UAV-derived Digital Surface Models and orthoimages for three alpine glaciers

UAV-derived DSMs and orthoimages

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) surveys were conducted between 2015 and 2016 on the Sankt Annafirn, Findelen- and Griesgletscher, situated in the Swiss Alps. Three surveys at the Sankt Annafirn allowed for a full glacier coverage, four surveys at Griesgletscher allowed an almost full glacier coverage and seven surveys at Findelengletscher allowed for a partial coverage of the glacier tongue (see individual datasets for exact extent). For each survey, a high resolution orthoimage and a Digital Surface Model (DSM) was created.

UAV surveys:

Prior flight, Ground Control Points (GCPs) were deployed on the glacier surface and measured with a differential GPS (Trimble R7 or Leica GPS 1200). They allowed precise georeferencing of the UAV-derived datasets. UAV flight plans were planned with the software eMotion 2 and a SenseFly eBee was used as surveying platform. The images were then processed with the software Agisoft Photoscan Pro 1.1.6 .

The location and dates of each survey can be found in the table together with the number of flights performed (Nflights), the number of acquired images (Nimages), the number of GCPs set (NGCPs) and the surveyed area.

A folder for each dataset is available (see folder name in table), which contains:

  • An orthoimage glacier_date_photoscan_oi_CH1903+_LV95_0.1m.tif

  • A Digital Surface Model glacier_date_photoscan_dsm_CH1903+_LV95_0.1m.tif

  • The Agisoft Photoscan automatic processing report glacier_date_photoscan_report.pdf

where:

  • glacier is the name of the surveyed glacier

  • date is the date of the UAV image acquisition

  • photoscan is the name of the photogrammetric software

  • oi or dsm the type of dataset

  • CH1903+_LV95 is the coordinate system and datum of the dataset

  • 0.1m is the resolution of the dataset in meter

  • .tif is the extention of the dataset

 

Details about the UAV surveys, the image processing and the accuracy of the UAV-derived products can be found in this publication below.

Paper Citation:

Gindraux et al. 2017. Accuracy Assessment of Digital Surface Models from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’Imagery on Glaciers, Remote Sensing, 9, 186, 1-15, doi: 10.3390/rs9020186.

The folder UAV_flight_paths.zip contains all UAV flights performed on the Sankt Annafirn, Findelengletscher and Griesgletscher. The flights were planned with the software eMotion2 and have the .afp extention.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Identifier ce722112-0768-4f79-a65b-3409af2a62e8@envidat
Title for URL of the dataset uav-derived-digital-surface-models-and-orthoimages-for-three-alpine-glaciers
Schedule the publication of the dataset -
Issued date July 18, 2018
Modification date July 2, 2025
Conforms to -
Update interval -
Temporal coverage -
Publisher Information EnviDat
Contact points
Languages English
URL https://www.envidat.ch/#/metadata/uav-datasets-for-three-alpine-glaciers
Relation -
Spatial -
Related datasets -
Documentation -
Keywords
Terms of use https://opendata.swiss/terms-of-use#terms_by
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