Impulse200LR Laser Accuracy

[M.W.Taylor]

Doug,

That oak shape table took me about 5 hours to make. The image looks just like the picture.

I average about 1,000 points per hour using the serial cable to download the distance, inclination and azimuth data of Impulse200LR and MapStar directly to a field PC. If I had to do it by hand, my data acquisition time would triple at least.

The accuracy is as good as your instruments and also diligence to keeping a precise account of the encoder angle summation as one navigates around the tree is of utmost importance. This method will be discussed further in Dendromorphometry.  The BoscheGlR distance laser are perfect for trunk  mapping because they emit a continuous scan red dot laser that updates distance every 1second to accuracy within 1mm. No serial port however so you have to record the #'s by hand.  The Leica Disto D8 has bluetooth and inclination along with mm accuracy, but no Azimuth. The Trupulse360 has Azimuth but  not super accurate. These two lasers are are probably the best choice for trunk mapping on a budget. The Bosch100GLR was $107 on Amazon last time I checked.

There are also some new ground based LIDAR technologies I am looking at to speed up the process by 1,000 percent.

Hope you find this information helpful,

Michael Taylor

[DougBidlack]

Michael,

you have no idea how exciting this info is...I'm practically bouncing off the walls.  I've dreamed of being able to determine the volume of a tree (from the ground and likely without another person for help) for some time now.  Measuring tree height, girth and spread are all well and good, but volume is the real deal.  I am especially interested in annual volume growth if volume can be accurately and precisely determined.

I'm gonna be in Atherton, California for a week or so in February.  Any chance that we could meet?  Unfortunately I can't really get away to see the real redwoods way up north as I'll be sticking to the San Francisco area to visit my brother and his family.

Can't wait for you guys to finish the dendromorphometry book.  I really hope that we can have NTS meetings where workshops on how to use all this wonderful new technology is front and center.  I recall that several other eNTS have expressed an interest in just this sort of thing.  Does this sound reasonable or is it just a little too early?

Doug