International Journal of Digital Earth

ISSN: 1753-8947 (Print) 1753-8955 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tjde20

Airborne and terrestrial laser scanning

J.L. Van Genderen

To cite this article: J.L. Van Genderen (2011) Airborne and terrestrial laser scanning, International
Journal of Digital Earth, 4:2, 183-184, DOI: 10.1080/17538947.2011.553487

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2011.553487

Published online: 25 Jan 2011.

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International Journal of Digital Earth,
Vol. 4, No. 2, March 2011, 183
184

BOOK REVIEW

Airborne and terrestrial laser scanning, edited by G. Vosselman and H-G. Maas, Boca
Raton, London, New York, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, 2010, xxiv311
pp., ISBN 978-1904445-87-6

This is one of the first textbooks on the subject of airborne and terrestrial laser
scanning. The two editors, both experienced educators, have done a good job to put
together this textbook. Although the book has 12 different authors, the editors have
managed to produce a book in a relatively uniform style for each of the chapters.
The book gives a rather complete overview of the principles and techniques of
airborne and terrestrial laser scanning technology, as well as provides chapters which
introduce some of the main applications. Each of the chapters has a good list of
literature for further reading, as well as a nice summary of the chapter. The book is
well illustrated with simple diagrams, and avoids using too many mathematical
formulas.
The book starts with an introduction to the technology of airborne and terrestrial
laser scanning. This first chapter covers most of the topics related to this technology.
It has six sections, namely: Basic measurement principles of laser scanners,
Components of laser scanners, Basics of airborne laser scanning, Operational
aspects of airborne laser scanning, Airborne LIDAR bathymetry, and on Terrestrial
laser scanners.
In Chapter 2, entitled: ‘Visualization and Structuring of Point Clouds,’ the
authors discuss the techniques to visualize both the original point clouds and
rasterized data. This chapter also deals with the techniques of data structures and
provides several of the most common segmentation algorithms. Chapter 3, on
‘Registration and Calibration’ deals with the registration of multiple data-sets and
the calibration of airborne and terrestrial laser scanners. It focuses on the two key
factors that influence data quality, namely, registration and calibration. The chapter
deals with the following topics: a description of the geometric models for terrestrial
and airborne laser scanning observations, the coordinate systems in which they are
parameterized and the transformations between systems. Secondly, the error sources
that act as perturbations to the geometric observation models and their analytical
models are reviewed. The last two sections of the chapter cover registration methods
and calibration methods, with particular emphasis on system self-calibration.
Chapters 4
6 deal with various applications of aerial laser scanning, and
Chapters 7
9 cover some of the terrestrial applications of laser scanning.
Chapter 4 is entitled: ‘Extraction of Digital Terrain Models,’ and explains the
procedures for filtering of point clouds and DTM generation. This is followed in
Chapter 5 by an excellent overview of the methods of building extraction. It clearly
explains and describes the models and methods of building reconstruction, and deals
with most of the issues involved in building reconstruction. Chapter 6 is a short
ISSN 1753-8947 print/ISSN 1753-8955 online
DOI: 10.1080/17538947.2011.553487
http://www.informaworld.com
184 Book review

chapter on Forestry Applications and will be of particular interest to many of the

readers of IJDE as it shows the great potential of this technique to canopy height
models and biomass estimation. Together with the recent Special Issue on:
‘SILVILASER 2008’ (See International Journal of Remote Sensing, 2010, vol. 31.
no. 5 pp. 1129
1372, which contains some 14 papers on the application of laser
scanning to forestry) the reader really has all the latest on this topic. Chapter 7
provides many engineering applications from ground based laser scanning systems,
mainly dealing with industrial sites and also with change detection. Some interesting
applications for power line monitoring and dike and levee inspection for flood
control are also described. Those readers interested in cultural heritage, will enjoy
reading Chapter 8, as it gives five excellently documented and illustrated case studies
of various archaeological sites around the World, such as those at Petra in Jordan,
the pyramids at Giza, Egypt, and sites in Austria and France.
The final chapter is a short one on Mobile Mapping, a technology which is
rapidly re-shaping the way we look at our environment. It describes the various
techniques and gives various applications. With the integration of space, air, and
terrestrial based sensor systems, integrated mobile mapping systems will provide
increasingly useful data and information for visualizing our environment in 3D.
Overall, the book is reasonably balanced, except for the chapters on Forestry
applications, Cultural heritage applications, and on mobile mapping, which are less
than half the length of the other chapters. (e.g. Chapter 3 is 52 pages and Chapter 9 is
only 16 pages.)
Also, it is a great pity that the book only deals with land applications. In this
book of over 300 pages, only one page is used to mention about bathymetric LIDAR,
a technique which has been around for many years and is a very important part of
coastal zone monitoring, and shallow water bathymetric mapping. The book does
not give any examples of the use of airborne laser scanning for this purpose.
Another strange feature of the book is the inclusion of some commercial
advertisements. Some six such advertisements are included, but scattered throughout
the book, one at the beginning, and the others at the end of some of the chapters. It
would surely have been better to group them in one section.
For readers of IJDE, this book will form a useful reference work, as quite
soon, laser scanning from space will become a new resource to complement optical,
thermal, hyperspectral, and SAR systems. Currently we already have the GLAS laser,
onboard of ICESat, and the USA will launch three more space LIDAR systems over
the next decade, which will greatly aid in forest quantification and monitoring at
regional and global scales. In conclusion, Chapters 1
5 of this textbook form an
excellent basic text to be used in courses on this subject, and will serve as a reference
book for the many users who need to understand the technology and principles of
airborne and terrestrial laser scanning. There is no better alternative available today.
Chapters 6
9 introduce some of the applications, but in any second edition, there
should be more on applications.

J.L. Van Genderen

Enschede, the Netherlands
genderen@itc.nl
# 2011 J.L. Van Genderen