COST Action 3DForEcoTech conducted a survey among participants of its key activities –including Summer Schools, Short-Term Scientific Missions (STSMs), workshops, virtual mobilities, and conferences – to evaluate the long-term impact of its training initiatives. The questionnaire assessed how participation influenced practical skills, motivation, research focus, scientific outputs, and professional networking, with a particular focus on the use and application of...

When something is in the way, it’s in the way. When a laser pulse meets a leaf, branch, or trunk, it’s either reflected back to the sensor or blocked from travelling further. The result is occlusion, a feature of the environment that leaves gaps in the three-dimensional data used to describe forest structure. While LiDAR has revolutionized our ability to...

Measuring an entire countries forest is no easy feat. The forests of Europe are among the most closely monitored ecosystems on the planet. Yet, as the need for more accurate, detailed, and repeatable forest data grows, traditional methods of inventorying trees, tapes, callipers, and clinometers, are reaching their limits. Laser scanning technologies, particularly Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) and Mobile Laser...

It isn’t always easy to be up close and personal with a tree. Close-range remote sensing (CRRS) technologies, from terrestrial laser scanners to drone-mounted sensors, are transforming how researchers observe and understand forests. These tools capture high-resolution, three-dimensional data on forest structure, enabling new insights into growth, biomass, and biodiversity. Yet despite rapid technological progress, the widespread adoption of CRRS...

There are many scans of trees, however, they have not been assembled into a data forest. Species classification from laser scanning data has long been seen as a frontier challenge in forest remote sensing, one with major implications for everything from carbon accounting to biodiversity assessment to sustainable forest management. Accurately identifying tree species from 3D point clouds would enable...

LiDAR Data Fusion: The Next Frontier in Forest Attribute Estimation Although ground-based LiDAR has led to major improvements in forestry inventory and research in recent decades, LiDAR can still struggle to capture the complete picture of a forest ecosystem. For terrestrial or mobile laser scanners operating from the ground are limited by dense vegetation and tree height, all forms of...