Forest Visualization System

[beenthere]

Ran across this announcement of a system worked up by the USDA Forest Service, and thought there might be some interest. Tillaway may just know all about it (sorry to hear that he is missing out on the 'extra' firefighting work, and has to stay home  :(  ).

http://www.federallabs.org/servlet/FLCItemDisplayServlet?wItemID=2004-07-28-13-31-13-359-Item

[Tillaway]

That system has been out for several years.  It is an open source freebie so anyone can use it.  Some log buyers use it to show a property owner what the stand might look like after a selective harvest.  It has to tie into a database, such as a inventory database to get the info it needs to do the visualization.  Our inventory system has this built in.  Its kind of cool, we can even use it to simulate the understory brush as well.

[Greg]

Ran across this announcement of a system worked up by the USDA Forest Service, and thought there might be some interest. Tillaway may just know all about it (sorry to hear that he is missing out on the 'extra' firefighting work, and has to stay home  :(  ).

http://www.federallabs.org/servlet/FLCItemDisplayServlet?wItemID=2004-07-28-13-31-13-359-Item

On a slight tangent to this, but somewhat related...

I had the chance to walk through many many acres of mature forestland & woodlots in the northeast last week. One large mill we visited had over 10,000 acres of woodlands to manage. I don't know how its possilble to keep track of.

I was wondering if GPS technology is being used by foresters in the field to map out what species, size, and quality of trees are in a given property. Even partially complete, given an accurate database mapping/inventory of stock, I think this would be a very valuable tool to efficiently make selective cuts, maximize production, and improve the stand.

Greg

[SwampDonkey]

Forest companies use GIS to map stand boundaries/cuts , streams, water bodies, leave areas from current aerial photography or satellite imagery and use GPS to update roads and cuts, riparian areas, leave areas. With forest cover you lose reception with the GPS under some stand conditions. 3D modelling on microcomputers has been around for 15 years at least and longer on larger computers. Its used alot in modern movies now too to simulate the landscape and people on the landscape

Here's a 3D modeling program used by some forest managers, called ViewScape 3D for visual impact assessments.

http://www.tdb.bc.ca/geom_via.htm

Here's a Visual Impact guidebook put out by BC Minstry of Forest, under the Forest Practices Codes. (edition 2)

cheers

[Tillaway]

Yep, what the swampmonster said. ;D  The management unit I work on is 100,000 acres and change.  The district is close to 300,000 and the forest real close to 500,000 acres.  Its all on GIS.  We do not use GPS as much you would think although I am in the process of changing that. ;D  Mapping type lines is done with air photos and then tranferred or digitized direct into GIS.  Then an inventory is conducted of the different types, sometimes all phototypes are sampled but on large ownerships only a representative sample is taken and those numbers expanded over the same phototype.

Swampster, the MobileMapper is working quite well for us so far.  Everyone that has used it doesn't want to give it up. 8)

[SwampDonkey]

Tillaway:

That's great that the Mobile Mapper meets your expectations.  

(tongue in cheek here) Nobody wants to give it up?  hmmm one could use that to his advantage to increase production from the crew. The novelty would soon be over come. ;)

cheers