EVALUATION OF THE USEFULNESS OF TERRESTRIAL LASER SCANNING FOR MEASUREMENTS OF ICE STRUCTURES

The use of terrestrial laser scanning in environmental research is becoming increasingly popular. Such measurements enable to obtain a spatial model of the object of interest in a relatively short period of time. The results, however, may not reflect the actual shape of the measured objects due to their diverse structures and capacity of some areas to reflect laser beams. The purpose of this article is to verify the usefulness of terrestrial laser scanning for measurements of ice surface or objects covered with ice. The results of the analyses facilitate exploring the possibility of applying this method to measure geometry of ice caves. Such measurements have already been taken, for example, in the cave Eisriesenwelt in Austria. However, there is no information on the quality of the collected data, especially in respect of scanning various ice structures. The research was conducted on models of specific shapes (cylinders and cuboids). Measurements were taken to the ice surface. Then, this surface was covered with a highly reflective material, which enabled to accurately measure the actual surface of the objects. The measurements were carried out at sight lines not longer than 15 meters, with two scanners: phase-based and pulse-based ones. When trying to obtain a correct 3D model of an object covered with ice, the outcomes of this research may serve as a valuable source of information on the expected accuracy and quality of data that describe geometry of these structures.