What have I gotten myself into this summer? Well, I'm sitting in a library at the headquarters site of the Horace J. Andrews Experimental Research Forest (HJA). HJA is currently home to NSF-LTER6, the sixth iteration of the National Science Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research project in the Pacific Northwest Cascades.
My understanding? "Here's a forest, cut down the trees, plant some more, clear the rivers, put wood in, test the soil, watch wood rot, count those bugs, do science, enjoy."
So what am I doing here? I'm a computer science major!
Apparently the Ecological Science world has been undergoing some technological upgrades over the past few years. I'll be working with shooting laser beams at trees from airplanes and studying forest fires.
Apparently the Ecological Science world has been undergoing some technological upgrades over the past few years. I'll be working with shooting laser beams at trees from airplanes and studying forest fires.
Ok, only sort of.
LIDAR is a airplane mounted laser imaging device which maps the heights everything it hits in its 15cm resolution. So I've got a 3D map of the entire forest floor and canopy from laser beams. What comes of this? Only time will tell... bwahaha
Hopefully a senior thesis topic on imaging and analysis.
Of course, I've been taking lots of pictures. They're currently sitting on my hard drive waiting for me to peruse. I think I'm somewhere in Malaysia about a month ago at the moment. We'll see how quickly I catch up to the present.In the meantime, here's some shots of wood mapping in a river.
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