ForestTECH News provides the latest updates on breaking news, research results, reports and links relevant to forest resource management and planning in Australasia.
ForestTECH Events has, since 2007, been Australasia’s leading technology event for forest resource managers, remote sensing, GIS, mapping and inventory foresters.
ForestTECH 2018 Details
Latest News, & Technologies
Swift Engineering UAS completes forestry mission
Swift Engineering’s Swift020 unmanned aircraft system (UAS) recently completed flights over densely forested areas in Japan. The company worked with the Ishikawa Prefecture Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry, the lo...
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ForestTECH News Issue 16 Summary
Welcome to the 16th monthly issue of ForestTECH News. We mentioned in last month’s issue that we’d been working alongside many of you to pull together this year’s annual technology event, ForestTECH 2018. This years’ se...
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13 GIS data collection apps professionals should try
You bought a GPS receiver. Or, maybe, you just want to get more out of the data from your current receiver. What’s next? Juniper Systems have compiled a list of 13 GPS and GNSS apps and solutions that will make your data coll...
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Drone missions to fight California wildfires
The California Air National Guard‘s 195th Airlift Wing recently launched a drone reconnaissance mission to aid firefighting efforts in northern California. At least six people have been killed by the raging wildfires with mor...
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Precursors to drones – way back in 1907
In 1907, just a few years after the Wright brothers lifted off in Kitty Hawk, and while human flight was still being measured in metres and minutes, Dr. Julius Neubronner, a German apothecary, submitted a patent application for...
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THOR hovers like a helicopter but can fly long-distance
A team of researchers from Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) is creating a Transformable Hovering Rotorcraft (THOR) and hopes their design can address the fact that multicopter drones cannot cover long distan...
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ForestTECH 2018 workshops likely to sell out fast
Feedback on the programmes announced last week has already been extremely positive. This year a raft of new disruptive technologies already been trialled in the forestry industry – and allied industries – are going to be sh...
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ForestTECH 2018 event details on line
Every year it’s the one event that draws in forest resource managers, remote sensing, GIS and mapping specialists and inventory foresters together. It’s the annual technology programme run at the end of each year, ForestTEC...
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Airobotics makes autonomous drones in a box
Not far from Tel Aviv a drone flies low over a gritty landscape of warehouses and broken pavement. It slowly approaches its home — a refrigerator-sized box inside a mesh fence, and hovers, preparing to dock. It descends like ...
0ForestTECH News Issue 15 Summary
Welcome to the 15th monthly issue of ForestTECH News Every month, numbers of forest resource managers, remote sensing and mapping and GIS specialists, inventory foresters, researchers and key product and service suppliers to t...
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Satellite images tell the story of Tolaga Bay
The impact of forestry on the East Coast came to the fore last month as Tolaga Bay was deluged with offcuts. How did it come to this, asks Michael Smith. Satellite images show how the disaster in the forests at Tolaga Bay on Ne...
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Aquila: Facebook Shuts Down Internet Delivery Drone Project
Facebook has quietly announced that it will no longer be continuing with its Aquila project, a giant drone designed to fly at high altitude and beam down internet connectivity to remote areas. In a blog post written by director...
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Point Clouds: Laser Scanning vs UAS Photogrammetry
Are photogrammetric point clouds superior to Lidar point clouds, or is it the other way around? To address this topic of ongoing debate, a study Switzerland-based study by Lerch Weber AG conducted a terrestrial laser scanning (...
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Move on joint forest management standard
Australia and New Zealand are closer to developing a joint trans-Tasman standard for forest management following a joint meeting recently between the boards of Responsible Wood and the New Zealand Forest certification Associati...
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Drones could add £42 billion to the UK economy
Drone technology has the potential to transform our economies to be more sustainable and efficient, according to a new report from PwC. The professional services group looked at the impact that drones could have upon the UK eco...
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How will open data affect the geospatial business?
Open data is becoming increasingly available all over the world. How will this trend affect the geospatial business? ‘GIM International’ has asked experts from some of the sector’s most influential companies for their opi...
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New Report: What are drones being used for in New Zealand?
Airways’ latest Drone Tracker Survey is out – providing a detailed snapshot of where the drone industry in New Zealand is at and what are the key issues for users. So what are the implications for the future of the technology...
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Insight Robotics receives funding for forestry
Hong Kong venture capital fund Beyond Ventures has joined with Linear Capital of Shanghai to lead a US$9 million investment that will benefit forestry in national parks and other natural resources all over the world. They are f...
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New tool to predict forestry climate change
Forest managers will be able to gauge the likely effect of climate change on growing conditions in their specific areas with a new interactive online tool developed by the CSIRO with funding from Forest & Wood Products Australi...
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Drone test for replanting forests
The massive task of restoring land denuded by fires, drought or human activity might eventually be helped by swarms of drones that can plant almost 400,000 tree seeds a day. “There’s an absolutely huge, huge area across Can...
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Infrared sensing gives drones a new edge
An ‘x-ray vision system’ that overlays three specific technologies to assess the structure and health of individual trees in plantation forests through the canopy is being developed in South Australia. University of South A...
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Lidar Market Heading towards 2 Billion Dollars by 2023
According to a comprehensive new market research report, the overall Lidar market is expected to reach over US$1.8 billion by 2023, up from US$819.1 million in 2018, at a CAGR of 17.2%. Encouragement from the governments and in...
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Tiny RoboFly could sniff out forest fires
This is one flying insect you don’t want to swat. It doesn’t bite, sting, or spread disease and someday it could be a life and climate saver. In time, it could survey crops, detect wildfires, poke around in disaster rubble ...
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Expressions of Interest – ForestTECH 2018
ForestTECH is this region’s premier technology series. It’s run for Australasia’s forest resource managers, planners, inventory foresters and GIS and mapping specialists by the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIE...
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Terrestrial Laser Scanning in Forest Inventories
Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is an effective technique for acquiring detailed tree attributes in forest plots. During the last two decades, national mapping agencies, companies, universities and research organisations have ...
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New lab immerses users in environment of Agumented Reality
The Lab, which is part of CSIRO’s new $100M research facility in Canberra, will allow researchers to develop new interactive computer graphics and computational imaging services, which will redefine industries including retail,...
0ForestTECH News Issue 13 Summary
Welcome to this month’s issue of ForestTECH News. This month we’ve included a couple of stories to get you thinking. Firstly, VR. At last year’s ForestTECH event, local forestry companies for the first time got a chance to ...
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Report released on the potential for AI
Last week, the AI Forum (that’s Artificial Intelligence – not Artificial Insemination) released a major study about the potential for AI in New Zealand. For those interested, it is available free on the AI Forum website: Ar...
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International expertise for Woodflow 2018
As part of the upcoming two-yearly tech update for forestry, wood harvesting and transport companies around Australasia, the very latest international and local developments around vehicle fleet operations, planning and safety ...
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Sensors for monitoring employees’ emotions
Is this a future safety tool for workers in higher risk occupations? Companies throughout China are using brainwave sensors to train workers and screen for mental fitness, South China Morning Post reports. More than a dozen fac...
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Evaluating drones for aerial mapping
How often have we wanted to get a bird’s eye view with location intelligence from a certain height? A drone gives you the chance to view everything from an aerial point of view. So, how do you select the right drone for your ...
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Nearly 2,000 forest owners testing virtual forest
The virtual forest developed by Metsä Group, Tieto and CTRL Reality runs on all VR devices, and it can simulate different forest management methods and their impact on income and the landscape, for example. The solution can re...
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Drone and satellite imagery combined
Airbus Aerial and DroneBase have announced a partnership that will be interesting reading for any organization that relies on aerial imagery to make better decisions. The two plan to deliver the world’s first “multi-source ...
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NZ$830,000 funding for securing LiDAR data
New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries’ Erosion Control Funding Programme (ECFP) is providing NZ$830,000 to the Gisborne District Council to undertake high definition digital 3-D aerial mapping of its region to enabl...
0ForestTECH News Issue 12 Summary
Welcome to the next issue of ForestTECH.events News. This regular update continues to generate keen interest and contributions from the industry across Australasia. Welcome also to our North and South American readers who atten...
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Super clusters to aid in forestry innovation
Information sharing between competing businesses and research facilities in B.C.’s forestry sector, could help grow the industry, rather than create more competition, according to tech experts. Canada’s Digital Technology S...
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Forest remote sensing data acquisition trial
We reported on a trial in a recent issue of Friday Offcuts where researchers from NSW DPI, University of Tasmania, Interpine, SCION and the University of Sydney have been working collaboratively on an FWPA funded remote sensing...
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Phenotyping for precision forestry
The Phenotyping Platform under development at Scion aims to link information from a number of sources to derive knowledge about the drivers of tree growth, and provide the tools to optimise forest management in support of preci...
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5 mobile technology trends in the forestry industry
The Paperless Forest The forestry industry has been the top user of mobile technology in Finland for many years. That is a big deal when you consider that Finland is a global leader in mobile technology (thanks to Nokia and oth...
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Log trucks to collect road data
The digitalisation of the road network is often thought of as something related to main roads alone. The forest sector, however, is also interested in the road network outside main roads, and its condition will be monitored in ...
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Industrial drones for remote operation in construction
There is absolutely no doubt that drones offer a high ROI for the construction industry. But the notoriously traditionalist sector has been slower than others to adopt drones on worksites. Now global drone leader DJI and commer...
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The changing marketplace of geomatics
The changing landscape of the mapping and surveying profession brings new challenges, even for a renowned manufacturer of geospatial instruments like Trimble. In view of the growing role of BIM, the rising demand for complete w...
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Looking at the future of GIS
To gain real insight into today’s geospatial business landscape, ‘GIM International’ decided to ask some of the sector’s most influential companies for their opinions. This series of Q&As captures the current state of t...
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Optimising radiata pine stand density
Optimising radiata pine stand density could increase the net value of New Zealand’s plantation estate by NZ$1.7 billion. The Scion research team including Dr Mike Watt, Mark Kimberley, Jonathan Dash, Duncan Harrison, Dr Juan ...
0Welcome to 2018 – ForestTECH Issue 11
The ForestTECH annual update on remote sensing and forest inventory technologies is already well established in Australasia. It’s been going since 2007. It continues to be the one event at the end of each calendar year where ...
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Using drone-based aerial photogrammetry in forestry
As unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) find their place in the forestry sector, Waypoint met with a pioneer in this field, researcher Stefano Puliti of the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO). In this wide-...
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Forest researchers trial remote sensing technologies
Leading researchers from Australia and New Zealand converged on Carabost State Forest in late February to test state-of-the-art sensor equipment mounted on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) prototypes and a helicopter. The trans-Ta...
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Unmanned vehicles getting bigger and bigger
When most people think of drones – even commercial ones – they picture a quadcopter, or maybe a long endurance fixed wing. But at the larger end of the market, there are new developments in a totally different model of unma...
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Drone use climbs for U.S. natural resource management
With a fleet of 312 unmanned aircraft, the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Office of Aviation Services supported bureau operators, who flew nearly 5,000 missions in 2017, ranging from fighting wildfires to monitoring dams ...
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Forecaster software provider changes
Last Friday marked an important day for Forecaster clients as the maintenance and support of the product shifts to a new software provider. Forecaster is a forest planning and simulation software package developed by Scion over...
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Geospatial big data moves to data sharing
Geospatial has always been considered as big data, both by its own advocates and many others, writes Ian Holt, a big data evangelist from the UK, in his latest column in ‘GIM International’. Yet large spatial databases and data...
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Using LiDAR in forest inventory – free new guides
A model development and application guide for generating an enhanced forest inventory using airborne laser scanning data and an area-based approach. Airborne Laser Scanning data—also known as Light Detection and Ranging (LiDA...
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Four commercial drone trends for 2018
In my last post, Five Biggest Commercial Drone Trends of 2017 and the Challenges Ahead, I used data from our 2017 Drone Market Sector Report to illustrate the major trends of the past year and describe the major challenges ahea...
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New LiDAR drone announced with industry firsts
Delair has been an industry leader for industrial drone solutions for a number of years now – and they’ve just announced the next generation of high-performance industrial drones with the Delair DT26X LiDAR UAV. It’s the ...
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What’s happening to forest inventory in Canada?
The forest inventory business is changing. For forest professionals, keeping up-to-date on technological innovations and understanding the different sources of forest inventory information available (and the associated terminol...
0Welcome to 2018 – ForestTECH Issue 10
Welcome to the first issue of the ForestTECH newsletter for this year. Good to be back at work? Amazingly, already a month of the year has flown by. To start the year, we’ve added a number of remote sensing stories to this is...
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Autonomous air tankers for firefighting?
Firefighters may soon get another tool in the drone arsenal, as Thrush Aircraft and Drone America from an alliance to begin development of the world’s first autonomous air tanker. The Best of Planes and Drones Thrush Aircraft...
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Comparing Lidar & Photogrammetric Point Clouds
Airborne Lidar and photogrammetry are both viable methods for capturing point clouds for 3D modelling of man-made hard structures. Although both methods produce point clouds, the manner of capturing data differs in many ways, r...
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Agri Robots & Drones to be a US$45 Billion Industry by 2038
Robotic technology is quietly transforming the world of agriculture. A report by IDTexchEx describes how this market will plausibly grow to become a US $45 billion industry by 2038. It also demonstrates how diverse this emergin...
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Study identifies opportunities for NSW forest owners
New research from the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has highlighted promising opportunities for 18,000 North Coast private native forest (PNF) landholders, to increase income and create new jobs through ecologicall...
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Drones used to survey B.C.’s wildfire damage
Researchers at the University of British Columbia are using drones to investigate how much damage the 2017 wildfire season wreaked on B.C.’s forests. By flying the unmanned machines over B.C.’s Interior, graduate students a...
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Terrestrial laser scanning for forest inventories
Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is an effective technique for acquiring detailed tree attributes in forest plots. During the last two decades, tremendous effort by national mapping agencies, companies, universities and researc...
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NZ to trial drone traffic management system
Airways is calling for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), or drone, users to take part in the trial of New Zealand’s first UAV traffic management (UTM) platform. Airways has partnered with global airspace management provider AirM...
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Satellite technology a game changer for NZ farmers
Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) has announced the launch of an innovative satellite technology called SPACE (Satellite Pasture and Cover Evaluation) – a giant leap forward for pasture management. SPACE uses satellite ...
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Remote assessment of individual trees with VR
As discussed and demonstrated at the recent ForestTECH 2017 series (photo), Virtual Reality (VR) technology may offer unique opportunities to fundamentally change forest practices for which human assessment skills are required....
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ForestTECH 2017 Event Summary
Since 2007, ForestTECH has been the one event every year that continues to draw in foresters to one location in both countries. Key researchers, technology providers and forest owners are also now picking up the opportunity of ...
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NGIS introduces new Forestry Monitoring Service
Aerial and Satellite imagery has been used in the Forestry sector for decades, providing intelligence enabling monitoring, operational awareness and auditing capability amongst a range of use cases. Recent advances in the avail...
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LINZ wins environmental spatial award
LINZ’s efforts to help fight Wilding Conifers – a rapidly spreading invasive pest tree in New Zealand – were recognised at this year’s Spatial Excellence Awards. “LINZ’s web-based mapping and monitoring tool for aut...
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Forestry investing in drone technology & skills development
At the just completed ForestTECH 2017 series, we heard from major forestry companies in both New Zealand and Australia that are investing heavily in drones, training in-company pilots and using the technology operationally acro...
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International forest technology experts coming to Vancouver
With the very successful ForestTECH 2017 series finishing this week in Melbourne, attention now swings to North America. A new international forest management technology conference is set to bring all of the latest inventory an...
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Teen scientist wins with innovative drone design
A teenage scientist from Germany has been given a top award thanks to an innovative drone design that uses a different wing lift pattern to traditional planes. It’s based on an historic German design that was never built, and...
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Industry adopts drones for forestry supervision
Enabling foresters to see the forest from above; drone technology has been developing exponentially over the last couple of years and Interpine Innovation presented at ForestTech 2016 on courses available for foresters to start ...
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Growth potential of NZ’s virtual reality sector highlighted
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has welcomed the release of a report that forecasts New Zealand’s cross reality sector will reach over NZ$320 million in annual revenue and employ double the number of peopl...
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Continuous monitoring of your forest resource
To effectively manage resources decision makers, require timely information at an appropriate scale. In the recent years there has been a marked increase and uptake of remote sensing technologies – drones, LiDAR and satellite...
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Choosing the right stand densities & tree genetics
Forest owners and managers can increase log quality, yield and total value by up to $16,000 per hectare by choosing the right tree spacing and best genetically improved tree stocks for their forest stands. A team of Scion scien...
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Testing nursery research in the forest
Several nursery trials carried out as part of GCFF projects in New Zealand have shown that reductions in fungicide and fertiliser use can produce seedlings of the same or better quality when leaving the nursery gate, but how mu...
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Agriculture drone market may exceed US$4 billion
According to an August study by Esticast Research & Consulting Market Research, the global commercial drone market may reach US$3.6 billion by 2024. However, a new study forecasts an even larger bumper crop for just one of the ...
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CSIRO invests in sophisticated satellites
CSIRO has secured access to one of the world’s most sophisticated high-performance satellites, giving Australian scientists direct control over which data the satellite collects over our region and placing the national scienc...
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Improving small-plantation and woodlot inventories
Small plantations and woodlots are a vital part of the New Zealand forest sector. Growers of these woodlots include an estimated 14,000 small-scale and medium-scale forest owners and much of this resource is found on New Zealan...
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Expressions of interest – Woodflow 2018
Early expressions of interest are being sought from presenters for next year’s Woodflow 2018 technology series. It’s being run in June next year in both New Zealand and Australia by the Forest Industry Engineering Associati...
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Extra LiDAR workshops added to ForestTECH 2017
In conjunction with the ForestTECH 2017 series this year, Interpine will be running their own introductory workshop for ForestTECH delegates the day after each event – Friday 17 November, Rotorua and in Melbourne, Thursday 23...
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Mobility eats everything
In just 10 years the ‘smartphone’ has become an essential part of our working and personal lives. We hear and see a lot of hype about the ‘next big thing’ in mobile devices, however, in reality, all we seem to get are i...
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Unlocking the true value of forestry data
It’s the one forestry technology event every year that brings in forest resource managers, inventory foresters, GIS specialists and researchers from throughout Australasia. Last year, over 250 delegates attended the end-of-ye...
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NZ drone makers finding niche markets
New Zealand’s commercial drone manufacturers are successfully finding niche markets as the potential for the unmanned flying machines takes off. While unable to compete on price with large Chinese drone makers, several Kiwi c...
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NZ$800,000 for 3-D mapping of Northland
New Zealand Economic Development Minister Simon Bridges and Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy have announced government funding of up to NZ$800,000 for 3-D aerial mapping of Northland to provide the region with highly accu...
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Android™ AOSP: What You Need to Know
Android™ has emerged with growing popularity in the handheld arena, from smartphones to tablets to other devices, it’s here to stay. Since its notable growth, Google has been working toward making various forms of Android a...
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Cutting edge technology assists forest management
Greater protection for waterways and more accurate timber volume estimates are some of the benefits stemming from a six-month project to capture sophisticated LiDAR data across all state-owned plantations in Tumut and Tumbarumb...
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Choosing the right stand densities and tree genetics
Forest owners and managers can increase log quality, yield and total value by up to $16,000 per hectare by choosing the right tree spacing and best genetically improved tree stocks for their forest stands. A team of Scion scien...
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AI-powered drone soars like a bird
Microsoft is working on giving a sailplane flying instincts like a bird. The artificial-intelligence controlled flying machine can detect and hitch a ride on thermals, enabling it to circle and gain altitude without having to e...
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New satellite system (SBAS) Australian and NZ GPS users
“Scion initial tests of new GPS augmentation system for Australia and New Zealand shows marked improvement in position accuracy”. Scion has recently completed early tests of a new satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) ...
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AI to better predict forest fires
The same sort of artificial intelligence (AI) that allows cars to drive themselves could be used to better prepare for devastating forest fires, says an Alberta fire scientist. Researchers at the University of Alberta and the U...
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Tracking wildfires with drones
Boeing-owned Insitu has announced that it will provide drones to FireWhat, a California-based company that monitors wildfires and natural resources. As spotted by GeekWire, the Insitu drones will be used to keep track of fires ...
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AI rolling out a lot quicker than we thought
We’ve already touched on the role that artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are playing on future business growth. According to McKinsey, a global consulting company, 45 percent of work activities cou...
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Korea investing 1.0 billion in drone industry
Determined to be part of growing Asian drone industry, the South Korean government has announced that it will invest a further 1.2 trillion won (over $1 billion) in the industry over the next five years. Korean news outlets rep...
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NZ forestry collaborates on 532,000ha LiDAR project
Interpine Innovation is currently around 50% through the LiDAR capture of 532,000ha of plantation forest in New Zealand. It’s a collaborative project that brings together forest owners, which affords efficiencies in both LiDA...
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New advanced LiDAR on a fixed wing UAV
Carbomap, an environmental survey company, in collaboration with high-performance LiDAR manufacturer RIEGL, UAVE and The University of Edinburgh, has announced the first successful demonstration flight of a RIEGL VUX-1LR survey...
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Fighting forest fires with technology
As wildfires recently have burned across the interior of British Columbia, thousands of residents were forced out of their homes — many not knowing whether those homes would withstand the flames. It’s a scenario seen increa...
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Predicting optimal stand density in NZ plantations
Radiata pine when it is planted too closely together grows tall and spindly while wide spacing encourages branch growth and land may be underutilised. Somewhere in between is an optimum final crop stand density that allows fore...
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What’s now and next in analytics, AI and automation
As we’ve reported in recent issues, rapid technological advances in digitisation and data and analytics have been reshaping the business landscape, supercharging performance, and enabling the emergence of new business innovat...
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Which RFID reader option is best for you?
For those of you who are new to the world of RFID and rugged handheld computing, welcome. We hope this post at Juniper serves as a guide to help you better understand which information collection option best suits the needs of ...
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Satellites put plantation water use into context
Forest plantation managers can better understand water use and the potential impact of different forest management approaches by integrating satellite based water consumption estimates, according to research co-funded by the FW...
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A new foliage penetrating LiDAR system
Shortly after lasers were first developed in the 1960s, LiDAR—whose name originated as a combination of “light” and “radar”—capitalized on the newly unique precision they offered for measuring both time and distance...
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AI could double NZ’s growth rate in 20 years
Accenture has released research – Why Artificial Intelligence is the Future of Growth – which shows New Zealand’s growth rate could double between now and 2035 if emerging technologies are embraced. Accenture New Zealand ...
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New Go-To Resource for the UAV industry
There are many rapidly moving parts in the emergence of the new commercial UAV (UAS, drone…) industry. A new book (April 2017), Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Guide: Exploring Designs, Operations, Regulations, and Economics ...
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Drones that can stay aloft for five days
In the event of a natural disaster that disrupts phone and Internet systems over a wide area, autonomous aircraft could potentially hover over affected regions, carrying communications payloads that provide temporary telecommun...
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Funding for innovative tree growth & monitoring system
Irish specialist software developer Treemetrics has won a €1.2 million contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide a system for tracking tree and forest growth.
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Millions of hectares of forest discovered
Scientists have discovered a whopping 467 million hectares of previously unreported forest scattered around the world, a finding that they say could have a big impact on global carbon budgeting moving forward. The finding boost...
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Airbus now moving into commercial drones
Airbus has announced the launch of a new commercial drone start-up, named Airbus Aerial, that will focus on developing new imagery services. These services will leverage technology that Airbus has developed over the years and u...
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Laser system recognises tree species automatically
A joint research project by Tampere University of Technology’s mathematics laboratory and the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) has developed a new method of recognising tree species based on laser scanning measureme...
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US Department of Defence funding paper airplanes
For all those interested in UAV’s, here’s an interesting story. DARPA, the U.S. Department of Defence military research agency, whose work has resulted in staples of modern life such as the Internet and GPS systems, is now ...
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Combining the best technologies for 3D Modeling
Cambridge startup Scanifly isn’t just another drone data platform. With a background in solar technology and a clear view of the value proposition for drone data, founder John Novak and his team are combining technologies for...
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When Birds Attack! — A real threat to drones
When it comes to operating commercial drones, there are some challenges that every operator needs to address: gaining official permission to fly, knowing where you can safely operate, staying on top of the weather… a professi...
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Australian drone regulations need tightening
A Coalition senator is calling on Australia’s Federal Government to toughen up laws on the use of small drones. Queensland senator Barry O’Sullivan said he feared a “catastrophic” accident was possible if measures to go...
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Remote sensing advances to usher in virtual reality
New technological tools harnessing the power of remote sensing to make it quicker, easier and cheaper to measure forest inventory will soon be unveiled – and in future could potentially enable a virtual “walk through the fo...
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Update on a log counting app
The recognition of objects within images is a technology within the field of computer vision. A practical application within the forest industry is counting logs. Once I heard about an app that would do this it seemed like an o...
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€1M for real-time satellite coms & data-analytics platform
Coillte, Ireland’s national forestry company, has announced a major €1 million contract agreement, with Cork-headquartered Treemetrics to roll out a pioneering real-time satellite communications and data-analytics platform ...
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Early expressions of Interest – ForestTECH 2017
The ForestTECH series has been run annually by FIEA since 2007. It is now firmly established as the technology event where forest resource managers, remote sensing and GIS specialists and inventory foresters from throughout Aus...
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Is the new iPad a bargain for field users?
Earlier this month Apple released a new iPad with a 9.7” screen at a price that makes it appear to be a bargain when compared to the 9.7” iPad Pro. But will field users find it to be a suitable alternative to the other offe...
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3D HoloLens for fire-fighting?
Those attending the MobileTECH 2017 event a couple of weeks ago were introduced – and were able to put on to test out – the very latest HoloLens, Microsoft’s augmented reality (AR) viewer. The opportunities for our own la...
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Unmanned helicopters on a data collection mission
In many forests, the collection of information pertaining to the wood remains neglected, due to a shortage of specially trained personnel, specific expertise, funding, or appropriate technology. A project funded by the Austrian...
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Remote sensing to assess pest and pathogen damage
In a recent review by Christine Stone, NSW Department of Industry – Lands and Caroline Mohammed, University of Tasmania, developments and applications in remote sensing that can improve the accuracy and timeliness of health a...
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Why agriculture drone solutions deserve a closer look
A myriad of innovative new technologies around sensors and the collection and use of data from drones were showcased at the MobileTECH 2017 event run for primary industries in Rotorua in March of this year. Foresters and resour...
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Satellites map carbon sequestered by forests
Led by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, the EU North State project has developed a new method of using satellite images to evaluate the forest carbon balance. The carbon balance indicates how much carbon is sequestered...
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John Deere partnering with drone-tech startup Kespry
Heavy equipment makers Deere & Co (John Deere), have forged a strategic alliance with drone-tech startup Kespry, the companies announced in Las Vegas at CONEXPO, an international trade show for the construction industry. The de...
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Trimble acquires Finnish forestry solutions companies
Trimble announced earlier this month that they have acquired the forestry business of Savcor Oy, a global supplier of forestry solutions for performance optimization and enterprise management as well as Silvadata, a provider of...
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Joint Australian & NZ research to extract LiDAR information
Scientists from several Australian research agencies and NZ’s SCION are collaborating in a multidisciplinary FWPA project titled “Optimizing remotely acquired, dense point cloud data for plantation inventory”. This collab...
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US$26million funding for AirMap for drones
AirMap, an airspace management platform for drones, is the latest drone company to land major investment to support explosive growth. CA-based AirMap announced a US$26 million Series B funding round led by Microsoft Ventures, w...
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Cooling down field data collection devices
Mike Scanlon, a past ForestTECH speaker with 30 years’ experience with the US Forest Service, including Mobile Architecture, replied to a posting in February. He outlined in that posting that after the November 2015 conferenc...
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3D printing UAVs
The Military is no stranger to 3D printing, and so far we’ve seen this demonstrated in concepts for body armor and using the technology to fabricate replacement parts. Now, with the advent of some impressive and innovative un...
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Detecting wildings using Lidar and aerial imagery
Scientists in Scion’s Geomatics team have found that wilding conifers can be detected in grasslands using a combination of Lidar and multi-spectral values obtained from aerial imagery. Their research was recently published in...
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The best drones for smaller commercial operations
Commercial drone operators are a big market for drone manufacturers – and the market is growing fast. While industrial applications for drones are also expanding rapidly, the FAA says that 90% of new drone businesses in the U...
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[Paper] UAVs for Forest Firefighting
Robin Hartley, the UAV Team Leader for Interpine, spoke at ForestTECH 2016 on using UAVs for forest fire-fighting. In a collaboration between Interpine and Massey University School of Aviation in New Zealand, rural fire zone ma...
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NZ & Australia partnering leading satellite trial
New Zealand will join Australia in a world-leading satellite technology test-bed, Transport Minister Simon Bridges has announced. The New Zealand and Australian Governments will be partners in a two-year trial of Satellite Base...
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[Video] The next manufacturing revolution is here
Economic growth has been slowing for the past 50 years, but relief might come from an unexpected place — a new form of manufacturing that is neither what you thought it was nor where you thought it was. Industrial systems thi...
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EHang 184 transport drone works
While drones are already becoming an important tool for forest management, we are only just scratching the surface of what they will be able to do. At a major electronics show in the US, Chinese company EHang showed off a work...
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ForestTECH: a new communication tool for local foresters
ForestTECH 2016 delegates in Rotorua and Melbourne late last year provided input to this new venture. Together with industry, the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA) plans to communicate much more regularly with loca...
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[Paper] Reconciling ground plots and harvest reconciliations with LiDAR data
As part of the ForestTECH 2016 event in New Zealand, Sean McBride from JNL Wairarapa Forests in the lower North Island, New Zealand detailed trials that had recently been undertaken on 2,000 ha of even age class forests in the ...
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Drone Data vs LIDAR: Misconceptions
We frequently receive inquiries to provide “LIDAR data”, however there are a couple of things to clarify regarding these requests: - Most often what people want is a 3D point cloud or Digital Elevation Model (DEM), not spe...
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[Paper] Point Cloud Data Systems
Jon Osborn, from the University of Tasmania, spoke at ForestTECH 2016 on alternative platforms and sensors for point cloud data. Two key questions: Is dense point cloud photogrammetry emerging as a practical source of useful da...
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Forest biodiversity research revolutionised
A team of scientists from Australia, Brazil and Spain have joined forces to develop the most sophisticated remote monitoring system ever used to track the diminishing biodiversity of South America’s Amazon Jungle. The project w...
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FireBlanket tech could revolutionise bushfire detection
NRMA FireBlanket is new IoT technology working towards the early detection of bushfire via connected smoke detectors in Australian bushland. NRMA has embarked on a new project to explore potential of fire prevention technologie...
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What is Amazon developing behind closed doors?
Amazon is getting ready to examine it’s wireless communications technology abilities, including mobile devices and fixed-base stations in rural Washington and Seattle, the company disclosed in government filings recently. The...
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The digital technology evolution
There has never been a bigger force for change than technology. It changes everything. This video by Jose Esteves is a huge eye-opener in just how fast the world is changing. Some very interesting facts about the digital world,...
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UAV rules + sausage delivery
Did you receive an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for Christmas? What was once an expensive hobby or commercial tool, UAVs are now an affordable and popular gift for the general public. While commercial UAV operators should know...
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UAVs vs eagles
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have become unlikely prey for wedge-tailed eagles in Western Australia's Goldfields, costing a mining giant more than $100,000 to replace its newest surveying tool.
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Types of drones (UAVs)
Although multi-rotors get most of the attention in the drone world, they are not the only option. If you’re serious about aerial mapping then you need to consider a fixed-wing aircraft. Single-rotor helis are also a great sol...
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[Paper] FCNSW UAV case study
Mike Sutton, the Forest Information and Planning Manager at Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW), spoke at ForestTECH 2016 on integrating UAVs into their forest management operations. They identified the potential for UAV use in...
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Issues for the drone industry
While drones (UAVs) are increasingly being used within the forestry industry, the drone manufacturers themselves are struggling to survive in the wider market. France’s Parrot SA, the second largest maker of consumer drones, is...
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ForestTECH 2016: Event Summary
ForestTECH, an FIEA event run annually since 2007, has become New Zealand and Australia’s premier technology series for forest resource managers, planners and inventory foresters. As a cornerstone event for the industry, Forest...
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Google Earth’s new mapping system
New images released recently by Google Earth from the Landsat 8 satellite are giving viewers a crisp, stellar glimpse of our planet. In a blog post, Google Earth Engine program manager Chris Herwig explained exactly how the upd...
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2015 Event Summary
The ForestTECH 2015 technology series ran in New Zealand and Australia in November 2015. Again the turnout to this latest FIEA technology series has been excellent with over 250 technical and resource foresters attending. In ad...
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