METHOD FOR EVALUATING STOCK OF TREES Russian patent published in 1999 - IPC

FIELD: forestry, in particular, evaluation of stock of trees on vast areas of unaccounted territories. SUBSTANCE: method involves using the principle based on the fact that reflective characteristics of natural and artificial objects are defined by spectral luminosity coefficient value influenced by plant phenophase and morphologic parameters such as height, density, shape of crown, protective cover. Distribution of luminosity values within the image of one tree may be presented as two-dimensional asymmetrical bell-shaped function. During spatial resolution of cosmic photographs at "dm" level digitized image of one crown has hundreds of picsels. Eight adjacent elements are positioned around each picsel of discrete image. Method further involves obtaining tree crown contours by calculating gradient of two-dimensional function in eight directions; on the basis of known diameters of crowns of given number of trees, calculating characteristics of stock of trees by average statistical level functions; dividing the range of tree crown diameters into five intervals and calculating crown diameter of average tree; evaluating stock of trees by average statistical dependences; calculating total stock of trees of image frame by summing stocks of analyzed plots; calculating crown cover extent by determining ratio of total tree crown area and plot area. EFFECT: increased precision and enhanced reliability in the results of evaluation of tree stock by its image. 2 dwg, 1 tbl, 1 ex