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Järvselja Birch Stand (Winter): HET15_JBS_WIN

This page provides descriptions of the architectural, spectral and illumination related properties of a 49 year old Betula pendula stand located near 58° 16′ 38.67″ N 27° 20′ 30.38″ E. The stand was inventoried in summer 2007 by Andres Kuusk, Joel Kuusk, Mait Lang, Tõnu Lükk, Matti Mõttus, Tiit Nilson, Miina Rautiainen, and Alo Eenmäe of the Tartu Observatory, in Tõravere, Estonia as well as the Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia. Potential RAMI participants thus are to treat the information presented on this page as actual 'inventory data', that is, they should identify/extract those parameters and characteristics that are required as input to their canopy reflectance models. In some cases this may mean that simplifications have to be made to the available information, or, that parts of the available information can not be exploited with a given radiative transfer model. Whatever the case may be, all potential RAMI participants should mimic the standard practices that they use when matching actual field measurements to the required set(s) of input parameters of their model(s). If this means that you need more information than provided, please do not hesitate in contacting us. Last but not least, for those 3D models capable of maintaining architectural fidelity down to the individual shoot and branch level a series of ASCII (text) files containing the Cartesian coordinates of various geometric primitives (triangles, spheres and cylinders) and their transformations will be given. This should facilitate the reconstruction of the birch canopy architecture as it is described on this page.

In order to facilitate the generation of the Järvselja birch stand (Winter) the information on this page has been subdivided into four different categories. For each one of these categories the relevant descriptions will be contained within a uniquely coloured text frame and can be accessed by clicking on one of the four links below:

In case of difficulties or missing data on this page please do not hesitate in contacting us so that the problems may be resolved as fast as possible.

Architectural information 

1) General canopy characteristics The Järvselja birch forest inventory was carried out over a 100×100 m² area placing the origin of the coordinate system at its south-western end. In order to include also the tree crowns of the inventoried tree locations within the RAMI birch Stand representation it was necessary to expand the scene area slightly beyond one hectare. Maintaining the origin of the tree location coordinate system thus resulted in some negative x,y values in the table below. Overall architectural characteristics of the scene are thus as follows: Scene dimensions: (ΔX × ΔY × ΔZ) 105.5115 × 106.1535 × 30.5130 [m × m × m] (Xmin, Ymin, Zmin) −2.6507, −2.9759, 0.0 [m, m, m] (Xmax, Ymax, Zmax) 102.8608, 103.1776, 30.5130 [m, m, m] Number of trees in scene 1029 (465 BEPE, 205 TICO, 196 ALGL, POTR 78, PIAB 39, FREX 30, ACPL 16) Leaf Area Index of scene* 0.0346 Fractional scene coverage** 0.2510 *The LAI of the pine trees is computed using half the total area of the needles in a shoot. **The fractional cover is defined as 1 - direct transmission at zero solar zenith angle. 2) Foliage structure The table below provides the structural characteristics of the Norway spruce shoots that are part of the RAMI Järvselja winter birch-stand scene. RT models capable of representing the detailed architecture of individual foliage elements may want to use the information provided in the ASCII (text) files accessible from the last row in each table below. Tree species: Picea abies foliage shape: Max. foliage length o 14.2 cm Max. radial extent of foliage+ 3.56 cm one-sided foliage areax 83.2 cm² twig length 3 - 6 cm# twig diameter 0.3 cm structural description file (ASCII) file o The foliage length is measured from the bottom of the twig to the tip of the upper needles, i.e., it is the maximum vertical distance on the image displayed in the first row of this table + The maximum radial foliage extension is defined as the maximum distance from the axis connecting the bottom of the twig to the tip of the elementary foliage unit, i.e., along the vertical in the pictures displayed in the first row of this table). x In the case of the Picea Abies shoots this one-sided foliage area value is half the total needle surface area (i.e., the value obtained when summing up the silhouette areas of all individual needles in the shoot). Here needles are assumed to be elongated spheres. If individual needles are represented as cylinders (with discs as endcaps) then the total needle area of the shoot will be different and the number of shoots per pine tree should be adjusted accordingly. # A detailed description of the structural characteristics of the Picea abies shoot structure can be found in the header of the structural description file accessible via the link at the bottom of this table column. 3) Tree structure The Järvselja Birch forest is generated on the basis of 18 individual tree representations. These are distributed among the following tree species: ACPL=maple (Acer Platenoides), BEPE1-4=birch (Betula Pendula), ALGL1-4=alder (Almus Glutinosa), TICO1-5=linden (Tilio Cordata), POTR1-2=poplar (Populus Tremuloides), PIAB=Norway spruce (Picea Abies), and FREX=ash (Fraxinus Exelsior). Only the Norway spruce trees contain foliage. The two tables below provides an overview of some structural characteristics of these 18 tree representations. NOTE: all footnotes are listed at the end of the second table. For those RT models capable of representing the 3D architecture of a given tree through a series of geometric primitives, the last lines of each table contain links to data files with detailed specifications of the foliage and wood structural properties of the Järvselja Birch forest (Winter) trees. TABLE 1: tree identifier ACPL BEPE1 BEPE2 BEPE3 BEPE4 ALGL1 ALGL2 ALGL3 ALGL4 tree height [m] 15.37 19.86 25.49 27.99 30.51 19.35 22.58 25.76 27.09 crown radiusx mean [m]: maximum [m]: picture 0.87 2.07 picture 0.71 1.94 picture 0.78 2.18 picture 1.09 3.10 picture 1.21 3.52 picture 0.53 1.87 picture 0.81 2.31 picture 1.10 2.71 picture 1.51 3.54 total foliage area of tree [m²] 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 trunk DBH+ [cm] 11.5 11.5 17.5 26.0 31.0 15.0 21.0 28.0 35.0 total wood area of tree [m²] 14.9699 17.9155 37.2472 63.5946 67.1165 34.1871 47.251 50.279 73.082 vertical profile of wood areao [m²] graph data graph data graph data graph data graph data graph data graph data graph data graph data tree shape image wood structure (ASCII file) wood stem branch stem branch stem branch stem branch wood wood wood wood TABLE 2: tree identifier FREX TICO1 TICO2 TICO3 TICO4 TICO5 PIAB POTR1 POTR2 tree height [m] 13.72 5.91 11.27 14.41 18.34 20.70 10.90 25.27 30.49 Foliage normal distribution: zenith angle= NA NA NA NA NA NA graph data NA NA Foliage normal distribution: azimuth angle= NA NA NA NA NA NA graph data NA NA height to live/green crown [m] NA NA NA NA NA NA 1.82 NA NA crown radiusx mean [m]: maximum [m]: picture 0.85 1.99 picture 1.07 2.48 picture 0.66 1.86 picture 0.83 2.27 picture 0.89 2.44 picture 0.96 2.57 picture 0.50 1.60 picture 1.33 2.60 picture 1.18 3.11 vertical profile of crown radius* [m] NA NA NA NA NA NA graph data NA NA half-total foliage area of tree# [m²] 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 9.9413 0.0 0.0 vertical profile of leaf area o [m²] NA NA NA NA NA NA graph data NA NA trunk DBH+ [cm] 9.5 7 9 12 15 17 10.5 17 28.0 total wood area of tree [m²] 11.267 5.8304 8.940 16.522 23.817 41.6288 9.0521 41.3079 103.829 vertical profile of wood areao [m²] graph data graph data graph data graph data graph data graph data graph data graph data graph data tree shape image foliage structure (ASCII file) NA NA NA NA NA NA file NA NA wood structure (ASCII file) wood wood wood wood wood wood wood stem branch stem branch = For shoots the zenith angle of the foliage normal is defined as the angle between the vertical and the normal of the inner twig of the shoot (for a shoot axis aligned along the z-axis the normal was arbitrarily chosen to lie along the y-axis). Rather than spanning the full range of possible zenith angles (i.e., from 0 to 180 degree) as could be expected for non-flat asymmetric objects, it was chosen to follow the convention of foliage normals pointing only into the upper hemisphere. This is because RAMI participants, that make use of this foliage normal distribution information, will in all likelihood have models where scatterers are represented as flat (disc or equilateral triangle shaped) objects. However, should your model require a description of the foliage normal zenith angle distribution up to 180 degrees then please do not hesitate in contacting us and we will provide this information to you. For both the zenith and azimuth angle distributions the 'graph' link shows an image of the normalised foliage normal distribution versus zenith (or azimuth) angle of the foliage normal. The 'data' files for the zenith and azimuth angle distribution have three columns indicating 1) the upper value of the zenith (or azimuth) angle in a given bin, 2) the fraction of foliage area having a normal in this zenith (or azimuth) angle range, and 3) the fraction of wood area having a normal that falls in this zenith (or azimuth) angle range. Bin angle widths were chosen to be 5 degrees and 10 degrees for zenith and azimuth angles, respectively. x The crown radius of actual trees is varying with azimuth angle. This can be seen in the various pictures showing a perspective-free nadir view of a given tree located at x=0,y=0 (concentric circles indicate the distance from the origin in steps of 0.25m). The mean and maximum values were computed from the triangle objects making up the 3D trees depicted in the picture in the the fourth-last row of each table column. * The graphs show the maximum radial distance of foliage elements in a given height interval plotted against the upper height level of that height interval. The data files have five columns: lower-height-of-bin-in-units-of-meters     upper-height-of-bin-in-units-of-meters     minimum_radial-distance_of_foliage-in-units-of-m     maximum_radial-distance_of_foliage-in-units-of-m.     mean_radial-distance_of_foliage-in-units-of-m # This value corresponds to the one-sided leaf area for flat leaves. For Norway spruce trees it corresponds to the sum of the (maximum) silhouettes of all the individual needles in the tree (i.e., half the total needle area per tree). o The data files have 3 columns: lower-height-of-bin-in-units-of-meters     upper-height-of-bin-in-units-of-meters     area-of-wood-or-foliage-in-units-of-m2. + This is the nominal value derived from the inventory data for a tree of this height. The actual value of the tree representations provided in the ASCII files at the bottom of this table might be slightly different. 4) Stand structure The Järvselja Birch forest (winter) is composed of 1120 individual trees. The following two tables indicates how these trees are distributed among the above tree classes and specifies their respective x,y locations of the tree centers of each tree class in the forest stand. The last row of each table contains an ASCII file with tree rotation and translation information for those RT models capable of ingesting the detailed 3D architecture of the tree models specified in the previous section. TABLE 1: tree identifier ACPL BEPE1 BEPE2 BEPE3 BEPE4 ALGL1 ALGL2 ALGL3 ALGL4 tree number per class 16 115 246 92 12 50 97 38 11 x,y coordinates of tree centers [m,m] data data data data data data data data data tree rotations and translation (ASCII file)x data data data data data data data data data TABLE 2: tree identifier FREX TICO1 TICO2 TICO3 TICO4 TICO5 PIAB POTR1 POTR2 tree number per class 30 17 43 63 62 20 39 61 17 x,y coordinates of tree centers [m,m] data data data data data data data data data tree rotations and translation (ASCII file)x data data data data data data data data data x These files contain pseudo code to rotate individual trees around their z axis and translate them from the origin to the x,y locations specified in the data files of the previous row of this table. Positive rotation angles in these files indicate that when looking down from the positive Z axis towards the origin of the coordinate system a counterclockwise rotation will result in moving the positive x axis towards the positive y axis. The angle of rotation is in the 7th column of these data files (starting from the count from 1). Tree species and locations for the Järvselja birch stand (winter). The origin of the coordinate system is in the lower left hand side corner of the image. RAMI participants with 3D RT models capable of representing objects using geometric primitives can download a single compressed ZIP archive with all the tree architectural ASCII information that is listed in the above tables by clicking HERE. Note: The size of the compressed archive is about 22 megabytes. It contains 44 ASCII files and can be unzipped using 'WINZIP' on windows or 'unzip' on linux/unix operating systems. Beware that the inflated archive will take up 184.9 Megabytes of storage.

spectral canopy characteristics 

illumination characteristics 

The illumination conditions for the Järvselja Birch stand (winter) relate to the 1st April at GMT 9:45. More specifically the illumination features both direct and isotropic diffuse components. Direct solar light is characterised by a solar zenith angle (SZA) of 54.0 degree and a solar azimuth angle of 291.3 degree. The table below indicates the ratio of isotropically diffuse to total incident radiation for the nineteen different spectral bands: spectral identifier B01 B02 B03 B04 B05 B06 B07 B08 B09 B10 diffuse/total solar flux ratiox 0.2660 0.1892 0.1568 0.1421 0.1291 0.0931 0.0828 0.0795 0.0767 0.0756   spectral identifier B11 B12 B13 B14 B15 B16 B17 B18 B19 diffuse/total solar flux ratiox 0.0748 0.0713 0.0700 0.0665 0.0555 0.0538 0.0527 0.0446 0.0 x The 'direct/total solar flux ratio' is thus equal to 1 - (diffuse/total solar flux ratio). The figure below shows perspective-free view of the Järvselja birch stand with the Cartesian coordinate system and direction of the incident solar radiation (blue arrow) superimposed. Azimuth angles are counted in an anti-clockwise direction from the positive X-axis towards the positive Y-axis as indicated by the (dotted blue) arc around the origin.

measurement characteristics 

Prior to the performing of any RT model simulations, please refer to the 'definitions' pages for detailed instructions regarding the angular sign conventions for BRF simulations, as well as other RT model technicalities. Also read the relevant file naming and formatting conventions that must be adhered to by all participants. In addition, RAMI-IV offers participants the possibility to test the compliance of their model-generated results files with these file-naming and formatting convention, prior to their submission via ftp: To do so follow the on-line format checker link that appears in the top navigation bar during the active submission period.