Creating virtual forests from public map data

Abstract: Modern tools in the forest management industry lack the features to properly visualizeforests. This study explores the possibilities of recreating real-world forests in a three-dimensional virtual environment to give users the opportunity to remotely view whattheir forest looks like. To keep accessibility high, public map data was used. In this studya proof-of-concept application was developed in Unity using Mapbox’s SDK. Theaccuracy of the virtual world was then evaluated by comparing it to photographs fromthe real world and a point cloud render. Furthermore, performance was evaluated bymeasuring load times and frame rates when the application ran. The results show that itis possible to create a forest that resembles the real one when viewed from afar, butdetails such as individual tree positions and tree species were inaccurate. High-endcomputers with dedicated graphics card ran the application efficiently, while low-endhardware struggled.