
Hannah Weiser et al.
Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on essd-2022-39', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Feb 2022
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2022-39/essd-2022-39-RC1-supplement.pdf
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Hannah Weiser, 24 Feb 2022
Thank you for very much for your factual and constructive review. We appreciate your suggestions and provide our replies below.
Abstract and Introduction:
- We agree that the data descriptor would benefit from presenting a broader range of applications for the data. We will consider your suggestions and revise these sections.
Methods:
- A table with the number of trees by data source per plot seems like a great idea. As on the PANGAEA repository, each plot can (or must) be downloaded separately, this would greatly help users with their choice. We will include this in the revised manuscript.
Data:
- We will think about providing such a file with single tree information. However, we also think that this would be a massive (<1400 rows and many columns) and potentially confusing table.
- Alternatively, we could write a script which users can run in the folders (as downloaded from the PANGAEA repository) which can create such a file. The user may also provide further parameters, so that e.g., the filenames for a specific data source/species/quality/etc. can be derived.
- We are also building up a web-based database, where users can query the point clouds by different filters and download the results. I think this also includes your requested functionality and maybe even goes beyond. This database may later be enriched by further tree point clouds by our working group or other contributors.
Technical corrections:
- Thanks a lot! We will correct these errors.
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Hannah Weiser, 24 Feb 2022
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RC2: 'Comment on essd-2022-39', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Mar 2022
The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2022-39/essd-2022-39-RC2-supplement.pdf
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Hannah Weiser, 15 Mar 2022
Thanks a lot for your helpful review. We appreciate your suggestions and will consider them for the final manuscript. We provide our replies to the comments below.
Basic stand metrics
- We think this is a good idea and will include such a supplementary data table.
Line 226/227; Circle/Ellipse fitting:
- We only had a few cases, where it was difficult to fit a circle or an ellipse due to the point cloud quality (e.g., AbiAlb_SP02_01 to AbiAlb_SP02_05). For transparency, we could add the figures of the points and the fitted circles/ellipses for each tree to a supplementary file/folder. We could furthermore point out a) for which trees we had to fit a circle for a slice different than the 1.28 m and 1.32 m that we mentioned in the paper (e.g., thicker slice or different vertical position) and b) for which trees the estimated DBH might be less accurate due to point cloud quality (e.g., few points on the stem).
Line 282:
- We did not use a quantitative threshold, but discarded the ALS tree point clouds when they were not recognizable as a tree. This concerns only five trees, which had between 11 and 247 points. We can add this information to the manuscript.
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Hannah Weiser, 15 Mar 2022
Hannah Weiser et al.
Data sets
Terrestrial, UAV-borne, and airborne laser scanning point clouds of central European forest plots, Germany, with extracted individual trees and manual forest inventory measurements Weiser, Hannah; Schäfer, Jannika; Winiwarter, Lukas; Krašovec, Nina; Seitz, Christian; Schimka, Marian; Anders, Katharina; Baete, Daria; Braz, Andressa Soarez; Brand, Johannes; Debroize, Denis; Kuss, Paula; Martin, Lioba Lucia; Mayer, Angelo; Schrempp, Torben; Schwarz, Lisa-Maricia; Ulrich, Veit; Fassnacht, Fabian E.; Höfle, Bernhard https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.933426
Model code and software
SYSSIFOSS Weiser, Hannah; Höfle, Bernhard https://github.com/3dgeo-heidelberg/syssifoss
Hannah Weiser et al.
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