ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief summary on principal developments of full-waveform laser scanning and laser profiler systems. Then the characterization of a laser scanning system is described in terms of laser type, techniques for modulation, measurement and detection, and optical construction aspects. Further for modeling full-waveform laser pulses several relevant pulse shapes and the spatial energy distribution of the laser are introduced. To extract several properties of the illuminated surface various methods for waveform analyses are elaborated, with an emphasis on Gaussian decomposition and deconvolution for attribute extraction. Finally, a demonstration of applications is given, one for the detection of man-made objects and the other for the study of tree structures.
