powerlines detection

Question

Hello,
As far as I know it is possible to detect f.eg. rivers in ArcGIS (Spatial Analyst Tools).  
Could ArcGIS be also used for powerline detection and wchich tool would be appropriate for that? 
The input data are either point cloud (laser scanning data) or created from them Digital Elevation Model.

Thank you for your help.

Regards,
Malgosia

cmihalache1 · Answer

Hello Malgorzata Mendela,

Could you tell me how did you detect the power line detection either from point cloud or from DEM, please?

If you made it.

I try make an similar process and I can't succeed to realise that.

Thank you very much for your help!

MalgorzataMendela · Answer

Hello,
Thank you for your replies.
Unfortunately, the solution proposed by mvolz47 could not be applied for powerline processing with the use of lidar data or,generated from them, Digital Elevation Model.
The fact is that among 1st shots, you could find shots that hit not only powerlines, but also trees (high vegetation). It is not possibleto separate them from each other. For that reason, there is no need to exclude from analysis areas without high vegetation.

I attach you a file with my testing data (Digital Elevation Model).
I would be grateful for your advice concerning ArcGIS tool, which could help me to generate powerlines.

Best wishes,
Malgosia

powerline_DEM.zip

mvolz47 · Answer

I do not perform lidar processing, but you could probably make some assumptions and build a model to test for these assumptions to pull the power lines from the data (That is if these are high tension power lines that would be away from trees).  High tension power lines would be some distance from the tree line (There might be a spec for minimum distance that you could try to google), so you could first get tree lines from the lidar data.  Then in the areas with no trees you could look for lidar shots where there is some elevation between a 1st shot and 2nd shot.  From my limited training with lidar data, the 1st shot would be lidar hitting the power line and the 2nd shot would be the lidar hitting the ground.  You could make up an assumed distance range of say 12-15 foot difference (average elevation above the ground for the wires - I would research specs for minimum elevation high tension wires need to be placed above the ground surface) that you would use to extract the power line lidar shots.  I hope this can be of some help to you.