Forestry Data Solutions

Lead researchers: Dr Christine Stone and Dr Jim O'Hehir

This project developed and new sensor and platform technology for use in forestry applications. The project benefited from a high level of collaboration between industry and researchers to make multiple data sets available and share knowledge on solutions. The project is structured into 7 subprojects all of which generated reports, publications and software applications.

• Ultrahigh-resolution imaging from unmanned aerial systems for detection of weeds and tree health assessment (Arko Lucieer and Darren Turner, Uni Tas)
• Automation of forest inventory (Mitch Bryson and Lloyd Windrim, Uni Syd; lnterpine)
• Monitoring forest properties at the individual tree level using UAV-borne Sensors (Anthony Finn and Pankaj Kumar, UniSA)
• Growth and yield modelling for the future (Stefan Peters and Pankaj Kumar, UniSA)
• Hyperspectral detection of nutrient deficiencies in radiata pine (Michael Watt, Scion)
• Investigation of data management and processing options forest industry (Jixue Liu and Jiuyong Li, Uni SA)
• Remotely sensing native Jarrah forests (Arko Lucieer, Uni Tas and Mitch Bryson (Uni Syd)

·Eight half hour mini seminars have been delivered with good attendances and four virtual workshops with industry have been scheduled to ensure the outputs are transferred to industry.

Virtual workshops

• Forest3DApp: Software tools for tree inventory using pointcloud data 
• PINT, a Program for Identifying Nursery Trees (incl seedlings) 
• UAS imagery over forests – collecting, processing and analysing multispectral and RGB data 
• Growth and Yield Prediction of trees at plot and individual level using Imputation Modelling 

Additional tools have been implemented for high-resolution TLS datasets (i.e. Hovermap)

Our team: Anthony Finn, Jim O'Hehir, Stefan Peters, Pankaj Kumar, Jiuyong Li, Jixue Liu, Liang Zhao, Christine Stone (NSW DPI) , Arko Lucieer (University of Tasmania), Paul Turner (University of Tasmania), Darren Turner (University of Tasmania), Mohammed Sadegh Taskhiri (University of Tasmania), Sean Krisanski (University of Tasmania), Mitch Bryson (University of Sydney), Lloyd Windrum (University of Sydney), Michael Watt (Scion, NZ), Susana Gonzalez (Interpine), Jan Rombouts (OneFortyOne), Hans Blom (FPC, WA), Irfan Iqbal (FPC, WA)