DEVELOPMENT OF ACCURACY ASSESSMENT TOOL OF INDIVIDUAL TREE CROWN DELINEATION

Individual tree crown delineation (ITCD), which includes treetop detection and/or tree crown delineation, plays a significant role in modern forest resources management and precise forestry. Recent years, amount of ITCD algorithms have been proposed based on passive and active remotely sensed data. However, since there is no standardized accuracy assessment procedure for ITCD, it is extremely difficult to compare ITCD algorithms unless multiple approaches are tested on a single study area using the same datasets and accuracy metrics. This study proposes a standard accuracy assessment procedure on both plot and individual tree levels, and develops an accuracy assessment tool for ITCD studies, including treetop detection and crown delineation procedures. The tool provides a scientific and efficient approach for accuracy assessment of ITCD.