Guidelines for the forestry industry

Tools For Foresters aim to produce best practice guidelines for the forestry industry. Our standard operating procedures (SOPs) are developed through our Application Incubator, where our processes start out life as an idea, develop through internal ideation and research, and are then passed onto our beta-testing team. From here they are tested in the field until they are ready to be offered as a Tool for industry users.

• Join our beta testing team
• Links to our current SOPs

Geospatial Tools

Scion's spatial outputs

Access to further spatial layers such as the spatial variability of radiata pine and redwood productivity can be requested through this link.

Here are a few open source tools that we recommend for people who want to work with spatial data:

CloudCompare
CloudCompare is a must-have tool for anybody working with point cloud data. This allows users to manipulate and visualise pointclouds clouds in 3D in a way that isn’t possible using standard GIS packages. There are a number of online tutorials for how to work with data on this GUI-based point cloud software. It is free:
http://www.danielgm.net/cc/release

lidR
lidR  is one of the foremost lidar analysis packages for forestry. This R-based software package allows for a range of operations, such as normalising, denoising and generating canopy height models from point clouds, as well as deriving tree-level or stand level metrics. There is also very good online documentation for its use:
https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/lidR/index.html
https://r-lidar.github.io/lidRbook

The Pirate Forest software directory
This recently compiled list of open-source, forestry specific tools is extremely comprehensive, offering a range of packages for various coding platforms, including R and python, to enable foresters to carry out a range of analyses from deriving metrics from lidar data to analysing raster imagery:
https://b-lack.github.io/ThePirateForest
A useful application for developing metrics on forest stands from point clouds. This R package runs on R's Shiny platform, allowing for a more user-friendly experience for those who are not well adapted to coding:
https://rdrr.io/cran/treetop

QGIS
Anybody working with spatial data needs a robust platform to work with the data. An Open Source GIS option which is incredibly useful, continuously developed and improved, and freely available is QGIS:
https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html

Flight Controller Apps

Here is an assortment of flight controller apps for UAV use that we highly recommend. At this stage the list is tailored to DJI crafts only, if there is a desire for additional makes of craft this list will expand to encompass the need:

General Flight and reconnaissance

DJI Go/Go4 - https://www.dji.com/nz/goapp
(IOS and Android)
Free
Download through App Store or Google Play
This app is freely available to download for DJI Users and enable full flight control, capturing video and still images, and programming intelligent flight modes (TapFly, ActiveTrack etc). Great for reconnaissance, eye-in-the-sky type flights.

DJI Pilot - https://www.dji.com/nz/downloads/djiapp/dji-pilot
IOS and Android
Free
DJI Pilot can be used with DJI's Range of Thermal cameras too
Download through App Store or Google Play
This app is freely available to download for DJI Users and enable full flight control, capturing video and still images, and programming intelligent flight modes (TapFly, ActiveTrack etc). Great for reconnaissance, eye-in-the-sky type flights.

Mapping

DJI GS Pro (Ground Station Pro) - https://www.dji.com/nz/ground-station-pro
(iPad IOS only)
Free (with restrictions), Pro has an annual cost
Another diverse, tablet-based flight controller app. With features like virtual fence (to create a maximum limit to your UAV mission), 3D map and waypoint mission flight. As this is a DJI app, you can do things in this app, such as compass calibrations or checking battery voltage that you can’t do in some third-party apps.

Map Pilot - https://dronesmadeeasy.com/map-pilot (IOS only)
Free (with restrictions), Pro US$150/year (https://www.mapsmadeeasy.com/map_pilot)
A very useful app that allows for easy creation of functional mapping flights without the need for a desktop. Works with a number of DJI craft (https://support.dronesmadeeasy.com/hc/en-us/articles/205704366-Supported-Hardware). Really handy features can be purchased with the Pro package and include Terrain Awareness using the SRTM dataset (practically an essential feature for forestry), for safer flights and even GSD calculation, and flights can be generated in standard, double grid or linear patterns. KML can be imported to aid in flight planning.

UgCS (Ultimate Ground Control Software) - https://www.ugcs.com
(IOS and Android - Desktop required for flight planning)
From US$600 per year – packages can eb found here: https://www.ugcs.com/page/pricing
Highly versatile flight controller app for designing various autonomous missions, including mapping or surveillance. If you can think of something you want a UAV to do, you can almost guarantee that this app can do it. This app features terrain following using the SRTM or import your own DTM for highly accurate terrain following. Also a highly useful feature for lidar missions is the ability to incorporate banking turns rather than right angles (ensures minimal disruption to the IMU on turns).  This app offers the ability to design all flights in a 3D GIS-style GUI on a desktop and store flight plans in project folders. KMLs can also be imported to aid in design of flight plans.

Full Motion Video (FMV)

Site Scan for Arc GIS - https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/site-scan-for-arcgis/overview (iPad IOS only)
The Site Scan Flight app is an iPad flight planning and control application for drone operators. The app allows users to plan automated flights in 2D or 3D, using data from ArcGIS to help design their flight plans. The app includes several capabilities for flight paths (area surveys, corridor, panoramas, inspection, etc), integration with ArcGIS QuickCapture for data capture, and exporting a video file for full motion video. There are two versions of the app:

• The Site Scan Flight App LE (Limited Edition) version is free to download, requiring an ArcGIS online organisational account. All capabilities are the same as the full version, except for the cloud connection and upload of imagery (manual export required).
• The Site Scan Flight App (Full) is a fully integrated cloud solution to connect to Site Scan Manager (for processing and fleet management) and uploading images.

Tag Pilot - https://tinyurl.com/mrykcn9k (IOS only)
Free to download, however, required a Maps Made Easy subscription for the terrain awareness to work (i.e. need to have Map Pilot Pro). Additional costs for thermal add-on too.
From Maps Made Easy (the creators of the popular Map Pilot App), this app enables users to create 3D waypoints on-the-fly integrating augmented reality with the live UAV video stream for reconnaissance flights. This can be useful for gaining approximate locations of areas of interest (i.e. Location of weeds, dead trees, disease, areas to inspect on foot etc). Also features a thermal extension (at an additional cost) that can be used in conjunction with a Download through App Store

Flight Planning and Management Applications

AirData - https://airdata.com
Web-based
Variety of subscription plans (including a free version) and scalable based on fleet size (https://airdata.com/pricing)
Comprehensive drone fleet and flight log management operations platform.
Automated Data centre linked to individual craft and batteries
Pilot and equipment management including audit trails
Syncs to a wide variety of flight control applications on both IOS and Android, including DJI Go, Dronedeploy and Map Pilot to name a few

Airshare - https://airshare.co.nz
Online portal and mobile app
Free
This app is an essential for all UAV pilots in NZ. This app is excellent for flight planning, allowing you to keep a record of your UAV operations. It contains some basic information, including contact details, for flight planning around areas that are restricted for UAV flying, and also is the official method for requesting permission to fly within controlled airspace.

AvPlan EFB - https://www.avplan-efb.com
IOS and Android
$149 per year
This is one of the most useful apps for flight planning. This app gives you access to NZ’s visual navigation charts (VNCs) which are the maps used by aviators, as well as the NZ AIP – giving you full information to all NZs aviation planning documentation and relevant regulations needed to plan flights. This should be considered an essential for anybody using UAVs safely in NZ.

Site Scan (Manager) for ArcGIS - Site Scan for ArcGIS | Drone Mapping & Analytics Software in the Cloud (esri.com)

Web Browser App/Component of full Site Scan solutions including the Site Flight App.

Site Scan Manager is a web-based application that includes an administrative dashboard for managing users, drone fleets, flight histories, incidents, maintenance and project permissions, available to users with admin privileges. This app directly connects through the cloud to the Site Scan Flight App (Full version).

Photogrammetric Software

In 2022, Scion completed research comparing different photogrammetric software packages. Here are a few solutions that we recommend: