Pixel- and object-based multispectral classification of forest tree species from small unmanned aerial vehicles

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 195-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven E. Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Forest Inventory ◽  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
Forest Tree ◽  
Tree Crown ◽  
Species Classification ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Object Based

Forest inventory, monitoring, and assessment requires accurate tree species identification and mapping. Recent experiences with multispectral data from small fixed-wing and rotary blade unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) suggest a role for this technology in the emerging paradigm of enhanced forest inventory (EFI). In this paper, pixel-based and object-based image analysis (OBIA) methods were compared in UAV-based tree species classification of nine commercial tree species in mature eastern Ontario mixedwood forests. Unsupervised clustering and supervised classification of tree crown pixels yielded approximately 50%–60% classification accuracy overall; OBIA with image segmentation to delineate tree crowns and machine learning yielded up to 80% classification accuracy overall. Spectral response patterns and tree crown shape and geometric differences were interpreted in context of their ability to separate tree species of interest with these classification methods. Accuracy assessment was based on field-based forest inventory tree species identification. The paper provides a brief summary of future research issues that will influence the growth of this geomatics innovation in forest tree species classification and forest inventory.

scholarly journals An Evaluation of Pixel- and Object-Based Tree Species Classification in Mixed Deciduous Forests Using Pansharpened Very High Spatial Resolution Satellite Imagery

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 1868
Author(s):  
Martina Deur ◽  
Mateo Gašparović ◽  
Ivan Balenović
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Satellite Imagery ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Deciduous Forest ◽  
Species Classification ◽  
Tree Species Classification ◽  
Object Based ◽  
Very High

Quality tree species information gathering is the basis for making proper decisions in forest management. By applying new technologies and remote sensing methods, very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery can give sufficient spatial detail to achieve accurate species-level classification. In this study, the influence of pansharpening of the WorldView-3 (WV-3) satellite imagery on classification results of three main tree species (Quercus robur L., Carpinus betulus L., and Alnus glutinosa (L.) Geartn.) has been evaluated. In order to increase tree species classification accuracy, three different pansharpening algorithms (Bayes, RCS, and LMVM) have been conducted. The LMVM algorithm proved the most effective pansharpening technique. The pixel- and object-based classification were applied to three pansharpened imageries using a random forest (RF) algorithm. The results showed a very high overall accuracy (OA) for LMVM pansharpened imagery: 92% and 96% for tree species classification based on pixel- and object-based approach, respectively. As expected, the object-based exceeded the pixel-based approach (OA increased by 4%). The influence of fusion on classification results was analyzed as well. Overall classification accuracy was improved by the spatial resolution of pansharpened images (OA increased by 7% for pixel-based approach). Also, regardless of pixel- or object-based classification approaches, the influence of the use of pansharpening is highly beneficial to classifying complex, natural, and mixed deciduous forest areas.

scholarly journals Classification of Tropical Forest Tree Species Using Meter-Scale Image Data

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Cross ◽  
Ted Scambos ◽  
Fabio Pacifici ◽  
Orlando Vargas-Ramirez ◽  
Rafael Moreno-Sanchez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Near Infrared ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Forest Tree ◽  
Tropical Tree ◽  
Forest Composition ◽  
Species Classification ◽  
Tropical Tree Species

Accurate classification of tropical tree species is critical for understanding forest habitat, biodiversity, forest composition, biomass, and the role of trees in climate variability through carbon uptake. The aim of this study is to establish an accurate classification procedure for tropical tree species, specifically testing the feasibility of WorldView-3 (WV-3) multispectral imagery for this task. The specific study site is a defined arboretum within a well-known tropical forest research location in Costa Rica (La Selva Biological Station). An object-based classification is the basis for the analysis to classify six selected tree species. A combination of pre-processed WV-3 bands were inputs to the classification, and an edge segmentation process defined multi-pixel-scale tree canopies. WorldView-3 bands in the Green, Red, Red Edge, and Near-Infrared 2, particularly when incorporated in two specialized vegetation indices, provide high discrimination among the selected species. Classification results yield an accuracy of 85.37%, with minimal errors of commission (7.89%) and omission (14.63%). Shadowing in the satellite imagery had a significant effect on segmentation accuracy (identifying single-species canopy tops) and on classification. The methodology presented provides a path to better characterization of tropical forest species distribution and overall composition for improving biomass studies in a tropical environment.

scholarly journals Hyperspectral tree crown classification using the multiple instance adaptive cosine estimator

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e6405
Author(s):  
Sheng Zou ◽  
Paul Gader ◽  
Alina Zare
Keyword(s):  
Tree Species ◽  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Majority Voting ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Cross Entropy ◽  
Tree Crown ◽  
Species Classification ◽  
Testing Data ◽  
Ace Algorithm

Tree species classification using hyperspectral imagery is a challenging task due to the high spectral similarity between species and large intra-species variability. This paper proposes a solution using the Multiple Instance Adaptive Cosine Estimator (MI-ACE) algorithm. MI-ACE estimates a discriminative target signature to differentiate between a pair of tree species while accounting for label uncertainty. Multi-class species classification is achieved by training a set of one-vs-one MI-ACE classifiers corresponding to the classification between each pair of tree species and a majority voting on the classification results from all classifiers. Additionally, the performance of MI-ACE does not rely on parameter settings that require tuning resulting in a method that is easy to use in application. Results presented are using training and testing data provided by a data analysis competition aimed at encouraging the development of methods for extracting ecological information through remote sensing obtained through participation in the competition. The experimental results using one-vs-one MI-ACE technique composed of a hierarchical classification, where a tree crown is first classified to one of the genus classes and one of the species classes. The species-level rank-1 classification accuracy is 86.4% and cross entropy is 0.9395 on the testing data, provided by the competition organizer, without the release of ground truth for testing data. Similarly, the same evaluation metrics are computed on the training data, where the rank-1 classification accuracy is 95.62% and the cross entropy is 0.2649. The results show that the presented approach can not only classify the majority species classes, but also classify the rare species classes.

scholarly journals RESNET-BASED TREE SPECIES CLASSIFICATION USING UAV IMAGES

2019 ◽  
Vol XLII-2/W13 ◽  
pp. 475-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Natesan ◽  
C. Armenakis ◽  
U. Vepakomma
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
Forest Tree ◽  
Tree Level ◽  
Species Classification ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
Tree Species Classification ◽  
Rgb Images

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Tree species classification at individual tree level is a challenging problem in forest management. Deep learning, a cutting-edge technology evolved from Artificial Intelligence, was seen to outperform other techniques when it comes to complex problems such as image classification. In this work, we present a novel method to classify forest tree species through high resolution RGB images acquired with a simple consumer grade camera mounted on a UAV platform using Residual Neural Networks. We used UAV RGB images acquired over three years that varied in numerous acquisition parameters such as season, time, illumination and angle to train the neural network. To begin with, we have experimented with limited data towards the identification of two pine species namely red pine and white pine from the rest of the species. We performed two experiments, first with the images from all three acquisition years and the second with images from only one acquisition year. In the first experiment, we obtained 80% classification accuracy when the trained network was tested on a distinct set of images and in the second experiment, we obtained 51% classification accuracy. As a part of this work, a novel dataset of high-resolution labelled tree species is generated that can be used to conduct further studies involving deep neural networks in forestry.</p>

scholarly journals An Improved Res-UNet Model for Tree Species Classification Using Airborne High-Resolution Images

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaili Cao ◽  
Xiaoli Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Forest Tree ◽  
Image Features ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Learning Technology ◽  
Species Classification ◽  
Tree Species Classification

Tree species classification is important for the management and sustainable development of forest resources. Traditional object-oriented tree species classification methods, such as support vector machines, require manual feature selection and generally low accuracy, whereas deep learning technology can automatically extract image features to achieve end-to-end classification. Therefore, a tree classification method based on deep learning is proposed in this study. This method combines the semantic segmentation network U-Net and the feature extraction network ResNet into an improved Res-UNet network, where the convolutional layer of the U-Net network is represented by the residual unit of ResNet, and linear interpolation is used instead of deconvolution in each upsampling layer. At the output of the network, conditional random fields are used for post-processing. This network model is used to perform classification experiments on airborne orthophotos of Nanning Gaofeng Forest Farm in Guangxi, China. The results are then compared with those of U-Net and ResNet networks. The proposed method exhibits higher classification accuracy with an overall classification accuracy of 87%. Thus, the proposed model can effectively implement forest tree species classification and provide new opportunities for tree species classification in southern China.

scholarly journals Classification of Typical Tree Species in Laser Point Cloud Based on Deep Learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 4750
Author(s):  
Jianchang Chen ◽  
Yiming Chen ◽  
Zhengjun Liu
Keyword(s):  
Feature Extraction ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
Point Cloud ◽  
Laser Scanning ◽  
Species Classification ◽  
Tree Species Classification ◽  
Network Mapping

We propose the Point Cloud Tree Species Classification Network (PCTSCN) to overcome challenges in classifying tree species from laser data with deep learning methods. The network is mainly composed of two parts: a sampling component in the early stage and a feature extraction component in the later stage. We used geometric sampling to extract regions with local features from the tree contours since these tend to be species-specific. Then we used an improved Farthest Point Sampling method to extract the features from a global perspective. We input the intensity of the tree point cloud as a dimensional feature and spatial information into the neural network and mapped it to higher dimensions for feature extraction. We used the data obtained by Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Laser Scanning (UAVLS) to conduct tree species classification experiments of white birch and larch. The experimental results showed that in both the TLS and UAVLS datasets, the input tree point cloud density and the highest feature dimensionality of the mapping had an impact on the classification accuracy of the tree species. When the single tree sample obtained by TLS consisted of 1024 points and the highest dimension of the network mapping was 512, the classification accuracy of the trained model reached 96%. For the individual tree samples obtained by UAVLS, which consisted of 2048 points and had the highest dimension of the network mapping of 1024, the classification accuracy of the trained model reached 92%. TLS data tree species classification accuracy of PCTSCN was improved by 2–9% compared with other models using the same point density, amount of data and highest feature dimension. The classification accuracy of tree species obtained by UAVLS was up to 8% higher. We propose PCTSCN to provide a new strategy for the intelligent classification of forest tree species.

Analysing Temporal Effects on Classification of SAR and Optical Images

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmet Batuhan Polat ◽  
Ozgun Akcay ◽  
Fusun Balik Sanli
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Classification Algorithms ◽  
Sar Images ◽  
Optical Images ◽  
Object Based ◽  
Training Samples

&lt;p&gt;Obtaining high accuracy in land cover classification is a non-trivial problem in geosciences for monitoring urban and rural areas. In this study, different classification algorithms were tested with different types of data, and besides the effects of seasonal changes on these classification algorithms and the evaluation of the data used are investigated. In addition, the effect of increasing classification training samples on classification accuracy has been revealed as a result of the study. Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images and Sentinel-2 multispectral optical images were used as datasets. Object-based approach was used for the classification of various fused image combinations. The classification algorithms Support Vector Machines (SVM), Random Forest (RF) and K-Nearest Neighborhood (kNN) methods were used for this process. In addition, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was examined separately to define the exact contribution to the classification accuracy. &amp;#160;As a result, the overall accuracies were compared by classifying the fused data generated by combining optical and SAR images. It has been determined that the increase in the number of training samples improve the classification accuracy. Moreover, it was determined that the object-based classification obtained from single SAR imagery produced the lowest classification accuracy among the used different dataset combinations in this study. In addition, it has been shown that NDVI data does not increase the accuracy of the classification in the winter season as the trees shed their leaves due to climate conditions.&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Capabilities of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Logistic Support

10.37105/sd.5 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 22-26
Author(s):  
Michalska Anna ◽  
Karpińska Katarzyna
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Delivery Methods ◽  
Military Equipment ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Logistic Support ◽  
The Military

The main focus of this paper is the capabilities of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles as a military logistic support in conflicts areas. The conducted research addresses the problems of traditional military delivery methods. Next, the problem of using UAVs only for civilian purposes is considered. The paper begins with short elucidation of logistic support and further provides the classification of logistic materials and discusses five categories of military equipment from the logistics point of view. Next, the paper discusses the characteristics of the parameters and properties of the chosen existing UAVs that are used for the delivery of materials. Consequently, a comparison of the UAVs is carried out, and new technologies for logistic transport are presented. This paper is concluded with the claim that it is necessary to modernize the process of logistic support in the military.

scholarly journals Individual tree crown delineation and tree species classification with hyperspectral and LiDAR data

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e6227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Dalponte ◽  
Lorenzo Frizzera ◽  
Damiano Gianelle
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
Data Science ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Tree Crown ◽  
Species Classification ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
Sensing Data ◽  
Tree Species Classification ◽  
Selection Of

An international data science challenge, called National Ecological Observatory Network—National Institute of Standards and Technology data science evaluation, was set up in autumn 2017 with the goal to improve the use of remote sensing data in ecological applications. The competition was divided into three tasks: (1) individual tree crown (ITC) delineation, for identifying the location and size of individual trees; (2) alignment between field surveyed trees and ITCs delineated on remote sensing data; and (3) tree species classification. In this paper, the methods and results of team Fondazione Edmund Mach (FEM) are presented. The ITC delineation (Task 1 of the challenge) was done using a region growing method applied to a near-infrared band of the hyperspectral images. The optimization of the parameters of the delineation algorithm was done in a supervised way on the basis of the Jaccard score using the training set provided by the organizers. The alignment (Task 2) between the delineated ITCs and the field surveyed trees was done using the Euclidean distance among the position, the height, and the crown radius of the ITCs and the field surveyed trees. The classification (Task 3) was performed using a support vector machine classifier applied to a selection of the hyperspectral bands and the canopy height model. The selection of the bands was done using the sequential forward floating selection method and the Jeffries Matusita distance. The results of the three tasks were very promising: team FEM ranked first in the data science competition in Task 1 and 2, and second in Task 3. The Jaccard score of the delineated crowns was 0.3402, and the results showed that the proposed approach delineated both small and large crowns. The alignment was correctly done for all the test samples. The classification results were good (overall accuracy of 88.1%, kappa accuracy of 75.7%, and mean class accuracy of 61.5%), although the accuracy was biased toward the most represented species.

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