<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD Journal Publishing DTD v3.0 20080202//EN" "https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/nlm-dtd/publishing/3.0/journalpublishing3.dtd">
<article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" article-type="research-article" dtd-version="3.0" xml:lang="en">
<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-B3-2026-325-2026</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Using NGRDI index to assist in forest canopy gaps classification of UAV RGB imagery</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhan</surname>
<given-names>Yu-Xuan</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>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Yong-Jun</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>Wei</surname>
<given-names>Chun-Hung</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>Chen</surname>
<given-names>Jan-Chang</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>General Research Service Center / Doctoral Program in Bioresources, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology(NPUST), 1, Shuefu Road, Neipu, Pingtung 912301, Taiwan (R.O.C.)</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Dept. of Forestry, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology(NPUST), 1, Shuefu Road, Neipu, Pingtung 912301, Taiwan (R.O.C.)</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>30</day>
<month>07</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>XLIX-B3-2026</volume>
<fpage>325</fpage>
<lpage>331</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Yu-Xuan Zhan 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-B3-2026/325/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B3-2026-325-2026.html">This article is available from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B3-2026/325/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B3-2026-325-2026.html</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B3-2026/325/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B3-2026-325-2026.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B3-2026/325/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B3-2026-325-2026.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>The formation of canopy gaps alters forest microclimates, influencing understory regeneration, soil organic matter decomposition, and nutrient cycling, thereby playing a crucial role in forest ecology. Traditional methods for detecting canopy gaps typically rely on multispectral imagery or LiDAR data, which are accurate but costly and technically demanding. In recent years, several studies have explored the feasibility of using UAV-based RGB imagery for gap detection. This study utilized UAV RGB imagery to analyze the temporal dynamics of canopy gaps to assess the feasibility of employing RGB-based vegetation indices for canopy gap detection. The Normalized Green&amp;ndash;Red Difference Index (NGRDI) combined with DSM differencing was used for analysis. Results show that when NGRDI &amp;lt; 0.03, forest areas can be effectively categorized into two classes: &amp;ldquo;canopy gaps&amp;rdquo; and &amp;ldquo;canopy cover.&amp;rdquo; The overall classification accuracy reached 93% with a Kappa coefficient of 0.68. However, the omission error was 44.44%, which suggests that the model requires improvement in detecting small or edge gaps. It is recommended that identified threshold be used as a preliminary criterion for &amp;ldquo;canopy versus non-canopy&amp;rdquo; classification, supplemented with DSM or CHM data to improve detection accuracy.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="7"/></counts>
</article-meta>
</front>
<body/>
<back>
</back>
</article>