Monday, April 8, 2019

Segment individual trees from TLS point clouds with 3DForest

Identifying individual trees from point clouds scanned using Terrestrial LiDAR System (TLS can be easily segmented using this freely downloable software 3DForest. For more information about 3DForest, visit http://www.3dforest.eu/.

Note: although 3DForest has its own ground classification filter, I found it better to perform the ground / non-ground classification using alternative software like PDAL.

To use 3DForest to segment individual trees, the following steps can be done:
  1. Start up 3DForest. Select Project | New Project to create a new project.

    The 3DForest application appears.
  2. In the menu, choose Project | Import | Import Terrain Cloud to load in a LAS file of only ground points.

  3. In the dialog box that pops up, choose a ground class only LAS file, e.g. sample_ground.las.

    The LAS file is converted into a PCD format file and displayed.
  4. Next, choose Project | Import Vegetation Cloud. Choose a non-ground class only LAS file, e.g. sample_vegetation.las.

    The non-ground class LAS file is converted into PCD format and displayed.
  5. In the menu, select Vegetation | Automatic Segmentation to run the individual tree segmentation algorithm.

    The Automatic Segmentation dialog box appears.

  6. In the Input Vegetation Cloud combo box, choose the newly loaded sample_vegetation LAS file.
  7. In the Input Terrain Cloud combo box, choose the loaded sample_ground LAS file.
  8. If necessary, change the parameters, e.g. Prefix of Clouds value from ID to TreeID. Click OK.

    The individual trees are segmented into individual point clouds.


     
  9. If required, select Project | Export | Export Clouds to export the segmented trees to text or PLY formatted files.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

A question: How can I create the Vegetation Cloud / DSM? Do you have a guide for this topic or can you tell me the steps to be taken? Just found your guide for creating a DTM (Create a bare earth DTM from a classified LiDAR LAS file with SAGA GIS). Thank you four your awesome guides!
Greetings from Germany
Clara

dominoc925 said...

Hi Clara from Germany, you can use SAGA-GIS or PDAL or other commercial software to generate a DSM instead of passing in only ground points to the gridding algorithm; just input all the Lidar points or just the first returns as some people do.