The international benchmarking of terrestrial laser scanning methods for forestry applications progressed as planned. The test datasets were released in Feb. 2015. More than 10 international groups have downloaded the test data and more are encouraged to join. The test data can be obtained from the ftp site of the FGI, after sending a request to xinlian.liang@nls.fi or harri.kaartinen@nls.fi. This international benchmarking on TLS for forestry applications is targeting on the existing and modified algorithms, or manual measurements from the point cloud data. Meanwhile, the project is also open for all techniques that are in the research phase. National mapping agencies, companies, universities and research organizations are all welcomed to participate in the project and to provide the extracted plotwise parameters. In addition to the final report (in the middle of 2016), joint peer-reviewed journal articles on the statistical comparison results will be prepared. All participants will be invited as co-authors/co-writers in all papers.

The distributed data includes one single-scan and one multi-scan dataset for each of the 24 plots. Figures 1 and 2 show examples of the TLS data. Reference data is provided for one plot as an example of expected results, which can also be used as training data. The TLS data are exclusively used for this project before the publication of the final project report. After that, the point cloud data will be free of use for non-commercial purposes. The results of the test and report from participants are requested by July 31^st 2015.

More info: see project website