Effective use of high-resolution digital imagery for forest management

M. Milligan and R. Greene

Landmark Systems, Tallahassee, FL

Recent advances in the development of digital imaging sensors for use in aircraft have led to an increase in the availability of very high resolution digital multispectral image data. Generally, with spatial resolution under 5 meters, processing useful for satellite imagery may not be applicable due to the number of additional spectral features that are observable in high resolution data. Analytical processing to obtain species composition, vegetation structure and density requires a different approach to account for the effects of shadowing within and between identifiable features. Additionally, the lack of a mid-infrared band limits efforts at feature identification to three visible and one near infrared bands, if image data is fully composited into a single dataset. Promising new approaches to these issues for extracting information required for forest management are described with illustrations of their use.

Keywords: Digital Imagery, Spectral Features, Forest Management

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