Visualization of Computer-Modeled Forests for Forest Management

Abstract

Forest management is a costly and time-consuming activity. Remote sensing has the potential to improve the process by making it cheaper and more efficient, but only if appropriate characteristics can be determined from computer-models. This paper describes the implementation of a forest visualization system and a corresponding user study that tests the accuracy of parameter estimation and forest characterization. The study uses data obtained from field-surveys to generate a computer-modeled forest. Five different stands were tested. Based on the quantitative results obtained, generally, there is no statistically significant difference in parameter estimation when comparing field-recorded videos and computer-generated videos.