The wait is over. DWEL, Australia's dual wavelength echidna lidar has arrived at CSIRO in Canberra, ready to begin scanning. The project has been jointly funded by CSIRO and TERN AusCover to produce DWEL, one of only two such terrestrial lidar systems in the world. It contains two lasers of different wavelength that are used to create 3D images. The two lasers give maximum contrast between the green leaves and the woody vegetation within a scan, allowing researchers to derive information about the green and woody biomass levels of a forest.
Over the coming months CSIRO researcher Michael Schaefer and his team will be travelling around Australia with the DWEL scanning various vegetation ecosystems.