Evaluation of pushbroom DAP relative to frame camera DAP and lidar for forest modeling

There is growing interest in using Digital Aerial Photogrammetry (DAP) for forestry applications. However, the performance of pushbroom DAP relative to frame-based DAP and airborne lidar is not well documented. Interest in DAP stems largely from its low cost relative to lidar. Studies have demonstrated that frame-based DAP generally performs slightly poorer than lidar, but still provides good value due to its reduced cost. In the USA pushbroom imagery can be dramatically less expensive than frame-camera imagery in part because of a nationwide collection program. There is an immediate need then to understand how well pushbroom DAP works as an auxiliary data source in the prediction of key forest attributes including basal area, volume, height, and the number of trees per ha.