Statistics for Spatial Data.

1. Introduction and Overview. 2. Detecting Influential Observations and Outliers. 3. Detecting and Assessing Collinearity. 4. Applications and Remedies. 5. Research Issues and Directions for Extensions. Bibliography. Author Index. Subject Index.

Regression Diagnostics: Identifying Influential Data and Sources of Collinearity

Climate change 2014 - Synthesis Report

We evaluate 179 classifiers arising from 17 families (discriminant analysis, Bayesian, neural networks, support vector machines, decision trees, rule-based classifiers, boosting, bagging, stacking, random forests and other ensembles, generalized linear models, nearest-neighbors, partial least squares and principal component regression, logistic and multinomial regression, multiple adaptive regression splines and other methods), implemented in Weka, R (with and without the caret package), C and Matlab, including all the relevant classifiers available today. We use 121 data sets, which represent the whole UCI data base (excluding the large-scale problems) and other own real problems, in order to achieve significant conclusions about the classifier behavior, not dependent on the data set collection. The classifiers most likely to be the bests are the random forest (RF) versions, the best of which (implemented in R and accessed via caret) achieves 94.1% of the maximum accuracy overcoming 90% in the 84.3% of the data sets. However, the difference is not statistically significant with the second best, the SVM with Gaussian kernel implemented in C using LibSVM, which achieves 92.3% of the maximum accuracy. A few models are clearly better than the remaining ones: random forest, SVM with Gaussian and polynomial kernels, extreme learning machine with Gaussian kernel, C5.0 and avNNet (a committee of multi-layer perceptrons implemented in R with the caret package). The random forest is clearly the best family of classifiers (3 out of 5 bests classifiers are RF), followed by SVM (4 classifiers in the top-10), neural networks and boosting ensembles (5 and 3 members in the top-20, respectively).

/pdf/do-we-need-hundreds-of-classifiers-to-solve-real-world-1igtahh9y9.pdf

Do we need hundreds of classifiers to solve real world classification problems

A wide range of methods for analysis of airborne- and satellite-derived imagery continues to be proposed and assessed. In this paper, we review remote sensing implementations of support vector machines (SVMs), a promising machine learning methodology. This review is timely due to the exponentially increasing number of works published in recent years. SVMs are particularly appealing in the remote sensing field due to their ability to generalize well even with limited training samples, a common limitation for remote sensing applications. However, they also suffer from parameter assignment issues that can significantly affect obtained results. A summary of empirical results is provided for various applications of over one hundred published works (as of April, 2010). It is our hope that this survey will provide guidelines for future applications of SVMs and possible areas of algorithm enhancement.

https://www.aboutgis.com/Publications/Mountrakis_SVM_review_in_remote_sensing_ISPRS2010.pdf

Support vector machines in remote sensing: A review

Airborne laser scanning (ALS) is a remote sensing technique well-suited for 3D vegetation mapping and structure characterization because the emitted laser pulses are able to penetrate small gaps in the vegetation canopy. The backscattered echoes from the foliage, woody vegetation, the terrain, and other objects are detected, leading to a cloud of points. Higher echo densities (> 20 echoes/m2) and additional classification variables from full-waveform (FWF) ALS data, namely echo amplitude, echo width and information on multiple echoes from one shot, offer new possibilities in classifying the ALS point cloud. Currently FWF sensor information is hardly used for classification purposes. This contribution presents an object-based point cloud analysis (OBPA) approach, combining segmentation and classification of the 3D FWF ALS points designed to detect tall vegetation in urban environments. The definition tall vegetation includes trees and shrubs, but excludes grassland and herbage. In the applied procedure FWF ALS echoes are segmented by a seeded region growing procedure. All echoes sorted descending by their surface roughness are used as seed points. Segments are grown based on echo width homogeneity. Next, segment statistics (mean, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation) are calculated by aggregating echo features such as amplitude and surface roughness. For classification a rule base is derived automatically from a training area using a statistical classification tree. To demonstrate our method we present data of three sites with around 500,000 echoes each. The accuracy of the classified vegetation segments is evaluated for two independent validation sites. In a point-wise error assessment, where the classification is compared with manually classified 3D points, completeness and correctness better than 90% are reached for the validation sites. In comparison to many other algorithms the proposed 3D point classification works on the original measurements directly, i.e. the acquired points. Gridding of the data is not necessary, a process which is inherently coupled to loss of data and precision. The 3D properties provide especially a good separability of buildings and terrain points respectively, if they are occluded by vegetation.

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/8/8/4505/pdf

Object-Based Point Cloud Analysis of Full-Waveform Airborne Laser Scanning Data for Urban Vegetation Classification

A relative height threshold is defined to separate potential roof points from the point cloud, followed by a segmentation of these points into homogeneous areas fulfilling the defined constraints of roof planes. The normal vector of each laser point is an excellent feature to decompose the point cloud into segments describing planar patches. An objectbased error assessment is performed to determine the accuracy of the presented classification. It results in 94.4% completeness and 88.4% correctness. Once all roof planes are detected in the 3D point cloud, solar potential analysis is performed for each point. Shadowing effects of nearby objects are taken into account by calculating the horizon of each point within the point cloud. Effects of cloud cover are also considered by using data from a nearby meteorological station. As a result the annual sum of the direct and diffuse radiation for each roof plane is derived. The presented method uses the full 3D information for both feature extraction and solar potential analysis, which offers a number of new applications in fields where natural processes are influenced by the incoming solar radiation (e.g., evapotranspiration, distribution of permafrost). The presented method detected fully automatically a subset of 809 out of 1,071 roof planes where the arithmetic mean of the annual incoming solar radiation is more than 700 kWh/m2.

https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/9/7/5241/pdf

Automatic roof plane detection and analysis in airborne lidar point clouds for solar potential assessment.

Structuring laser-scanned trees using 3D mathematical morphology

Interiors of buildings are often represented as two-dimensional spaces with attributes attached to them. Examples can be found everywhere, from architectural design plans to maps showing evacuation routes in emergency cases. Most of the navigation programs use primarily 2D plans for visualization and communication. Some exceptions are historical buildings and museums, which do offer navigation through textured, detailed 3D indoor models. However, these models are not structured with respect to the functionality of the building but largely with respect to the navigation/visualisation route. Structuring the interior is not a straight forward task, as many concurrent decompositions of a building have to be accommodated (e.g., functional, according to building structure, accessibility-wise), which are very dependent on the application. Furthermore the semantic/terminology is still not unified and in many cases ambiguous. A very typical example are inner open-air courts, which are open-air but inside the building. In this paper we present a semantic model of interior spaces. The structuring aims at facilitating calculation of evacuation routes and therefore particular building characteristics related to exit possibilities such as available doors and windows are considered as leading in the followed approach. The classification concept is used to build a graph for one of the buildings in the campus area. The geometry of the building and corresponding graph are organised in a geo-database management system (geo-DBMS)

http://bono.hostireland.com/~eurosdr/km_pub/no49/workshops_docs/citymodels_june_05/paper02_meijers.pdf

Norbert Pfeifer

Papers

Object-Based Point Cloud Analysis of Full-Waveform Airborne Laser Scanning Data for Urban Vegetation Classification

Automatic roof plane detection and analysis in airborne lidar point clouds for solar potential assessment.

Structuring laser-scanned trees using 3D mathematical morphology

3d geo-information indoors: structuring for evacuation

Simulating imaging spectrometer data: 3D forest modeling based on LiDAR and in situ data