Geoinformation meets art in the forest

An interdisciplinary research cooperation between the art project FOR FOREST, the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (Research Group SIENA / Geoinformation and Environmental Technologies), the Department of Surveying and Geoinformation of the provincial capital Klagenfurt and the company Leica Geosystems Austria will create a “Digital 3D Twin” of the unique temporary art installation by Klaus Littmann in autumn 2019.

The goal of this applied research project is the complete precise centimeter-accurate digital 3D acquisition of this art intervention through an innovative combination of various state-of-the-art technologies, such as terrestrial laser scanning, precision reference measurement with mobile differential GPS, high-resolution drone based aerial photography and photogrammetric analysis.

The art intervention FOREST by Klaus Littmann (https://forforest.net) creates with the temporary installation of a species-rich mixed forest in the Klagenfurt football stadium not only the largest art installation in public space in Austria, but also a unique controlled experimental laboratory for the following exciting and challenging scientific questions:

1. What are the challenges posed by the huge amounts of data for the storage, processing and 3D visualization of the virtual forest?
2. How and with what quality can terrestrial laser scan point clouds
   with drone based photogrammetric generated point clouds consisting of billions of single points can be efficiently combined to an integrated complete 3D model?
3. How exactly and with what quality can “green space” in general
   and tree vegetation in particular can be digitally represented multi-dimensionally? – Keyword: “Every leaf counts
4. How precisely can specific tree species be classified automatically by combining spectral signature and morphological properties?

The data were successfully collected in 2 stages from mid August to the beginning of September 2019. Data processing and analysis of the geodata is currently being carried out. Many thanks to Klaus Littmann, Melanie Sass, Antonio Urbano, Andreas Hobel and the whole FOR FOR FOREST team for making our research project possible and providing comprehensive support.