More scanning at Kew ....

I went back to Kew yesterday to scan the Oriental Plane with its leaves off. It was a glorious sunny day, with almost no wind so ideal for scanning.

There's really not many more beautiful spots in London on a sunny day.

The famous Kew Orangery. 

The Oriental Plane is still standing, as it has for 250 years or more I guess. Albeit with a little help these days, in the form of wires and guys.

Oriental Plane at Kew Gardens.

Here's a first look at the lovely tree. Points are a bit large so it looks leafy, but it's not.

View up through the trunk from below the point cloud. Note the guy wires to the left and upper centre.

Viewing it like this makes me think 'brain'. Thanks to Andy for pulling the data off the lidar and registering it - literally within a few minutes of me getting back to UCL! This image highlights a couple of things - first the precision of the measurements that easily catch the 5mm diameter guy wires. And second, the accuracy of the registration in that the wires are not 'ghosted'. The fact that there was no wind certainly helps in this case.

The other reason for being at Kew was to film some more footage for the latest ESA MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), this time on optical remote sensing. The last one, Monitoring Climate from Space, seemed to be successful. So I've been asked by the production team to contribute to this new one, and scanning trees in Kew makes a great backdrop to talk about forests, land use and how we can use EO and other new technology to make sense of it all.