National Tree Map?

[benedmonds]

Has anyone used the National Tree Map for Surveys?

Looks really useful, and not overly expensive? I was quoted about £20 for a 500x400m area plus another £20 for the satellite imagery.

 

What software do you use? Is there free/affordable versions a luddite can work?

Is there a simple way of getting the data onto an excel spreadsheet so you can add to it?

 

http://www.emapsite.com/downloads/product_guides/NTM-Specification.pdf'>http://www.emapsite.com/downloads/product_guides/NTM-Specification.pdf

 

Can be purchased from:

 

https://www.blueskymapshop.com

http://www.emapsite.com

[sloth]

The ntm looks interesting. I wonder how accurate it is, and how useful it would be in practice. ..

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Arbtalk mobile app

[Paul Barton]

I used it for a survey at a private school last year. To be honest I regretted it as the tree information (location, height and crown diameter) was highly variable. It commonly plotted far more trees than were present, I think because it took multiple top points from broad crowned trees.

[Andrew McEwan]

I use it a lot for both arb and forestry surveys, but have gis software to manipulate it prior to use on site. If you notice anomalies bluesky are good at re-processing for you.

[rck]

Ben, I had a look at some of their samples and spoke to BlueSky customer service.

 

From their online shop, you can only buy GIS files. I have spoken to them, and you can request the file to be in the dxf CAD format, you can also request a csv file of the tree parameters. These both come at extra cost and only via a purchase over the telephone.

 

One of the dxf files you can buy shows an idealised, circular (polyline), canopy spread for each tree, with a block attribute showing tree height. The trouble is, although the height object is overlaid on top of the canopy object, there is no other association between them, i.e. they are not blocked together, so it would be complicated to extract, and list, the location and height properties of each tree (for example to put in a spreadsheet). It could be done, but would require programming expertise.

 

One use of the map, in dxf form, could be to print on paper, or take out to site on a tablet, and label each tree during the survey, ready to use as a location map for a TCP. This would remove the necessity of having a topo. with trees already on, or having to capture the tree locations from GPS instruments.

 

The tree maps don't come with any other land features though, so they would eventually have to be used in conjunction with a site topo. or OS tile. Would be interesting to see how they scale to an OS tile of the same area.

 

Has anyone used the National Tree Map for Surveys?

Looks really useful, and not overly expensive? I was quoted about £20 for a 500x400m area plus another £20 for the satellite imagery.

 

What software do you use? Is there free/affordable versions a luddite can work?

Is there a simple way of getting the data onto an excel spreadsheet so you can add to it?

 

http://www.emapsite.com/downloads/product_guides/NTM-Specification.pdf'>http://www.emapsite.com/downloads/product_guides/NTM-Specification.pdf

 

Can be purchased from:

 

https://www.blueskymapshop.com

http://www.emapsite.com

[benedmonds]

Having purchased and used on a site today I wouldn't bother again. It's not accurate enough, misses trees, adds extra trees. It might work OK for nicely spaced street trees but no good for clusters. Seeing as you can't just download a spreadsheet with the data it's not much help..

 

Having a high definition aerial map is good, so how/what do I need to get

that on my tablet plotting with the GPS and allowing me to mark the trees?

[sloth]

I think there are apps that can do it in a google earth format. Not sure where you'd go from there though. I use pt mapper, where you can overlay to google earth on a computer (or with a tablet on the fly maybe?), or you could download the image as a scaled raster map to a handheld gps device - I tried it once but an os map/topo is so much easier to read on site...

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Arbtalk mobile app