PRECISE CALCULATION OF CROSS SECTIONS AND VOLUME FOR TREE STEM USING POINT CLOUDS

Abstract. Woody biomass is an important parameter in forestry and forest research. In order to estimate of woody biomass, it is important to precisely and efficiently calculate section areas and volumes of tree stems in the forest. In this paper, we propose a method for calculating the cross-sectional area and the stem volume of trees from point clouds captured using the terrestrial laser scanner. In our method, each point cloud is converted into a wireframe model, and cross-section points are calculated as intersection between the wireframe and the horizontal planes placed at equal intervals. Cross-sectional shapes on each horizontal plane are approximated as n-sided polygons and refined using the subdivision scheme. The section areas and stem volumes are calculated using the subdivision curves of stem contours. In our evaluation, our method could calculate section areas and stem volumes of trees with sufficient accuracy in practical use.