Hi Hammad,

A lot of work has been done with hemispheric objectives on camera's in field. This work dates back for more than 10 years now.

Software (CANEYE) has also been developed and can be downloaded at

http://www6.paca.inra.fr/can-eye

The most used and according to me also the most accurate software was developed by INRA (Institut National des Recherches Agronomiques or the French National Agricultural Research Institute). I have used this software myself in field work and also my students use the software in practical exercises in remote sensing. The method is one of the best to estimate LAI in forests but also agricultural plots, better even than the LAI-2000, which is useless in forests. The LAI-2000 does not enable to discriminate between leaves and trunks for example. Crucial is that color has to be acquired by the camera when one wants to determine a LEAF area index.

If something would not be clear please let me know. The type of camera we used is a NIKON body equipped with a NIKON standard hemispheric objective. The best one, but not the cheapest one, especially the hemispheric objective is expensive.

The website I mentioned will give much more information than I can give here. Please do consult it for further detail on methodology, software and camera's. An international consortium VALERI (Validation of European Remote Sensing Satellites), uses the technique to perform intercomparisons of LAI in field campaigns worldwide, together with a NASA team.

Cheers,

Frank

Thanks you so much Dr. Frank. Can-Eye looks impressive software. The tool developed by the INRA, I couldn't find out, if you can share the specific link that will be great.

Let me elaborate my question. I would like to count the number of trees with crown project area (CPA) within a plot and want to see the relationship with the delineated CPA and number of trees from the GeoEye-1 (0.5m)and CARTOSAT-2 (1m) satellite images. My ultimate aim is to develop an operational guidelines for the community forest user groups (CFUGs) to monitor and report the forest degradation through mobile application.

I have only some minor comments to add to insightful Frank's suggestions. If you have to cross-validate satellite vs field photos please take the different FOV of the two devices in mind - the satellite products have generally nearly nadir FOV while fisheye has a wide-angle FOV - maybe a different (and cheaper) photographic method might be more suitable for your purposes, that is Cover photography a single, restricted view angle method developed by Craig Macfarlane. See: Pekin, Macfarlane 2009. Measurements of crown cover and leaf area index using digital cover photography and its application to remote sensing. Remote Sensing 1, 1298-1320.

Also note that fisheye methods estimate canopy closure while cover estimate canopy cover - a metric more similar to what you're trying to obtain. If you need further references please ask me.

Thanks a lot Francesco Chianucci  for clarification. Your point FOV  is very valid and I will keep in my mind while developing relationship. I am curious, if you or anyone else can share paper, where someone has develop relationship between crowns area or numbers with satellite image. Almost every third paper takes about LAI linking ground information.