DIGITAL TERRAIN MODELS FROM MOBILE LASER SCANNING DATA IN MORAVIAN KARST

Abstract. During the last ten years, mobile laser scanning (MLS) systems have become a very popular and efficient technology for capturing reality in 3D. A 3D laser scanner mounted on the top of a moving vehicle (e.g. car) allows the high precision capturing of the environment in a fast way. Mostly this technology is used in cities for capturing roads and buildings facades to create 3D city models. In our work, we used an MLS system in Moravian Karst, which is a protected nature reserve in the Eastern Part of the Czech Republic, with a steep rocky terrain covered by forests. For the 3D data collection, the Riegl VMX 450, mounted on a car, was used with integrated IMU/GNSS equipment, which provides low noise, rich and very dense 3D point clouds.

The aim of this work is to create a digital terrain model (DTM) from several MLS data sets acquired in the neighbourhood of a road. The total length of two covered areas is 3.9 and 6.1 km respectively, with an average width of 100 m. For the DTM generation, a fully automatic, robust, hierarchic approach was applied. The derivation of the DTM is based on combinations of hierarchical interpolation and robust filtering for different resolution levels. For the generation of the final DTMs, different interpolation algorithms are applied to the classified terrain points. The used parameters were determined by explorative analysis. All MLS data sets were processed with one parameter set. As a result, a high precise DTM was derived with high spatial resolution of 0.25 x 0.25 m. The quality of the DTMs was checked by geodetic measurements and visual comparison with raw point clouds. The high quality of the derived DTM can be used for analysing terrain changes and morphological structures. Finally, the derived DTM was compared with the DTM of the Czech Republic (DMR 4G) with a resolution of 5 x 5 m, which was created from airborne laser scanning data. The vertical accuracy of the derived DTMs is around 0.10 m.