Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Comparison Of Two Open Source Lidar Surface Classification Algorithms, Wade T. Tinkham, Hongyu Huang, Alistair M.S. Smith, Rupesh Shrestha, Michael J. Falkowski, Andrew T. Hudak, Timothy E. Link, Nancy F. Glenn, Danny G. Marks

Nancy Glenn

With the progression of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) towards a mainstream resource management tool, it has become necessary to understand how best to process and analyze the data. While most ground surface identification algorithms remain proprietary and have high purchase costs; a few are openly available, free to use, and are supported by published results. Two of the latter are the multiscale curvature classification and the Boise Center Aerospace Laboratory LiDAR (BCAL) algorithms. This study investigated the accuracy of these two algorithms (and a combination of the two) to create a digital terrain model from a raw LiDAR point …