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Forest Ecosystem Dynamics Lab Courses

SOE 592: Advanced Topics in Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences – Lidar Remote Sensing for Environmental Monitoring

Course Description

Lidar remote sensing is a state-of-the-art technology that is becoming widely used in many research applications. This new class will teach you everything you need to know about lidar technology, research, and applications. Learn how to visualize, process lidar point cloud data, build terrain and canopy height models and establish statistical models. We will use open source software including R-statistical language and FUSION/LDV. This class is entirely online and includes a chance to develop your own lidar project with the many datasets available (including terrestrial and drone lidar data). Projects can include: data visualization, biomass estimation, fuel load estimation, species classification, streambed hydrology, and more. Students are encouraged to choose a project that is close to their own interests.

Prerequisites: Instructor permission required

Materials

We will use no textbook for this course. Readings and exercises will be posted to BlackBoard for download. Students must have access to a computer and able to install the following software (see to the right). In addition, some amount of disk space (>5 Gb) is required to complete the exercises and final project.

Software

• R
• R-Studio
• Notepad ++ • ArcGIS
• FUSION
• FurgoViewer

Course Syllabus

For more information regarding this course, see the syllabus here.