Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) was conducted at three ForestScan 1ha (100m x 100m) Forest Biomass Reference Measurement Site (FBRMS) plots in Gabon from June to July 2022 by Cecilia Chavana-Bryant using a Riegl VZ-400i scanner. Data collection assistance was provided by Heddy O. Milamizokou Napo, Luna Soenens and Virginie Daelemans, data processing assistance was provided by Mr Peter Vines. This data collection was part of the European Space Agency (ESA) funded ForestScan project designed to improve the use of new Earth Observation (EO) estimates of above ground biomass (AGB) by providing TLS-, unmanned airborne vehicles (UAV-LS)- and airborne (ALS) LiDAR scanning-derived AGB and tree census data to compare to allometric and EO-derived estimates.

Scans were acquired using chain sampling at 121 locations along a 10m Cartesian grid to ensure sufficient data overlap to produce high-quality point clouds for all ForestScan 1ha FBRMS plots. Due to the scanner's 100° field of view, capturing a complete sample of the scene at each scan location required two scans -an upright scan and a tilt scan. Upright scans are odd-numbered while tilt scans are even-numbered. The first scan at each plot is collected at the southwest corner, i.e. scan position 0,0 (unless something impedes it, e.g. stream, large tree fall, etc. or if the plot is oriented differently). To facilitate scan registration, five retro-reflective targets were located between scan positions with all tilt scans along the first sampling line were oriented towards the same sampling position along the next sampling line and tilt scans at the ends of sampling lines (i.e. tilt scans along plot edges) were oriented towards the inside of the plot. This aids scan registration as it allows tilt scans to capture the previous scan location within its field of view. A total of 242 scans were collected at each plot.

The Riegl operating and processing software RiSCAN PRO version 2.14.1 was used to generate a plot-level point cloud, scans were coarse registered using the shared retro-reflective targets located between consecutive scan positions. Coarse registration was then fine-tuned using Multi Station Adjustment 2 (MSA2).

Data for each of the four FBRMS plots is found within plot directories: LPG-01, OKO-01, OKO-02 and OKO-03. Plot directories contain a main project directory (named using the starting date of data collection, e.g. 2022-07-04_OKO-03.PROJ) with nine data subdirectories and a tile_index.dat file as shown in the archived document /neodc/forestscan/data/gabon/lope/TLS_lope_2022/OKO-03/ForestScan_example_data_directory_structure.pdf which details the data structure shared by all FBRSM plot TLS datasets.