Separating leaves from trunks and branches with dual-wavelength terrestrial lidar scanning

Terrestrial laser scanning combining both near-infrared (NIR) and shortwave-infrared (SWIR) wavelengths can readily distinguish broad leaves from trunks, branches, and ground surfaces. Merging data from the 1548 nm SWIR laser in the Dual-Wavelength Echidna^® Lidar (DWEL) instrument in engineering trials with data from the 1064 nm NIR laser in the Echidna^® Validation Instrument (EVI), we imaged a deciduous forest scene at the Harvard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts, and showed that trunks are about twice as bright as leaves at 1548 nm, while they have about equal brightness at 1064 nm. The reduced return of leaves in the SWIR is also evident in merged point clouds constructed from the two laser scans. This distinctive difference between leaf and trunk reflectance in the two wavelengths validates the principle of effective discrimination of leaves from other targets using the new dual-wavelength instrument.