Modelling of light transmission under

heterogeneous forest canopy

Da SILVA David, BALANDIER Philippe, BOUDON Frédéric,

André MARQUIER, Christophe PRADAL,
Christophe GODIN, SINOQUET Hervé
 Light influence
Transmited irradiance

Understorey microclimate :
Light, temperature,
air humidity, … Flora, wildlife,
regeneration saplings

Soil water, soil Soil biological activity,

temperature humus
FSPM 07 - Napier
 Understorey developement
Maximum 
biodiversity
Relative Biodiversity

Classical
forest flora

Invasion by
 competitives
Regeneration species

Bare soil

0 10 20 30 40 50
Transmittance (%)

Larch stands, France and Belgium

FSPM 07 - Napier [Balandier et al., Forestry, 2006]
 Objectives
• Determine a minimal set of simple
measurements to obtain satisfactory light
transmission classes
 Basal area
 Height
 Closest neighbour distance
• General model
 Coarse or detailed parametrization
 Mono or multi-scale
• Output : light transmission classes
FSPM 07 - Napier
 Method

• Model developement
• Starting from detailed description of stand at
tree scale
• Sensitivity analysis
 spatial distribution, clustering
 size of tree crown
 shape and orientation of tree crown
• Simplify the measures requirement

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Light interception model
• Porous envelope based
• Fraction of light intercepted is related to the
crown projection area and its envelope
projection area in the direction

= x 0.93
FSPM 07 - Napier
 Light interception model
• Crown discretization using regularly spaced beams
• Beam opacity evaluation according to components
distribution hypothesis
Known positions

Uniform distribution

FSPM 07 - Napier
[Sinoquet et al., 2005]
 Experimental unit
Light measurements :
• PAR sensors
Buffer zone, no light measurement
• Hemispherical photos

Interest zone
Dendrometric measures :
64 PAR • X, Y positions
sensor grid
Tree height • Total height
• Base crown height
Tree height • DBH (diameter at breast height)
• 4 to 8 crown radii

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Light measurements
Grid of PAR Sensor

[Chaboche K., 2006]

Full light reference

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Crowns opacity
Thresholding and pixel count
using PiafPhotem
[UMR Piaf, INRA, Clermont-Ferrand]

Tree opacity = 93,5%

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Crown reconstruction using
Skinned Surfaces
Constructed from different profiles

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Stand reconstruction

Fitting the hulls 3D tree reconstruction using

to measured radii height informations
FSPM 07 - Napier
 Computing direct & diffuse
incident light
• Direct light depending
on latitude, longitude,
julian day, time step,
start and stop hour
• Diffuse light simulated
by 46 directions of
Turtle Sky [Den Dulk 89]

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Simulation steps

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Simulation steps

Weighted merging according to elevation

FSPM 07 - Napier [Campbell G.S. and Norman J.M., 1998]
 Combining direct and diffuse

Image are merged using PDIF ratio

(diffuse PPFD / diffuse+direct PPFD)

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Extracting interest zone information
Simulation
Tree opacity = 93.5%
Mean : 48.972
Std : 8.071

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Calibration
Simulation
Tree opacity = 93.5%

• Ongoing work Mean : 48.972

Std : 8.071
• First results for one stand

Measures

Mean : 38.081
• Unsuficient edge Std : 9.455

• Unique opacity

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Stand replication
Simulation
Tree opacity = 93.5%
Mean : 42.68
Std : 12.08

Measures

Mean : 38.081
Std : 9.455

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Calibration options
• Duplicates positioning and/or introducing
randomness
• Use of porous wall as calibrating device
• LAD determination to take beam travel
distance in crown into account
• Usage of the multi-scale possibilities of the
model

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Multi-scale light interception model

Known positions

Uniform distribution

FSPM 07 - Napier
[Sinoquet et al., 2005]
 Perspectives
(after calibration…)

• Stand type caracterization [Marie-Ange NgoBieng, 2007]

• Simulation of n stands
• Variability caracterization
• Sensitivity analysis
 Spatial distribution
 Crown shape
 Intra and inter-tree clustering
• Determination of descriptors of main interest

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Acknowledgment
Virtual Plants team UMR Piaf

• CHAUBERT Florence • DONES Nicolas

• CHOPARD Jérôme
• STOMA Szymon

ANR Project ECOGER

“Bases of mixed stands sustainable management of mixed stands:
ecophysiology, growth and demogenetics of constitutive species.”
Collaboration between INRA, the French National forestry commission and CEMAGREF

FSPM 07 - Napier
 Existing models
• Simple : [Monsi & Saeki,1953 ; Ross, 1981]
– Output = mean an std
• Layers : [Kimes & Smith, 1980 ; Hanan 2001 ]
– Not adapted for heterogeneous stands
• 3D cells : [Kimes & Kirchner, 1982 ; Sinoquet et al., 2005]
– Difficulty to characterize canopy cells in the field
• Tree crown : [Cescatti, 1997 ; Brunner, 1998 ; Canham et al., 1999]
– Different level of shape complexity
– High and fixed requirement

FSPM 07 - Napier