For testing UAV methods, Nicole Albert collected aerial images of a forest plot with the quadrocompter Phantom 4DJI and the obtained images have been processed with the software tools “Agisoft PhotoScan Professional” and “droneDeploy”.

Figure a) display the 2dimensional orthomosaic and provides a visual impression of the area of interest (AOI).

Figure b) shows the elevation profile displaying the heights of all objects within the AOI, also referred to as Digital Surface Model (DSM). The color ramp indicates lower heights (blue) to greater heights (red).

Figure c) indicates the vegetation fraction quantitatively based on the Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index (VARI) as a measure of “how green” the AOI is. Based on RGB data rather than near-infrared data, it allows an assumption about the plant health and is visualized by a green to red color ramp, where green indicates live green.