Point clouds and our 3DGeo research in Heidelberg are going beyond 3D, such as the new research project Auto3Dscapes.
A detailed analysis of this research frontier has been published in Eitel, Höfle et al. (2016): Beyond 3-D: The new spectrum of lidar applications for earth and ecological sciences. The paper has just become a highly cited paper according to Web of Science. Furthermore, the “classic” paper about LiDAR intensity by Höfle & Pfeifer (2007) still remains a highly cited paper. BTW: LiDAR backscatter is one or more further dimensions of point clouds.
It belongs to the top 1% of its academic field of “Geosciences”. The selection is based on a highly cited threshold for the field and publication year [Clarivate Analytics].