Workflow Narrative

Sidewalk Vegetation Accessibility Monitoring

Problem It Solves

Which sidewalk segments are most obstructed by vegetation, and where is LiDAR coverage missing?

Who It Is For

Municipal accessibility teams, urban forestry programs, and public-works corridor management.

Primary User

Municipal accessibility offices and operations teams responsible for pedestrian corridor clearance.

What It Does

Scores vegetation encroachment along sidewalks using tile-native LiDAR processing.
Aggregates all tile evidence into one city-level output layer.
Supports centerline segmentation for line inputs and feature-level fallback for polygon inputs.

How It Works

Reads LiDAR tiles from an array or directory and processes them one tile at a time.
Builds per-tile DSM/DTM and computes height-above-ground obstruction surfaces.
Reprojects sidewalks to tile CRS when needed, samples obstruction neighborhoods, and aggregates results.
For line/multiline sidewalks, optionally segments centerlines into fixed-length analysis units.
QA acceptance guidance:
`status=pass` indicates coverage and obstruction diagnostics met baseline QA thresholds.
`diagnostics.acceptance_thresholds.minimum_coverage_fraction` defaults to 0.75; values below this trigger review.
`summary.no_lidar_coverage_features` are unresolved units and should be targeted for additional capture or fallback policy.
Prioritize operational responses using `STATUS`, `MAX_OBSTR`, and tile-level diagnostics together.
MVP hardening assets:
Municipal ingestion guide: `docs/internal/development/LIDAR_CHANGE_SIDEWALK_MUNICIPAL_SCHEMA_INGESTION_GUIDE_2026_04_14.md`
Benchmark fixture scaffold: `tests/fixtures/sidewalk_accessibility_city_benchmark/`

Inputs

Parameter	Optional	Description
lidar_tiles	no	LiDAR tiles as array or directory path (LAS/LAZ/ZLidar).
sidewalks	no	Sidewalk layer (line, multiline, polygon, or multipolygon).
sidewalks_epsg	yes	EPSG override when sidewalk CRS metadata is missing.
resolution	yes	Intermediate tile raster resolution in map units.
segment_length_m	yes	Segment length for line inputs; ignored for polygon inputs.
clearance_height_m	yes	Height threshold used to label obstruction status.
buffer_distance_m	yes	Neighborhood sampling radius around sidewalk geometry.

Outputs

Parameter	Type	Description
sidewalk_accessibility	GeoPackage	City-level aggregated sidewalk/segment accessibility layer.
summary	JSON	Machine-readable summary report containing coverage, obstruction counts, and QA diagnostics.
html_report	HTML	Human-readable customer-facing report generated from the summary contract for stakeholder review and QA traceability.

Python Example

import whitebox_workflows as wbw

wbe = wbw.WbEnvironment(include_pro=True, tier="pro")

access, summary = wbe.sidewalk_vegetation_accessibility_monitoring(
    lidar_tiles="data/lidar_1km_tiles/",
    sidewalks="data/sidewalk_centerlines.gpkg",
    segment_length_m=10.0,
    clearance_height_m=2.5,
    output_prefix="output/sidewalk_access",
)

print(access)
print(summary)

License Notice

Use of this function requires a license for Whitebox Workflows Professional (WbW-Pro). Please visit www.whiteboxgeo.com to purchase a license.

Project Links

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