A New Quantitative Approach to Tree Attributes Estimation Based on LiDAR Point Clouds

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

I have expressed some comments inside the Word file attached. 

The novelty of the paper is clear and its importance is of the greatest interest. Now it is time to upgrade the scientific soundness of the paper and allow the reader to better understand the interesting findings of your paper. 

All my best and hope you guys can make good progress on this manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your work on the manuscript. First, according to the reviewer's comments, we substantially modified the manuscript and improved the readability of the manuscript. For example, the experiment of comparing the branches was attributes added in the manuscript, the repeated information was removed, and the organization and language of the manuscript were modified. Secondly, according to the revision requirements of the manuscript, we responded to all comments in a "point-to-point" way.

I responded to all comments in the attached Word file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The presented manuscript expands on the AdTree model presented by Du et al. 2019. The manuscript is clearly written and adequately explains the concept and reasons for this proposed modification. In my opinion this field of research must constantly evolve building on and improving previous work.

Please attribute the AdTree model to Du et al. 2019 earlier in the manuscript.

The manuscript would benefit from a thorough proof read by an English native speaker there are many instances where there is a lack of direct and indirect articles (“the” or an “a” e.g. L72 / L160). Likewise, there are multiple instances where a plural should be used (including within the title; clouds (or could be written as point cloud data to retain the singular form) e.g. L11, L13 or L211. In its current form the language is of an insufficient standard.

Figures are of good quality and are informative. Figures 5, 6, 7 and 8 could be modified to make their differences more obvious to a more casual reader. Figure 9 in my opinion is not needed and can be deleted.

A table including some basic statistics about he 153 Chinese scholar trees that were measured would be useful for quick reference. Please also update the Latin binomial to the current classification of: Styphnolobium japonicum (L.) Schott

Please also consider including a reference table that compares the existing QSMs i.e. PypeTree, TreeQSM, SimpleTree, AdTree and your AdTree modifications as columns, and features of the QSMs as rows, the cells can be simple ticks or crosses. This way you can show the advantages of your modifications over the existing methods.

Consider naming your AdTree modifications so it is identifiable. AdTree+ for example? Although I cannot comment on the ethical implication of using a similar name to the original especially if you are not connected to the original authors, please check.

Reference list: please delete the duplicate numbering. And please check each reference for accuracy – I wanted to look at reference 64, so followed the given doi:10.2307/2996548 when in fact this is incorrect and should be: https://doi.org/10.1139/b85-193

Small pointers (not exclusive)

You must include a space between in-line citations and the previous word in all instances – this I assume, is simply a casualty of your referencing software.

L152       please rephrase

L273       increase in what? Please clarify.

L375       Results

L411       include a bound space so the minus sign remains with the figure over the line break

L507       what is a “crack angle”? you mean branch angle, or?

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your work on the manuscript. First, according to the reviewer's comments, we substantially modified the manuscript and improved the readability of the manuscript. For example, the experiment of comparing the branches was attributes added in the manuscript, the repeated information was removed, and the organization and language of the manuscript were modified. Secondly, according to the revision requirements of the manuscript, we responded to all comments in a "point-to-point" way.

I responded to all comments in the attached Word file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx