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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ISPRS-Archives</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ISPRS-Archives</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2194-9034</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIX-B2-2026-1035-2026</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>A Workflow for the automatic Extraction of Glacier Contours from 4D Point Clouds</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Isfort</surname>
<given-names>Steffen</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Elias</surname>
<given-names>Melanie</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Maas</surname>
<given-names>Hans-Gerd</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9034-3469</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, TUD - Dresden University of Technology, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Faculty of Spatial Information, HTWD - University of Applied Sciences Dresden, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>23</day>
<month>07</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>XLIX-B2-2026</volume>
<fpage>1035</fpage>
<lpage>1041</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Steffen Isfort et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B2-2026/1035/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B2-2026-1035-2026.html">This article is available from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B2-2026/1035/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B2-2026-1035-2026.html</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B2-2026/1035/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B2-2026-1035-2026.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B2-2026/1035/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B2-2026-1035-2026.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>In this paper, we propose a basic workflow for the automatic extraction of glacier contours from high-resolution multi-temporal 3D point clouds. Based on the hypothesis, that glacier movements cause changes in multi-temporal surface models, glacier contours can be detected even in scenarios where glacier margins are not clearly visible, such as in the case of debris-covered glaciers and rock glaciers. After applying a robust registration algorithm, glacier and non-glacier points are filtered in several steps and spatial resolutions based on dense clusters of significantly changed points. Finally, the glacier margin is mapped using a contour extraction algorithm. The method is applied to various datasets in two scenarios: first, to a slightly debris-covered glacier in Norway; second, to a rock glacier in the Austrian Alps. The results clearly demonstrate the basic functionality of the proposed method. However, morphological changes not caused by glacier movement limit the effectiveness of the filtering, which relies exclusively on density-based elevation changes. Against this background, future work will focus on incorporating additional features, such as velocity fields and prior knowledge of rock glacier dynamics, into the point cloud filtering.</p>
</abstract>
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</article-meta>
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