Virtual reality a game changer
Learning how to select trees during thinning operations is the difference between a valuable crop or a poorly formed one.
Last year Rayonier Matariki Forests built its own virtual reality (VR) process for educating its contractors’ entry-level thinning operators about the features of a tree. The programme has been shared with contractors around the country with great success.
Now Rayonier Matariki will be one of the early adopters of Scion’s recently developed, interactive, 3D VR training tool to provide supplementary worker training.
Trainees who put on the virtual reality headset find themselves in the middle of a computer-generated model reflecting a realistic production pine forest in New Zealand. Rayonier Matariki plans to customise the prototype to reflect the features of its own forests.
Fraser Field, Rayonier-Matariki Forests Quality Manager, who is part of the development testing team, says while their original VR tool has been extremely well received and highly effective in familiarising new forestry workers with the features of a tree, Scion’s new tool is next level.
“We will be able to build a virtual forest with sizes, features, and characteristics specific to our own conditions. We will modify and improve our training practices now to incorporate Scion’s VR, including training for NZQA unit standards,” says Fraser.
The programme will be used to train forestry workers on the selection process for tree thinning.
“Deciding which tree will be a crop tree and which is a cull tree is a specialised function crucial to growing a good crop. You can add or subtract a lot of value,” explains Fraser.
Using the tool also makes training logistically easier given travel is not needed, and mistakes made in virtual reality aren’t reflected in real forestry blocks. A trainer watching on screen can guide the trainee.
The tool will help trainees understand complexities without the pressure of a forest environment and assist with understanding the economic value in forests.
Options for the tool are limitless. ‘Levels’ can be created to make choosing which tree to treat as a crop tree easier or harder. Variables can be changed to adjust stocking rate, planting versus regeneration and age. There are decades of tree bioinformatics available to draw on and more than 70 potential variables. The current focus is on variables that impact log quality and forest value such as dominance, sweep, branching and broken tops.
Other forestry tasks that would benefit from this training are pruning, establishment tasks, surveillance and monitoring, harvesting and processing.
“This is a game changer,” says Fraser. “The guys will be able to go into the forest for the first time having had some basic training in the process of selecting. The focus has been on the process of felling the tree but now we can also train around the process of selecting the tree.”
Scion developed the tool as part of the Virtual Thinning project funded by Forest Growers Research’s Precision Silviculture Programme.
In addition to bringing on board the Scion tool, Rayonier Matariki will be extending the application of their own VR programme to building a track and planting.
“There are endless possibilities with this technology,” concludes Fraser.