Drone LiDAR Datasets

Drone LiDAR High Resolution Point Cloud from the all new mdLiDAR1000HR


High Resolution Point Clouds

The mdLiDAR1000HR is the next generation of industry leading drone Lidar survey equipment offered by Microdrones.  The mdLiDAR1000HR uses the lifting power, resilience and efficiency of the Microdrones aircraft platform to carry a perfectly integrated Velodyne VLP-16 PUCK LiDAR sensor for increased coverage and the ability to deliver high-resolution point clouds.

“The Microdrones mdLiDAR1000HR precision was analyzed by flights between 30 and 60 meters over a wide sample of surfaces (asphalt, gravel, roofs, natural ground) exhibiting different reflectance,” said Dr. Nicolas Seube, mdInfinity Chief Scientist Director R&D. “mdLidar1000HR with a 90 degree field of view for both scanned points and imagery, repeatedly provides a precision of 1.6 cm (.052 ft) at 1-σ when flown at 40 m (130 ft) at a speed of 8 m/s (18 mph). This was confirmed by a repeatability analysis.”

To demonstrate the high-resolution point clouds that can be created from data collected by the mdLiDAR1000HR , Microdrones has created a sample point cloud for review.  CLICK HERE to open the viewer. 

An aerial view of the project area. Click the image to open the point cloud.

The Workflow

Each project was conducted using the Microdrones workflow of Plan, Fly, Process and Visualize. Mission and flight preparation details, as well as the flight parameters and data acquisition will be reviewed for each flight.

Plan & Fly

Flight planning begins in mdCockpit and is then verified in the field upon closer inspection of the project.  When flight planning is complete, the mission can then begin and the user can choose to autonomously fly the project. 

The Data was collected in 1 flight of the mdLiDAR1000HR, flying at a constant flight altitude of 40 meters at a speed of 4 meters per second. The duration of the flight was 20 minutes with 70% sidelap and a LiDAR field of view of 90°.

Upon completion of the flight, mdInfinity trajectory quality control was used in the field to confirm the validity of the trajectory data. This module exports a simple detailed report including the Mission Duration, the Number of Events, IMU continuity check or Base Station information amongst other information and details.

Also, while in the field, the LiDAR coverage preview module from mdInfinity was used to perform the validation of the point Cloud datasets. The LiDAR Coverage Preview quickly georeferences your Point cloud for a fast baseline to validate the quality. However, it’s not a fully Georeferenced Point Cloud.

Process & Visualize

The mdLiDAR1000HR allows for a high-resolution and clean classification of trees

The point cloud represents a section of forest located near Toulouse, France. This location was chosen to showcase the ability of the mdLiDAR1000HR to penetrate the tree canopy, to allow for high-resolution ground classification and review the point density of the data.

The point cloud was created and processed through the mdInfinity software suite using DG trajectory processing, Georeferencing, Precision Enhancement and Ground Classification.  Using these mdInfinity data processing modules, vegetation has been removed and the bare earth data can be further processed to develop digital terrain models.

This high resolution data can also be used with other processing software to figure tree count, tree trunk segmentation, crown delineation and individual tree metrics as shown in the sample picture below.

Note the tree canopy and dense vegetation in the point cloud.
Note the ground classification and removal of all vegetation.

The Main Advantages

The mdLiDAR1000HR gives us the ability to collect high density data based on the 16 channels. This enables a faster and more efficient flight when compared to mono-layer LiDAR. This drone LiDAR system also provides a higher level of detail and better canopy penetration thanks to the large horizontal and vertical LiDAR field of view. Due to this classification routines can be performed with better precision than with point clouds with a lower density.

If you would like to speak with one of our professional representatives about the mdLiDAR1000HR CLICK HERE.