Airborne LiDAR Remote Sensing and its Applications
Instructor: Dr. Keqi Zhang
Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is an active remote sensing technology that allows
accurate and cost-effective measurements of Earth’s surface features including terrain,
vegetation, and buildings. In the past twenty years, numerous methods for extracting features
from voluminous LiDAR measurements have been developed, and the applications of LiDAR
technology have also increased exponentially. This workshop presents the methods for mining
terrain, vegetation, and building information from LiDAR data and the applications of the
LiDAR technology for mapping vegetation, inundation, and erosion in coastal zones. The
following is the outline of the workshop.
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Introduction to LiDAR technology
o Physical principles
o Airborne LiDAR systems
o Errors in LiDAR measurements
Separation of terrain and non-terrain LiDAR Measurements
o Construction of measures for filtering LiDAR data
o Comparison of methods for filtering LiDAR data
o Challenges and future perspectives
Construction of 2.5D and 3D building models
o 2.5D and 3D building models
o Extraction of building foot prints
o Construction of 3D building models
Extraction of vegetation information
o Extraction of individual trees
o Estimation of biophysical variables
o Detection of forest gaps
o Enhancement of vegetation classification
Mapping coastal inundation and erosion
o Delineation of storm surge inundation
o Quantification of coastal erosion
o Estimation of sea level rise impacts
Dr. Keqi Zhang
Associate Professor
Department of Earth and Environment
Florida International University
Miami, Florida 33199, USA
Phone: 305-348-8368
Email: zhangk@fiu.edu
Dr. Keqi Zhang is the Interim Director of the International Hurricane Research Center and an
Associate Professor of the Department of Earth and Environment at Florida International
University, USA. Dr. Zhang obtained a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Maryland in
1998. Dr. Zhang teaches courses on remote sensing, GIS, environmental modeling, and coastal
hazards. His research focuses on airborne LiDAR mapping, beach erosion, storm surge
modeling, coastal variations in response to climate change and human activity, and 3D
visualization animation. Dr. Zhang developed the Airborne LiDAR Data Processing and
Analysis Tools for the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping
(http://lidar.ihrc.fiu.edu/lidartool.html). He has authored over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles
and other publications. Dr. Zhang’s research has been supported by federal agencies such as
NSF, NOAA, NASA, DOE, and FEMA.