Virtual, augmented and mixed reality are no longer just for gamers and tech demos. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has called augmented and virtual reality the next major computing platform and is predicting that these technologies have the potential to replace smartphones and personal computers within 10 years. Even now, they’re becoming an important tool for big business. Most sectors see …

A warming New Zealand could help its plantation forests grow – but not without extreme fire risk almost doubling by the end of the century. Scion researchers have modelled what climate change will mean for the country’s plantation forests, taking into account everything from growth gains to risk from pests, disease and wind. The modelling suggested changing climatic conditions – …

With forest company’s industry wide faced with fibre accessibility challenges, the name of the game today is supply chain optimization. A technology company based in Vancouver believes the solution is in forestry-specific data collection and analytics. Big data — a buzzword for the storage and analysis of large, complex data sets from multiple sources — has taken most industries by …

Field Surveys are an important part of sustainable forest management. Most of the forest departments across Canada have been using traditional paper-based surveys. However, Manitoba Forestry and Peatlands Branch digitalized their survey workflow using mobile geospatial technology. Tony Viveiros and Marianne Porteous at Manitoba Sustainable Development elaborate more on their use of geographic information system (GIS) technology to increase efficiency …

For the past four years, holographers, engineers, Unity developers and 3D graphic artists have been putting their minds together to create the seemingly magic Looking Glass—a holographic display that uses both lightfield and volumetric technologies. Further details can be found on their website and Kickstarter campaign. Check out the technology in the Youtube clip below.     Image Credit: Through the …

Last November as part of this region’s ForestTECH series that ran, local forest resource managers heard from Airbus Defence & Space on progress being made on a raft of projects including work on combining drone and satellite technologies and their solar-powered Zephyr, an aerial platform that operates in the space between conventional satellites and manned aircraft. The company has just …

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 local forest cooperative association and key forestry industry leaders during the mission, according to a news release. The flights were completed within the Ishikawa Prefecture, where the density of the …