Airborne LiDAR for archaeology: DEM

What is it about?

The use of airborne LiDAR has become an essential part of archaeological prospection, and the need for an archaeology-specific data processing workflow is well known. It is therefore surprising that little attention has been paid to the key element of processing: an archaeology-specific DEM. The aim of this paper is to describe an archaeology-specific DEM, provide a tool for its automatic precision assessment, and determine the appropriate grid resolution. We define an archaeology-specific DEM as a subtype of DEM, which is interpolated from ground points, buildings, and four morphological types of archaeological features. We introduce a confidence map (QGIS plug-in) that assigns a confidence level to each grid cell. Confidence mapping is also an effective tool for identifying the optimal grid resolution for specific datasets. Beyond archaeological applications, the confidence map provides clear criteria for segmentation, which is one of the unsolved problems of DEM interpolation.

Featured Image

Photo by Ewoud Van der Cruyssen on Unsplash

Photo by Ewoud Van der Cruyssen on Unsplash

Why is it important?

It is important to open the "black box" of LiDAR data processing.

Perspectives