Claire Burwell
Postgraduate Researcher
Contact Details
- Email: clb50@le.ac.uk
- Fax: 0116 252 3854
PhD in Physical Geography
3D visualization of three-dimensional laser scanner data to aid understanding of the urban and rural environment
My background is in Geographical Information Systems (GIS), which I first came across as an undergraduate at the University of East Anglia, in 2001, where I gained a diploma in Environmental Sciences. I completed my BSc (Hons) in Physical Geography at the University of Leicester (2006-08) and stayed in the department to study an MSc in GIS (2008-09, ESRI UK 2009 prize), which was funded by NERC. In 2011, I returned to carry out my PhD, which follows on from my masters research into 3D visualization of remotely sensed data.
My interests are, broadly, GIS and remote sensing, particularly Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR). I am also interested in the visualization of geographical data and the communication of science.
My current research project focuses on the 3D visualization of LiDAR point cloud data. Fundamentally, taking spatial information that is inherently three-dimensional (with xyz positional values) and displaying them in 3D.
The study’s aim is to develop and explore visual-analytical techniques to enable segmentation, classification, interpolation, measurement, and statistical analysis of the data within a 3D environment.
Laser scanning data will be collected terrestrially and/or aerially from different environments (urban, vegetated, mixed, etc. ) and, instead of viewing this 3D information on a flat 2D screen, the user will view the data in stereo 3D.
Through this immersive medium, users should be able to intuitively navigate through and around the data, and interactively carry out data manipulation and analysis within the 3D environment , with manual refinement of automated methods.
Funding and Supervision
This project is funded by the Geography Department through the University of Leicester’s College of Science and Engineering's PhD scholarship scheme and through the University’s Research Training Support Grant. The work is being carried out under the supervision of Dr. Claire Jarvis and Dr. Kevin Tansey.
Contact
If you would like to get in touch about this project or related work, please feel free to email me at clb50@le.ac.uk. The proposed deadline for this project is March 2014.
Publications
Burwell, C., Jarvis, C. & Tansey, K. (2012): The potential for using 3D visualization for data exploration, error correction and analysis of LiDAR point clouds, Remote Sensing Letters, 3:6, 481-490
Burwell, C. (2004) Plancton saupoudré de plastique au menu des poissons, Libération, (Paris, France) 13 May 2004
Conference Proceedings
Balzter, H., Burwell, C., Rowland, C. S., Tansey, K., (2008) Remote sensing of forest structure using LiDAR and SAR, In 8th Seminar on Remote Sensing and GIS Applications in Forest Engineering, Curitaba (Brazil), 7-9 Oct 2008.
Presentations
Burwell, C. (2009) 3D visualization of LiDAR point clouds in an immersive virtual reality environment. Presented at Research Sponsored MSc Programme Presentation Day, Ordnance Survey, Southampton, UK. 25 Sept 2009 [Awarded First Prize]
