Individual tree crown (ITC) techniques

• Individual tree crown (ITC) delineation: Identification, and regrouping in high spatial resolution (30-100 cm/pixel) aerial and satellite multispectral images
• Individual tree crown delineation: A valley-following approach
• Individual tree crown multispectral classification in high spatial resolution images
• Supervised classification of automatically delineated tree crowns at different spatial resolutions
• Regrouping tree crowns into forest stands (or environmental strata) and obtaining detailed information about their content

---

Individual tree crown multispectral classification in high spatial resolution images

Various types of multispectral crown-based signatures were analysed for their species recognition capabilities using manually delineated tree crowns (i.e., to be independent of the automatic delineation process) (Gougeon, 1995b). Each classification was repeated ten times to produce a more stable and accurate comparison.

Classification comparison of multispectral signatures for tree crowns individually delineated on high resolution (36 cm) MEIS images (with 50 trees/species, 5 species, 10 classification runs/signature type)

Table showing mean species acurarcies and mean overall accuracy by signature type and tree species.

	Mean species accuracies (MSA)					Mean overall accuracy (range)
Signature types	BS*	JP*	RP*	WP*	WS*
ave_sign	90.6	74.4	54.9	69.3	68.1	71.9(66.7 - 75.4)
lit_sign	89.8	68.2	66.9	83.7	62.6	74.3(70.7 - 78.0)
tt_sign	89.5	74.5	59.1	61.7	55.1	67.7(56.9 - 74.8)
si_sign	85.8	71.3	65.7	80.0	63.4	73.3(68.3 - 79.1)
mpc1_s	93.8	71.5	57.9	83.5	72.0	76.4(72.1  - 80.5)
mpc1ev_s	95.7	70.0	64.3	80.0v	70.3	76.2(71.2 - 79.2)
mcov_s	89.4	74.1	45.9	71.5	70.3	70.2(65.1 - 78.1)
Av. MSA	90.7	72.0	59.2	75.7	66.0	72.8

*BS = Black spruce
*WS = White spruce
*JP = Jack pine
*RP = Red pine
*WP = White pine

See (Gougeon, 1995b) for a description of the signature types.

---