In: Wagner W., Székely, B. (eds.): ISPRS TC VII Symposium - 100 Years ISPRS, Vienna, Austria, July 5-7, 2010, IAPRS, Vol. XXXVIII, Part 7B 
636 
imagery with the producer’s- and user’s accuracy of the 
classified tree species. 
Table 5 shows that best agreements for the classification based 
on the summer 2007 images are obtained for Picea abies (89%) 
and Larix decidua (78%). The confusion matrix clearly reveals 
that especially deciduous trees are misclassified. But also Pinus 
sylvestris is confused with Picea abies. Acer sp. and Fraxinus 
excelsior are generally overestimated. 
July 2007 Classified as 
Field 
Aa 
Pa 
Ps 
La 
Ac 
Fs 
Fe 
PA 
Aa 
28 
5 
0 
0 
1 
6 
4 
0.64 
Pa 
2 
68 
2 
3 
1 
0 
0 
0.89 
Ps 
0 
5 
12 
1 
2 
1 
0 
0.57 
La 
0 
4 
0 
14 
0 
0 
0 
0.78 
Ac 
1 
0 
0 
0 
19 
10 
12 
0.45 
Fs 
6 
4 
0 
1 
11 
54 
15 
0.59 
Fe 
4 
1 
0 
0 
5 
8 
38 
0.67 
UA 
0.68 
0.78 
0.86 
0.74 
0.49 
0.68 
0.54 
Table 5. Confusion matrix for tree species classification using 
the explanatory variables from July 2007 ADS40-SH40 
imagery with the producer’s- and user’s accuracy of the 
classified tree species. 
Table 6 shows that five of seven tree species are classified with 
accuracies > 74% when using the Summer 2008 images 
including the NIR band. 
The obtained accuracy for Acer sp. remains very low because it 
is often misclassified as Fagus sylvatica and Fraxinus excelsior. 
August 2008 Classified as 
Field 
Aa 
Pa 
Ps 
La 
Ac 
Fs 
Fe 
PA 
Aa 
29 
3 
1 
0 
0 
1 
2 
0.81 
Pa 
2 
78 
2 
5 
0 
2 
2 
0.86 
Ps 
0 
7 
16 
0 
0 
1 
0 
0.67 
La 
0 
4 
0 
23 
0 
0 
2 
0.79 
Ac 
0 
1 
0 
0 
12 
14 
8 
0.34 
Fs 
2 
1 
0 
1 
7 
64 
11 
0.74 
Fe 
3 
0 
0 
0 
8 
8 
84 
0.82 
UA 
0.81 
0.83 
0.84 
0.79 
0.44 
0.71 
0.77 
Table 6. Confusion matrix for tree species classification using 
the explanatory variables from August 2008 ADS40-SH52 
images with the producer’s- and user’s accuracy of the 
classified tree species. 
4.2 Predictive mapping 
The tree species which have been modelled with > 90 % 
probability in the 2007 and 2008 images are depicted in Fig. 3. 
At first glance, a visual image analysis suggests that the 
agreements in most parts of the site are good. However, a more 
detailed image inspection confirms the results of tables 4-6 and 
indicates that Acer sp. is often misclassified as Fagus sylvatica 
or Fraxinus excelsior - independently from the acquisition date 
of the images. Fig. 3 also shows that the predictions of the tree 
species slightly vary in each of the maps. The underestimation 
of Larix decidua is clearly visible in the May images whereas 
the overestimations of Fraxinus excelsior and Fagus sylvatica 
are clearly visible in the July 2007 images. 
$0 ■ Fagus syfvallca 
3 Motor« m Acer sp. I 
I Pinus syt.ei.xrts 
I A birrs albs 
Larix decktu» 
0 40 80 f№ Fas us sylvatica ill Fraxlnut excelsior MB Pirns sylvestris 
mif^c==>*s*en gjrn Acer so m met a abies SOI Abies mbs 
É3 Larix deddua 
WB Fagus sylvatica 
am Acer sp. 
Frsxmut excelsior MH Pinus sylvestris 
ma Pice a abies MM Ablet alba 
’CCiLed* deddua 
Figure 3. Tree species classification maps based on imagery 
from May 2007 (top), July 2007 (middle) and August 2008 
(bottom) with the largest shadows. 
5. DISCUSSION 
The potential and the limits of classifying seven tree species has 
been tested using multi-temporal multispectral ADS40 imagery. 
The most significant achievement is the demonstration that 
spring ADS40 imagery as input for the classification of tree 
species is superior to the summer imagery - even without the 
additional information of the NIR band. Summer imagery from