It may sound like an oxymoron, but it turns out that there is a growing (no pun intended – really) interest in accurately measuring urban tree canopy. A leader in the field, Jarlath O’Neill Dunn uses LiDAR and context-based analysis to develop dependable estimates. This article helps to demonstrates the importance of doing this right the first time.
During a visit to his Spatial Analysis Lab at the University of Vermont last week he gave my son and I some insight to the challenges of trying to automate the identification of trees in an urban setting, especially with leaf off LiDAR. Automating the process of detecting tree canopies is just not that easy.
Jarlath uses Definiens eCognition software to significantly reduce the manual labor required to produce the required estimates. If this is an area that you are interested you may want to contact Jarlath to see if he can be of help.
Good afternoon,
Please do not reference the article posted in the Abington Journal to “help… demonstrate the importance of doing this right the first time”. The reporter did an awful job of summarizing the presentation and even after clarifying and explaining to him the methods of analyzing the urban tree canopy, he failed to report correctly. I suggest using the website “http://letters-sal.blogspot.com/” which is the UVM’s Spatial Analysis Blog containing great information regarding this topic. Thank you,
Chris Peiffer – Chesapeake Bay Forester