Evaluating Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) for hard and soft landscape mapping

Abstract

Landscape mapping is concerned with space planning whereby it emphasized space use in terms of function, mobility space, social space, and also ecological space. To plan this space design to reflect its purpose, initial data collection is critically needed. Depending on the site's characteristics such as hard and soft landscape features, collecting all of this data will be tedious and time-consuming. This research aims to employ Terrestrial Laser Scanning to iteratively approach landscape mapping and provide a landscape map architectural standard. In this research, by adapting Terrestrial Laser Scanning, a geomatic instrument that enables surveyors to immediately deliver accurate terrain relief mapping, technical structural assessments will be utilized to scan a diverse terrain, with a particular emphasis on hard and soft landscapes. The method of data acquisition for Terrestrial Laser Scanning was the traverse method, with that location-specific data will then be processed to generate a 3D point cloud model with georeferenced and transform it into 2D hard and soft landscape mapping. Then, a comparison will be made between the landscape map created from this research and the conventional landscape architecture approach. As a result of the data validation, it shows that Terrestrial Laser Scanning can provide high accuracy data in terms of northing, easting, and heights. Moreover, it can be concluded that there are numerous advantages to providing efficient information and an accurate representation of the site in a 3D model/point cloud, which enables landscape designers or architects to design a landscape map to their fullest potential in terms of creativity, landscape placement strategies, and as-built survey for maintenance updates. In addition, promote the development of more efficient landscape mapping techniques.