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Mobile Terrestrial Photogrammetry for Street Tree Mapping and Measurements
Forests
  • John Roberts, University of Florida
  • Andrew Koeser, University of Florida
  • Amr Abd-Elrahman, University of Florida
  • Benjamin Wilkinson, University of Florida
  • Gail Hansen, University of Florida
  • Shawn M. Landry, University of South Florida
  • Ali Perez, University of Florida
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2019
Keywords
  • urban forestry,
  • tree inventory,
  • trunk diameter,
  • point cloud,
  • green infrastructure
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.3390/f10080701
Disciplines
Abstract

Urban forests are often heavily populated by street trees along right-of-ways (ROW), and monitoring efforts can enhance municipal tree management. Terrestrial photogrammetric techniques have been used to measure tree biometry, but have typically used images from various angles around individual trees or forest plots to capture the entire stem while also utilizing local coordinate systems (i.e., non-georeferenced data). We proposed the mobile collection of georeferenced imagery along 100 m sections of urban roadway to create photogrammetric point cloud datasets suitable for measuring stem diameters and attaining positional x and y coordinates of street trees. In a comparison between stationary and mobile photogrammetry, diameter measurements of urban street trees (N = 88) showed a slightly lower error (RMSE = 8.02%) relative to non-mobile stem measurements (RMSE = 10.37%). Tree Y-coordinates throughout urban sites for mobile photogrammetric data showed a lower standard deviation of 1.70 m relative to 2.38 m for a handheld GPS, which was similar for X-coordinates where photogrammetry and handheld GPS coordinates showed standard deviations of 1.59 m and the handheld GPS 2.36 m, respectively—suggesting higher precision for the mobile photogrammetric models. The mobile photogrammetric system used in this study to create georeferenced models for measuring stem diameters and mapping tree positions can also be potentially expanded for more wide-scale applications related to tree inventory and monitoring of roadside infrastructure.

Rights Information
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Citation / Publisher Attribution

Forests, v. 10, issue 8, art. 701

Citation Information
John Roberts, Andrew Koeser, Amr Abd-Elrahman, Benjamin Wilkinson, et al.. "Mobile Terrestrial Photogrammetry for Street Tree Mapping and Measurements" Forests Vol. 10 Iss. 8 (2019)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/shawn-landry/40/