The advance of technology and the availability of high-resolution and accurate systems have permitted the development of new methods for studies in forests. Terrestrial laser scanners have been consolidated as one of the most effective technologies for geospatial data acquisition since the last decade. They have offered the possibility of mapping tridimensionally with high positional accuracy a great number of targets, including forests. However, it is quite difficult to find methodological approaches for acquisition of forest data involving these type of systems. Thus, based on a mid and long range laser scanner with an electromagnetic spectrum ranging into the mid-infrared, 1535 nm, different distances and radiometric resolutions were tested in order to establish a method of acquisition of intensity data in forest targets. After processing, data were analyzed with a clustering algorithm to test the possibility of identifying different elements. Trunk, branches and leaves as well as an edge effect were satisfactorily grouped. Besides defining a method for acquisition of intensity, it opens good perspectives in terms of integrating the classification obtained by the clustering technique with the point cloud. Future studies can contribute to develop a method for quantifying the volume of forest elements and, consequently, estimate biomass.

IERI Procedia