Comparison of a multilateral-based acquisition with Terrestrial Laser Scanner and profilometer technique for soil roughness measurement

Soil roughness parameters have been traditionally retrieved using altimetric profiles acquired from profilometer devices. Measuring soil roughness using the technology called Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) is an innovative method because of it is possible to get a three-dimensional surface more realistic than previous approaches. This paper shows a comparison between both techniques for different kind of soil roughness. A multilateral-based acquisition is proposed for TLS measurement. Analyses are made with profiles from the same soil samples acquired using a profilometer and a TLS. Profile-to-profile comparison got altimetric correlation between both devices and how soil roughness parameters are affected with. Results offer a straight relation (R = 0.92 globlally) between both datasets. The oblique angle used by multilateral acquisition in TLS reports a smoother value than vertical acquisition by profilometer.