Application of Geodetic Projections to Terrestrial Laser Scanning in Leaf Area Index Calculation

Abstract

Carbon products, growth trend, volume, stress and annual products of vegetation, especially perennial vegetation canopy is very important for forestry, ecology and economics. Leaf Area Index (LAI) is an important parameter to observe and determine these parameters. It can be defined as the upward looking green leaf area to ground area ratio. There are direct and indirect methods to determine this parameters. Direct methods are considered old and destructive for the vegetation canopy, they are also time and resource consuming methods which are considered ineffective. With developing technology in Remote sensing and Photogrammetry it can be foreseen that it is possible to determine this parameter faster and for wider areas more accurately. When compared with conventional optic methods Terrestrial Laser Scanning Technique becomes prominent in determination of Leaf Area Index, with its high accuracy-high density point data. The procedure conducted in this work aims to bring an alternative approach to use Laser Scanning data and Mathematical models of Geodetic Projection in the estimation of Leaf Area Index.