IMIS

Study area: The Kalmthoutse Heide is a nature reserve situated north of Kalmthout, in the province of Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium. It is part of the Cross-Border Nature Park De Zoom - Kalmthoutse Heide in the Netherlands and Belgium. The Kalmthoutse Heide is managed by the Flemish Agency for Nature and Forest and consists of wet and dry heathlands, inland dunes, forests and moorland pools. In this area, there is particular interest in monitoring the encroachment of the heathlands by Molinia caerulea and Campylopus introflexus.

Data processing: The raw data were processed to Digital Surface Models and orthophotos by the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO) in 2017. Images with coarse GPS coordinates were imported and processed in Agisoft PhotoScan Pro 1.4.x, a structure-from-motion (SfM) based photogrammetry software program. After extraction and matching of tie points, a bundle adjustment leads to a sparse point cloud and a refined set of camera position and orientation values. Ground control points (either artificially installed markers on the terrain, or other photo-identifiable points, measured on the ground with RTK GNSS) were used to further refine the camera calibration and obtain a pixel-level georeferencing accuracy. From there, a point cloud densification and classification into ground and non-ground points was performed, leading to a rasterized digital surface model (DSM) and digital terrain model (DTM). Finally, a true orthomosaic was projected onto the DTM.

Coordinate reference system: All geospatial data have the coordinate reference system EPSG:31370 - Belgian Lambert 72.

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