Automatic tree crown delineation in tropical forest using hyperspectral data

This paper aims to use unique features of hyperspectral data on an automatic process for outlining individual tree crowns (ITCs) in a tropical forest area, with special focus on semi-deciduous species. In order to enhance biophysical and biochemical properties of canopy species, a set of vegetation indices were computed. These indices served as input for a region growing segmentation algorithm that takes into account mutual similarity of pixels and spectral separability between neighbor segments. Segmentation output was evaluated on the basis of a score computed with the proportion of the area of the segments located within manually delineated ITCs. Results show that the segmentation approach is able to automatically delineate up to 70% of the control ITCs.