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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ISPRS-Annals</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ISPRS-Annals</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2194-9050</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/isprs-annals-XI-2-2026-623-2026</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Time-Adaptive Change Analysis through Extension of the M3C2 Algorithm using Multi-Modal Laser Scanning Data in a Salt Marsh Environment</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Huang</surname>
<given-names>Xiaoyu</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Letard</surname>
<given-names>Mathilde</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1210-9671</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lague</surname>
<given-names>Dimitri</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8980-1415</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Höfle</surname>
<given-names>Bernhard</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5849-1461</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Tabernig</surname>
<given-names>Ronald</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0002-3700-899X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Leroy</surname>
<given-names>Paul</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7519-6667</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Anders</surname>
<given-names>Katharina</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5698-7041</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Remote Sensing Applications, TUM School of Engineering and Design, Technical University of Munich, Ottobrunn, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Univ Rennes, Plateforme LiDAR, OSERen, UAR 3343 CNRS, France</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Univ Rennes, Géosciences Rennes, UMR 6118 CNRS, France</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>3DGeo Research Group, Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>03</day>
<month>07</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>XI-2-2026</volume>
<fpage>623</fpage>
<lpage>630</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Xiaoyu Huang et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/XI-2-2026/623/2026/isprs-annals-XI-2-2026-623-2026.html">This article is available from https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/XI-2-2026/623/2026/isprs-annals-XI-2-2026-623-2026.html</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/XI-2-2026/623/2026/isprs-annals-XI-2-2026-623-2026.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://isprs-annals.copernicus.org/articles/XI-2-2026/623/2026/isprs-annals-XI-2-2026-623-2026.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Quantifying topographic dynamics from 3D time series is essential for a broad range of geoscientific applications. However, data acquired by laser scanning often vary between epochs, e.g. in point density and coverage. These heterogeneities present a challenge for change detection, particularly across multi-temporal and multi-modal data. We propose a new approach that enhances the analysis of spatiotemporally irregular point clouds, particularly when the sampling frequency exceeds the analysis time scale. In particular, our method extends the Multiscale Model to Model Cloud Comparison (M3C2) algorithm through adaptive temporal aggregation. Driven by a local point density requirement, our method employs both a spatial neighborhood (as in standard M3C2) and a temporal neighborhood for each core point within the point cloud time series. If the neighborhood of a core point is too sparse for surface estimation, an iterative temporal search incorporates data from adjacent epochs until either the density requirement or a maximum temporal window is reached. This adaptive process ensures sufficient local point density while preventing globally fixed temporal aggregation. We evaluate our method on a multi-modal laser scanning dataset from Mont-Saint-Michel Bay, France, comprising 38 epochs spanning a decade at daily to seasonal intervals. Results demonstrate that our method increases change detection completeness by more than 13% compared to standard M3C2 and increases accuracy by 31% compared to commonly used fixed-window averaging. Our approach thereby enhances 3D change detection in complex real-world 4D datasets, enabling higher accuracy and completeness in the analysis of surface dynamics at variable spatiotemporal scales.</p>
</abstract>
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