3D Geospatial Data Processing Group

For the first time, the inland dunes in Sandhausen (Baden-Württemberg, Germany) have been captured by UAV-borne photogrammetry and laser scanning. The dunes are a precious habitat for many specialized plants and animals. They formed during the last ice age by sand drift from the Rhine valley. The large inland dunes, originally stretching from Karlsruhe to [...]

In the SYSSIFOSS project, we are investigating how we can take advantage of virtual laser scanning (VLS), the simulation of laser scanning in a computer environment, in forestry applications. These applications include survey planning and optimization, sensitivity analyses, and algorithm development. For example, VLS may be used to investigate the influence of different sensor and [...]

Within the AHK-4D project, we continually monitor topographic change at the alpine rock glacier Äußeres Hochebenkar in Austria. Based on multitemporal and multi-source 3D point clouds at up to two-week acquisition intervals, we are developing methods to quantify the magnitudes and frequencies of individual processes of topographic change over varying timescales. This year, we have also [...]

Our forest laser scanning dataset collected in the frame of the SYSSIFOSS project is now openly available through the PANGAEA Data Publisher: Weiser, H., Schäfer, J., Winiwarter, L., et al. (2021): Terrestrial, UAV-borne and airborne laser scanning point clouds of central European forest plots, Germany, with extracted individual trees and manual forest inventory measurements. PANGAEA, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.933426 Until [...]

Our work on “Time Series-Based Coastal Surface Change Analysis using Hourly Terrestrial Laser Scans” was featured with a live presentation at this year’s digital event of the ISPRS Congress. The presentation by Katharina Anders was further made available as pre-recorded video, which you can now watch on the 3DGeo YouTube channel: The presented work is part [...]

Two weeks ago, we conducted a field campaign in the frame of a 3DGeo Sensor Practical course to acquire 3D point clouds of Heidelberg’s tallest trees, Sequoias planted in the Arboretum I (see our blog post). Today, we present the prepared data in our new online point cloud viewer based on potree: https://3dweb.geog.uni-heidelberg.de/potree/scenes/sequoia.html A few stills take you [...]

In our efforts to improve change detection and quantification in time series of 3D point clouds, we have published yet another milestone. Our paper, titled M3C2-EP: Pushing the limits of 3D topographic point cloud change detection by error propagation, presents a novel method to better separate noise from actual change in point clouds sensed with [...]

On 25 June 2021, we celebrated together with the graduates of 2020/2021 of Bachelor and Master of Science in Geography, and also School Education (Lehramt) at the digital ceremony. Moreover, the rector of our University, Prof. Bernhard Eitel, gave an interesting talk about the history of the Institute of Geography. He outlined how a wide [...]

Last Fieldwork Friday, a group of students gathered in Arboretum I to capture Heidelberg’s sequoia trees in the frame of a 3D Sensor Practical. In small groups, the students learned surveying strategies via terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurements. It was one of the first joint field campaigns of our [...]

Curious, which methods on 3D/4D point cloud-based change analysis and virtual laser scanning we are working on, that might also be interesting for your research? Thanks to a redesign of our 3DGeo website you can now quickly get an overview of algorithms and methods, that are acitvely developed in our research and featured in recent publications. These [...]