Category: Digital Earth

  • Multi-source 3D point cloud acquisition at the AHK rock glacier

    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…

  • Graduate Celebration 2021

    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…

  • Measuring the tallest sequoias of Germany in student field campaign

    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…

  • Methods and algorithms for 3D/4D change analysis and virtual laser scanning

    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…

  • The impact of recent gully filling practices on wheat yield at the Campiña landscape in Southern Spain

    The significance of gully filling practices on agricultural production has been only rarely evaluated in literature. In this study, a medium-sized catchment was selected, for being representative of the conventional farming practices on annual crops in the Campiña landscape in Southern Spain. During two wheat campaigns, an analysis of the spatial and temporal evolution of…

  • Deriving indicators for Points of Interest and analyzing mixed activities in urban areas

    We are pleased that our research paper “Deriving indicators for Points of Interest and analyzing mixed activities in urban areas” (Ullah, Lautenbach, Zipf 2021) has been accepted at the 12th International Symposium on the Digital Earth (ISDE) scheduled within the GI Week 2021 in Salzburg. The conference will take place from July 5th to July…

  • LOKI at vEGU 2021 on 26 and 29 April

    Join us and many European researchers from the Earth, planetary and space sciences in the virtual European Geosciences Union (EGU) assembly from 19 to 30 April 2021! Are you interested in innovative methods and concepts applied to natural hazards? Then join our 2-minute talks on research within the LOKI project on Monday, 26 April, and…

  • Fully automatic spatiotemporal segmentation of 3D LiDAR time series for the extraction of natural surface changes

    When and where do changes occur in dynamic natural landscapes? A new method has been published that enables the automatic extraction of surface changes from entire time series of 3D point clouds. The developed method of spatiotemporal segmentation extracts changes regarding their surface change history, which makes it particularly useful for natural scenes that are…

  • 3D Winter Wonderland – Multi-method acquisition for snow process research

    A joint field campaign was conducted this week in the snow-covered black forest (Hundseck, 48.643°N, 8.228°E) by the research groups Hydrology and Climatology (Prof. Menzel) and 3DGeo (Prof. Höfle). Regular in-situ surveys are conducted at the site to investigate snow as crucial component of the hydrologic cycle, forest management, and evapotranspiration. Surveys comprise measurement of…

  • HELIOS++ 1.0.0 Software & Preprint Release

    The 3DGeo Research Group is proud to announce the release of their novel ray-tracing based laser scanning simulator HELIOS++! HELIOS++ is a general-purpose simulation software for virtual laser scanning data acquisition. Such data can be used to complement real data in many use cases. Some examples include the generation of training data for machine learning,…

  • 4D change analysis for improving our understanding of dynamic landscapes

    Time series of topographic point clouds offer great possibilities to advance our understanding of dynamic landscapes. To exploit the full information these 4D datasets contain on spatial and temporal properties of natural surface changes, the 3DGeo research group is developing methods for 4D change analysis. These methods are required to answer fundamental questions on the…

  • Auto3Dscapes video about research in 4D change analysis

    This new video by the 3DGeo group presents the challenges of 3D Earth observation and our advances in 4D change analysis in the frame of the Auto3Dscapes project: Direct link to the video: https://youtu.be/Fdwq-Cp0mFY Many thanks to Claudia Denis and David Jäger for helping to realize the video! We are also very happy about the…