• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.169-185
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• 2016

Recently mean stand height has been added as new attribute to forest type maps, but it is often too costly and time consuming to manually measure 9,100,000 points from countrywide stereo aerial photos. In addition, tree heights are frequently measured around tombs and forest edges, which are poor representations of the interior tree stand. This work proposes an estimation of mean stand height using an image-based point cloud, which was extracted from stereo aerial photo with FUSION S/W. Then, a digital terrain model was created by filtering the DSM point cloud and subtracting the DTM from DSM, resulting in nDSM, which represents object heights (buildings, trees, etc.). The RMSE was calculated to compare differences in tree heights between those observed and extracted from the nDSM. The resulting RMSE of average total plot height was 0.96 m. Individual tree heights of the whole study site area were extracted using the USDA Forest Service's FUSION S/W. Finally, mean stand height was produced by averaging individual tree heights in a stand polygon of the forest type map. In order to automate the mean stand height extraction using photogrammetric methods, a module was developed as an ArcGIS add-in toolbox.