Counting "Toothpicks" with Windows Mobile

Editor's Note: Jim Moore consults for TDS, whose products are described in this article.

Counting toothpicks

Imagine you've just dropped the world's biggest box of wooden toothpicks. Now your job is to count them all. This is a very big box; we're talking about millions of toothpicks. How would you count them? You could measure off a small section of them, count those, and then extrapolate the result to the entire group. This is a rough parallel to the way the forest industry works to estimate its inventory. Thanks to a forward-thinking partnership between forestry experts and technology developers (and Windows Mobile), the ability to get an efficient and accurate count on virtually any forest plot has markedly progressed in just the past few years.

Getting an accurate inventory of a forest plot has never been easy. For decades, hardy men called "cruisers" have tromped through the woods and used their specialized skills to deliver species and tree counts. For most of that time, they used hand-sketched maps or grid paper over aerial photos, plotting forests and then doing the hard work on the ground, using a string box to pace off distances on the ground based on a 2x5 grid system. Using a compass to help get their bearings, they would step off straight-line distances between plots.

A "cruiser" wanders through a forest, gathering the information needed to estimate the amount and type of timber and timber products that the forest contains.

This approach has two major obstacles. One is that the cruiser has to walk straight no matter what the terrain or vegetation is like. The other is that it's nearly impossible to walk off distances in a forest with complete accuracy. And over a large tract, any inaccuracy is magnified. If a cruiser is off by just five feet on the first plot, that throws off the second plot, and so on. The cumulative error over the tract can be significant. Volume is the key to value, and precision affects volume.

Of course, the industry has attempted to use technology to improve this process. The introduction of handheld computers seemed like a good step in field computations. But over time, handheld users have grown frustrated by the limitations of both cumbersome DOS-based software and of handhelds that don't hold up well in the rugged conditions in the woods. And early attempts to use GPS have proved troublesome.

But technology develops rapidly today. All it took for a quantum leap in forest inventorying capabilities was a fortuitous piece of timing and two partners with complementary knowledge.

Applying mobile technology to the problem

LandMark Systems is a natural resource-based corporation located in the Southeast. With deep experience in the forestry industry and a strong interest in technology, they began working several years ago to develop a better solution for accurate inventorying. As part of their research efforts they came across a Northwest-based company called Tripod Data Systems (TDS), which had developed highly successful software and hardware solutions for in-the-field markets such as land surveying. TDS was interested in the forestry market, and LandMark was interested in TDS products. They decided to get together and use the resulting synergy to create solutions.

"It was a natural partnerships," says Brian Holley of LandMark. "We had limited technology experience, and TDS had limited forest industry experience. It was a perfect pairing, and we came together to develop RTI."

Real-Time Inventory (RTI) is a system that combines a rugged handheld computer, a customized version of TDS's SOLO Field software, a forestry-software program called TCruise, and cutting-edge GPS capabilities—to deliver a highly advanced data collection and mapping solution in one physically compact package.

The Real-Time Inventory system runs on a rugged Windows Mobile device, and gives cruisers the ability to survey forests easier, faster, and more accurately.

"While SOLO Field was originally designed for use in the general Geographic Information System (GIS) markets, we were able to adapt it specifically for forestry applications," says Matthew Lehman, Natural Resources Sales Manager for TDS. "LandMark helped us customize our software for forestry using their industry-specific knowledge."

For LandMark, the big attraction of SOLO Field was that it's Windows Mobile-based.

"We had been using DOS-based systems in the field. We knew that Windows Mobile could deliver better performance, and would be easier to use. When we saw SOLO Field, we immediately saw its capabilities for forestry," says Holley.

Rugged devices a necessity

And better yet, TDS also manufactures extremely rugged Windows Mobile computers. The Ranger and Recon handhelds are tough enough to meet stringent military ruggedness standards, and have the ability to include GPS and other functions. So LandMark and TDS together developed RTI as an all-in-one solution for forest management: a rugged handheld equipped with customized software and GPS. In January 2004, LandMark received a conceptual patent for a field inventory system with mapping and GIS.

Temple-Inland, a Fortune 500 company based in the southern U.S. that manages approximately 2 million acres of forests, is one of the key LandMark clients using RTI.

"Some of our folks had just completed the conversion to a new forest management system," says Travis Hudspeth of Temple-Inland. "We've known Brian Holley for a while, and he came across our database project as he was working on a better program for real-time inventory control."

As LandMark developed the new system, Temple-Inland was able to see the benefits firsthand.

"Using RTI with its GPS functionality, now you can start from any point and go to any point," says Holley. "You don't have to find a corner or other specified starting point. You can generate your grid from any spot, even in your truck."

"Now even a guy who's unfamiliar with the land itself can find the tract with precision," adds Hudspeth. "No more straight-line tracking; this unit lets you go around obstacles and still get to the right spot. If a cruiser doesn't know exactly where he is, if he's within a mile of his desired location he can turn on his unit and quickly navigate to the intended location."

Using the data for more things

But even more important, according to Hudspeth, is what users can do with the data that's already been gathered.

"When we're keeping up with two million acres, things change quickly. Stand boundaries change as we split or merge them within our forest management system. Inventory has historically been on a summary level; if you have 300 acres, you know that it averages 20 cords per acre of pine pulpwood and 7 cords per acre of pine saw logs, for example. If you need to split off 100 acres, in the past you just applied the overall per-acre averages to that new portion. But with RTI we can recalculate based on just the data for the 10 plots within that 100 acres—and we don't have to send anyone back into the field to do it. It brings forest inventory management to a new level."

A positive outcome

The results have been impressive. Based on client feedback, Holley estimates an increase of 7 to 30 percent in data-gathering efficiency. With improved navigation and the ability to cover ground in ways other than using a traditional straight-line grid, an experienced timber cruiser can cover more plots in a workday. The use of GPS delivers precise acres, eliminating a cruiser's dependence on good pacing through dense understory or across rough terrain. In an extreme example, one client re-cruised a tract using a SOLO field unit and found errors in the original measurements that resulted in an increase of $80,000 in the value of that tract alone.

"They paid for their new system ten times over in one day," says Holley. And the system is user-friendly—a big bonus in an industry where many workers started out their careers using more primitive technology. Hudspeth sums up the significance of the marriage of rugged handheld computers, customized software and GPS functionality; "We knew what we wanted; we were just waiting for the technology. This is one case where technology caught up to the needs of our industry."