Photogrammetric Measurement of Hardwood Species at a Stand Level Using RGB Images from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

Nowadays, for many remote sensing applications, drones are employed for gathering data, as it provides low cost image acquisition with minimal human intervention. Drone remote sensing has an extensive use in forestry for maintaining inventories, mapping canopy structure and monitoring forest fires. Maintaining a Forest inventory database is a crucial task as it is the only means of keeping a record of the trees. This study aims to explore UAV based image acquisition (consumer-grade sensor) and analysis for forest studies using structure from motion technique.The main objective is to derive a methodology for computing tree parameters such as tree height, diameter at breast height and crown width from drone images automatically. This study as a whole aims to create a database that will contain information on the physical attributes of trees that is necessary for an inventory. This work will have high significance in urban forestry as time can be saved from measuring trees manually for maintaining inventories