GENERATION OF AIRBORNE LIDAR INTENSITY IMAGE BY NORMALIZAING RANGE DIFFERENCES

Airborn Lidar technology has been applied to diverse applications with the advantages of accurate 3D information. Further, Lidar intensity, backscattered signal power, can provid us additional information regarding target's characteristics. Lidar intensity varies by the target reflectance, moisture condition, range, and viewing geometry. This study purposes to generate normalized airborne LiDAR intensity image considering those influential factors such as reflectance, range and geometric/topographic factors (scan angle, ground height, aspect, slope, local incidence angle: LIA). Laser points from one flight line were extracted to simplify the geometric conditions. Laser intensities of sample plots, selected by using a set of reference data and ground survey, werethen statistically analyzed with independent variables. Target reflectance, range between sensor and target, and surface slope were main factors to influence the laser intensity. Intensity of laser points was initially normalized by removing range effect only. However, microsite topographic factor, such as slope angle, was not normalized due to difficulty of automatic calculation.