View source for Talk:Data processing and output of Lidar

General remarks
The article provides a base introduction to the major technical issue related to Lidar. But has a major red flag: the introduction is out of date and some important topics are missing specially in the hydrographic Lidar. Basically this has the potential to be a strong paper but it still needs more work before it can be published. In particular, there is a lack of precision in the writing technical details that suggests the paper demonstrates things that it clearly does not. This is a shame, because what the paper does show is very interesting in its own right. Therefore, I think there are some serious flaws in the descriptions, which could affect the conclusions (especially for the hydrographic part). In addition, the discussion of the characteristics of the different used data sets is quite incomplete. 
The following improvements are suggested.

Missing topics
There exists an extensive literature on Lidar acquisition and accuracy, which should provide context for this work. Also missing is more reference to the data integration between Lidar and Hyperspectral dataset that is really on the front end of airborne coastal acquisition:

- Chust, G., et al. (2008), Coastal and estuarine habitat mapping, using LIDAR height and intensity and multi-spectral imagery, Estuarine, Coastal & Shelf Science, 78(4), 633–643.

- Deronde, B., et al. (2006), Use of airborne hyperspectral data and laserscan data to study beach morphodynamics along the Belgian Coast, Journal of Coastal Research, 22(5), 1108–1117.

- Elaksher, A. F. (2008), Fusion of hyperspectral images and lidar-based DEMs for coastal mapping, Optics & Lasers in Engineering, 46(7), 493–498.

- Gilvear, D., A. Tyler, and C. Davids (2004), Detection of estuarine and tidal river hydromorphology using hyper-spectral and LiDAR data: Forth estuary, Scotland, Estuarine, Coastal & Shelf Science, 61(3), 379–392.

- Jones, T. G., et al. (2010), Assessing the utility of airborne hyperspectral and LiDAR data for species distribution mapping in the coastal Pacific Northwest, Canada, Remote Sensing of Environment, 114(12), 2841–2852.

- Lee, D. S. (2003), Combining lidar elevation data and IKONOS multispectral imagery for coastal classification mapping, Marine Geodesy, 26, 117–127.

- Pallottini, E., Cappucci, S., Taramelli, A., Innocenti, C., Screpanti, A., (2010), Variazioni morfologiche stagionali del sistema spiaggia-duna del Parco Nazionale del Circeo, Studi Costieri, 17, 107-126.

- Taramelli A, Giardino C, Valentini E, Bresciani M, Gasperini L, (2010), Linking morphology to ecosystem structure using air-borne sensors for monitoring the Earth System, AGU Fall Meeting, 13-17 December 2010, San Francisco, California, abstract n. 960716

- Taramelli A., Giardino C., Gasperini L., del Bianco F., Bresciani M., Valentini E., Pizzimenti L., Zucca F., Disperati L., (2010), Biophysical and morphological study of coastal habitats from imaging spectrometry, lidar and in situ data acquisition, Extended abstract, The hyperspectral workshop 2010, ESRIN 17-19 Marzo 2010 Frascati.

- Innocenti C, Taramelli A, Valentini E, Cappucci S. 2011. Use of airborne LiDAR and hyperspectral data to study the sandy beach morphology along the Lazio region coast (Italy), Geophysical Research Abstracts 13: EGU2011-8725, 2011 EGU General Assembly 2011 

- Guenther GC. 1986. Wind and nadir angle effects on airborne lidar water’surface’ returns. Presented at the Ocean optics VIII. Orlando, FL. 277–286 pp. 

- Guenther GC. 2007. Airborne lidar bathymetry. In Digital elevation model technologies and applications: the DEM users manual. American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Bethesda, Maryland; 253–320. 

- Guenther GC, Eisler TJ, Riley JL, Perez SW. 1996. Obstruction detection and data decimation for airborne laser hydrography . DTIC Document [online] Available from: http://www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA487820 (Accessed 16 May 2012) 

- Guenther GC, LaRocque PE, Lillycrop WJ. 1994. Multiple surface channels in Scanning Hydrographic Operational Airborne Lidar Survey (SHOALS) airborne lidar. presented at the Ocean Optics XII. 422 pp. 

- Guenther GC, Thomas RWL. 1984. Prediction and Correction of Propagation-induced Depth Measurement Biases Plus Signal Attenuation and Beam Spreading for Airborne Laser Hydrography. NOAA Technical Report NOS. NOAA: Rockville, Md. [online] Available from: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/PUBS_LIB/PredictionAndCorrectionOfPropagationInducedDepthMeasurementBiasesForAirborneLaserHydrography_TR_NOS106_CGS2.pdf (Accessed 14 May 2012) 

Suggested Improvement
The paragraph “Typical topographic Lidar products” are completely ignoring the LAS format that is one of the major formats the end users are facing.

One of the key aspects recently highlighted in literature and under publication is the central role of the Amplitude of the hydrographic Lidar:

- A. Taramelli; E. Valentini; C. Innocenti; F. Filipponi; R. Proietti; L. Nicoletti; M. Gabellini, 2012, Linking morphology to ecosystem structure using air-borne lidar and Hyperspectral sensors for monitoring the Coastal Landascape, AGU 2012 Fall meeting, EP31B-0810.

- Valentini E, Taramelli A, Innocenti C, (2012), Coastal complex seabed mapping: the FHyL Approach, Remote Sensing of Environment, in review

- Taramelli A, Valentini E, Innocenti C, Cappucci S, Proietti R., (2012) Use of Airborne Lidar and Hyperspectral data to study the sandy beach morphology: the FhyL approach, in review Geomorphology. 


Suggested replacement
The bathymetric LiDAR uses two distinct radiations and is characterized by different wavelengths: a band in the infrared (wavelength of 1064 nm) for the measurement of the free surface and one in the green band (wavelength of 532 nm) for the measurement of seabed (Schnurr, 2009; Taramelli et al., 2009). The depths identified by bathymetric LiDAR are determined for each pulse from the time differences between the feedback signal received from the water surface and the return signal received from the seabed. In fact, the two different channels that work as a receiver are used separately: one for the estimation of the return of a surface and the other to estimate the return from the bottom (Guenther et al., 1994). For this reason, we eliminate the effects of surface waves (Thomas and Guenther, 1990) and a series of errors of measurement on the surface  (Guenther, 1986) that act on the bottom (Guenther and Thomas, 1984). Although a number of technical difficulties related to turbidity have been solved in different ways for different acquisition systems in literature, many of the limitations of bathymetric LiDAR involving the physics of light propagation in water are common in the different acquisition. So that the final point clouds LiDAR, due to inhomogeneities in the points’ density of the surveys (Guenther, 2007; Irish and White, 1998; Quadros et al., 2008; Schnurr, 2009), are therefore more focused on the edges of the strips. From literature (Guenther and Thomas, 1984) the specific LiDAR returns from different targets without considering the full waveforms, showing results of beam propagation in water, which expands in a different way after rebound/backscatter. The effective diameter in deep water is half the depth (number of scattering lengths), while in shallow water this causes an overestimation of the bathymetry (Goodman et al., 2008). Bearing in mind the effects of the density number of points available within a single cell is it possible to understand how the effect of an overestimation is due to the density of data acquisition. The area ratio and the target cell detection provide, in fact, a value that calculated the accuracy of return. In literature (Guenther et al., 1996), the ratio is 1.78 for 3x3 m, 5x5 m to 0.64, and 0.16 for 10x10 m. This applies only when the result is less than unity. Multiplying the values of literature, the biggest advantage of the actual factor of 1.78 has occurred in the 4x4 m acquisition with a probability of around 0.5  (Guenther et al., 1996).

External links
The paper is stating that “Very few reports are available to date on validating bathymetric Lidar with acoustic data”. There is a huge project that have several technical reports on the bathymetric and topographic lidar validation: Lidlaz Project at http://www.cmgizc.info/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=55&Itemid=28&lang=it

ISPRA. 2009-2010-2011-2012. Rilievo di dettaglio della batimetria costiera laziale con tecnologie LiDAR e valutazione delle caratteristiche fisiche e biologiche in aree marine della costa laziale di specifico interesse ambientale