I am a PhD student at IBED on the eEcoLiDAR project (led by Daniel Kissling, Willem Bouten, Harry Seijmonsbergen). In my current PhD project, I will work on extracting and quantifying the 3D ecosystem structure for animals using LiDAR data across Europe. This is still challenging because current LiDAR studies mostly focus on small areas. However, the increasing accessibility of airborne laser scanning data allows characterizing the vertical and horizontal complexity of vegetation and landscapes across a broad spatial extent. For this aim, robustly applicable features will be developed to extract fine-scale habitat information for different land-cover types. This LiDAR-derived information will be aggregated with other data sources (e.g. climate data and passive remote sensing products) to answer different research questions in animal ecology and biodiversity science (like developing more accurate species distribution models for breeding birds in forests and marshlands or why animal populations decline and how they respond to ongoing land use change).

Research Interest

• Laser Scanning (LiDAR)
• LiDAR application in vegetation analysis, ecology
• Object based image and 3D point cloud analysis
• LiDAR application in geoscience
• Machine learning

Background

I did my BSc and MSc as geoscientist at Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary) and I also had previously started a PhD there in the Doctoral School of Environmental Sciences with the topic of analyzing high-resolution point cloud data (Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR)) in environmental sciences. During my undergraduate and postgraduate studies, I got several short-term opportunities to get insights into the work of different internationally acknowledged LiDAR research groups (at Vienna University of Technology, at University of Heidelberg, and at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Mountain Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Innsbruck). During that time I got interested in the research topic of vegetation analysis based on LiDAR data.

Education  

2015-2017      Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Doctoral School of Environmental Sciences

2013-2015      Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Geophysics MSc - specialization in Space Science & Remote Sensing

2009-2013       Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Earth Science BSc specialization in Geophysics

Former projects, internships

01.10.2016-31.01.2017      Guest scientist at Institute of Geography, GIScience, Heidelberg University working on HELIOS project (DAAD scholarship)

• Testing the LiDAR simulation tool developed by Heidelberg research group
• Robustness analysis of geometrical tree structure related feature extraction methods of different platforms (ALS, TLS, MLS, ULS)

01.03.2016-30.06.2016      Guest scientist at Interdisciplinary Mountain Research (IGF), Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAD scholarship)

• Developing a segmentation approach for topographic LiDAR point cloud analyzing branch architecture, leaf area indices, and leaf angle distribution

01.02.2015-30.06.2015       Practicant at Institute of Geography, GIScience Research Group, Heidelberg University working on LVISA project (Erasmus+ scholarship)

•  Implementation of geometric and radiometric feature extraction methods in python programming language
•  Testing machine learning classification algorithms on the database

01.07.2013-31.08.2013        Honored fellowship holder in Hybrid3D project at Vienna University of Technology Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation

• TLS data processing related to landslide area in Doren
• UAV based imagery DTM model comparison analysis with the TLS based model for Doren landslide

04.02.2013-31.05.2013         Practicant at Vienna University of Technology Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation (CampusHungary scholarship)

• Airborne and Terrestrial Laser Scanning (ALS, TLS) data processing in OPALS software environment (georeferencing, quality check, DSM, DTM generation etc.)

2013,2014,2016                      Short internships at Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Ecological Research, Balaton Limnological Institute (1-1 months)

• Working on “Developing LIDAR for quantitative mapping of wetland biodiversity and ecosystem services” OTKA project

Publications

1. Hämmerle, M., Lukač, N., Chen, K.-C., Koma, Zs., Wang, C.-K., Anders, K., and Höfle, B.: SIMULATING VARIOUS TERRESTRIAL AND UAV LIDAR SCANNING CONFIGURATIONS FOR UNDERSTORY FOREST STRUCTURE MODELLING, ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., IV-2/W4, 59-65, https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-annals-IV-2-W4-59-2017, 2017.

2. Koma Zs, Koenig K, Höfle B (2016): Urban tree classification using full-waveform Airborne Laser Scanning ISPRS ANNALS OF THE PHOTOGRAMMETRY, REMOTE SENSING AND SPATIAL INFORMATION SCIENCES III-3: pp. 185-192. (2016) Prague, Czech Republic : 12/07/2016 -19/07/2016.

3. Telbisz T, Látos T, Deák M, Székely B, Koma Zs, Standovár T (2016): The advantage of lidar digital terrain models in doline morphometry compared to topographic map based datasets – Aggtelek karst (Hungary) as an example ACTA CARSOLOGICA 45:(1) pp. 5-18.

4. Székely B, Koma Zs, Karátson D, Dorninger P, Wörner G, Brandmeier M, Nothegger C (2014): Automated recognition of quasi-planar ignimbrite sheets as paleosurfaces via
robust segmentation of digital elevation models: an example from the Central Andes EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS 39:(10) pp. 1386-1399.

5. Roncat A, Ghuffar S, Székely B, Dorninger P, Rasztovits S, Mittelberger M, Koma Zs, Krawczyk D, Pfeifer N (2013): A natural laboratory — Terrestrial Laser Scanning and auxiliary measurements for studying an active landslide In: Proceedings of the 2nd Joint International Symposium on Deformation Monitoring. Place and date of conference: Nottingham, United Kingdom / England, 09/09/2013-10/09/2013. Nottingham: pp. &1-9.