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Main Authors: He, Siming, Osman, Zachary, Cladera, Fernando, Ong, Dexter, Rai, Nitant, Green, Patrick Corey, Kumar, Vijay, Chaudhari, Pratik
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03093
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author He, Siming
Osman, Zachary
Cladera, Fernando
Ong, Dexter
Rai, Nitant
Green, Patrick Corey
Kumar, Vijay
Chaudhari, Pratik
author_facet He, Siming
Osman, Zachary
Cladera, Fernando
Ong, Dexter
Rai, Nitant
Green, Patrick Corey
Kumar, Vijay
Chaudhari, Pratik
contents Forest inventories rely on accurate measurements of the diameter at breast height (DBH) for ecological monitoring, resource management, and carbon accounting. While LiDAR-based techniques can achieve centimeter-level precision, they are cost-prohibitive and operationally complex. We present a low-cost alternative that only needs a consumer-grade 360 video camera. Our semi-automated pipeline comprises of (i) a dense point cloud reconstruction using Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry software called Agisoft Metashape, (ii) semantic trunk segmentation by projecting Grounded Segment Anything (SAM) masks onto the 3D cloud, and (iii) a robust RANSAC-based technique to estimate cross section shape and DBH. We introduce an interactive visualization tool for inspecting segmented trees and their estimated DBH. On 61 acquisitions of 43 trees under a variety of conditions, our method attains median absolute relative errors of 5-9% with respect to "ground-truth" manual measurements. This is only 2-4% higher than LiDAR-based estimates, while employing a single 360 camera that costs orders of magnitude less, requires minimal setup, and is widely available.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_03093
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Estimating the Diameter at Breast Height of Trees in a Forest from RGB
He, Siming
Osman, Zachary
Cladera, Fernando
Ong, Dexter
Rai, Nitant
Green, Patrick Corey
Kumar, Vijay
Chaudhari, Pratik
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Forest inventories rely on accurate measurements of the diameter at breast height (DBH) for ecological monitoring, resource management, and carbon accounting. While LiDAR-based techniques can achieve centimeter-level precision, they are cost-prohibitive and operationally complex. We present a low-cost alternative that only needs a consumer-grade 360 video camera. Our semi-automated pipeline comprises of (i) a dense point cloud reconstruction using Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry software called Agisoft Metashape, (ii) semantic trunk segmentation by projecting Grounded Segment Anything (SAM) masks onto the 3D cloud, and (iii) a robust RANSAC-based technique to estimate cross section shape and DBH. We introduce an interactive visualization tool for inspecting segmented trees and their estimated DBH. On 61 acquisitions of 43 trees under a variety of conditions, our method attains median absolute relative errors of 5-9% with respect to "ground-truth" manual measurements. This is only 2-4% higher than LiDAR-based estimates, while employing a single 360 camera that costs orders of magnitude less, requires minimal setup, and is widely available.
title Estimating the Diameter at Breast Height of Trees in a Forest from RGB
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03093