arXiv subjects

Matti Hyyppä

Publications and source records attributed to Matti Hyyppä.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Multispectral airborne laser scanning dataset for tree species classification: MS-ALS-SPECIES

The shift from stand-level to individual-tree-level forest assessments supports improved species mapping and biodiversity monitoring, particularly in boreal ecosystems where tree species like aspen (Populus tremula L.) play a keystone role. Airborne laser scanning (ALS) is the standard for such inventories, but a major limitation for developing improved species classification methods is the small number of publicly available ALS datasets containing high-quality, field-validated reference data. Recently, multispectral ALS data has shown promise for tree species classification, but the progress is hindered by the lack of open multispectral ALS datasets with high-quality field reference data. This paper presents and details an open multispectral ALS dataset for tree species classification that was used before its public release for an international benchmarking study of machine learning and deep learning classification methods in a related publication by Taher et al.,(2026). The dataset comprises 6326 segment-level point clouds of individual trees representing nine species in southern Finland. The point cloud data has been acquired using two multispectral laser scanning systems each operating at three laser wavelengths: a helicopter-borne system (HeliALS) with a point density exceeding 1000 points\m2 and an Optech Titan system with approximately 35 points\m2. Furthermore, we present a crowdsourcing application that facilitates the collection of high-quality field reference data of tree species in an efficient and scalable manner. Our article showcases the versatility of the open dataset by presenting new analyses on species classification using multispectral data building upon the initial findings of Taher et al.,(2026).

cs.CV↗

arXiv2026

NormalView: tree species classification from backpack and aerial lidar data using geometric projections

Laser scanning has proven to be an invaluable tool in assessing the decomposition of forest environments. Mobile laser scanning (MLS) has shown to be highly promising for extremely accurate, tree level inventory. In this study, we present NormalView, a projection-based deep learning method for classifying tree species from point cloud data. NormalView embeds local geometric information into two-dimensional projections, in the form of normal vector estimates, and uses the projections as inputs to an image classification network, YOLOv11. In addition, we inspected the effect of multispectral radiometric intensity information on classification performance. We trained and tested our model on high-density MLS data (7 species, ~5000 pts/m2), as well as high-density airborne laser scanning (ALS) data (9 species, >1000 pts/m2). On the MLS data, NormalView achieves an overall accuracy (macro-average accuracy) of 95.5 % (94.8 %), and 91.8 % (79.1 %) on the ALS data. We found that having intensity information from multiple scanners provides benefits in tree species classification, and the best model on the multispectral ALS dataset was a model using intensity information from all three channels of the multispectral ALS. This study demonstrates that projection-based methods, when enhanced with geometric information and coupled with state-of-the-art image classification backbones, can achieve exceptional results. Crucially, these methods rely only on geometric information, and thus are compatible with most sensors. Additionally, we publically release the MLS dataset used in the study, containing 1915 samples.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2026

Multispectral airborne laser scanning for tree species classification: a benchmark of machine learning and deep learning algorithms

Climate-smart and biodiversity-preserving forestry demands precise information on forest resources, extending to the individual tree level. Multispectral airborne laser scanning (ALS) has shown promise in automated point cloud processing, but challenges remain in leveraging deep learning techniques and identifying rare tree species in class-imbalanced datasets. This study addresses these gaps by conducting a comprehensive benchmark of deep learning and traditional shallow machine learning methods for tree species classification. For the study, we collected high-density multispectral ALS data ($>1000$ $\mathrm{pts}/\mathrm{m}^2$) at three wavelengths using the FGI-developed HeliALS system, complemented by existing Optech Titan data (35 $\mathrm{pts}/\mathrm{m}^2$), to evaluate the species classification accuracy of various algorithms in a peri-urban study area located in southern Finland. We established a field reference dataset of 6326 segments across nine species using a newly developed browser-based crowdsourcing tool, which facilitated efficient data annotation. The ALS data, including a training dataset of 1065 segments, was shared with the scientific community to foster collaborative research and diverse algorithmic contributions. Based on 5261 test segments, our findings demonstrate that point-based deep learning methods, particularly a point transformer model, outperformed traditional machine learning and image-based deep learning approaches on high-density multispectral point clouds. For the high-density ALS dataset, a point transformer model provided the best performance reaching an overall (macro-average) accuracy of 87.9% (74.5%) with a training set of 1065 segments and 92.0% (85.1%) with a larger training set of 5000 segments.

cs.CV↗