Quantum Forest

In the previous post I was hopeful that our simple LIDAR data processing would be able to locate the trees, but I did not have any evidence to confirm that what we saw in the computer was not a fluke.

After postponing field work due to bad weather, last Thursday we had a field crew assessing six GPS located plots. Today David overlayed the plot data, after differentially correcting it, and the position of the trees estimated with LIDAR and ta-da! the trees pretty much match. There are some random differences (of up to 2 meters) in position, but considering that the stem is not necessarily under the top of the tree and that there was quite a bit of data processing and smoothing, the results seem to be extremely promising.

We now need to formally estimate the association between positions, explain any errors of detection (trees in the ground but missing in LIDAR or vice versa) and prepare a short report.

Some times work is sweet, particularly when reality and models match one another.