WARNING - Thermal Imaging Cameras| Infrared for Tree Assessment

Eric Frei

Read this article and then did some surfing.

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Cameras used to find danger trees

Found a UK located tree specific site for this technology (Nottingham Trent University - trees-project).

Thermal Imaging

Have uploaded 2 sample PDF reports using the imaging technology, looks very impressive.

I have also sent them an email lets see if they respond.

Attached Files

	thermal-imagining-infrared-tree1.pdf (660.4 KB, 797 views)
	thermal-imagining-infrared-tree2.pdf (1.29 MB, 523 views)

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Sean Freeman

for posting this Eric.

It is a very interesting bit of kit, and I do enjoy re-examining VTA using other (non-invasive) means.

There are a number of companies developing this technology in the UK...and there are even some companies making the first steps in offering the use of these cameras over here.

An important caveat to apply to all this is that just like any other tech device it is how and by whom the digital results are being interpreted that matters.

Within the reports you posted up most of the conclusions would (hopefully) mirror what any good Arborist with experience in applying VTA principles would give.

The exception perhaps is in the example of a soft rot extending throughout the root crown....here the device does seem able to detect enormous discrepancies in heat that possibly give you to glimpse something of what is going on inside the tree that may not be evident from the external body language.

I do however dispair when things like this get written...

Also the idea that there is anywhere near enough understanding of the material properties of living wood to support the broad claims made in the section describing the thermal imaging survey is a bit daft....a good sales pitch perhaps but not much more than that.

Eric Frei

I just thought of a potential anomaly.

If indeed it's getting the heat readings from flow in the vascular system, then it could be interesting to see what healthy (not decayed) heartwood would read or be interpreted as.

I wonder, what would say a railway sleeper or big old solid dead tree read like?

The anomaly is that cool areas might be envisaged as weak areas when in fact like many of our eucalypts the wood could be quite strong and sound from a failure perspective... just wondering. Might be that cool areas need core or drilling to determine if sound or not.

Cost a bomb those camera's and with that style of technology I wonder what the shelf life is like before it's out dated by something better. The concept of getting the thermal images interpreted is good, double checking, but I cannot see why some-one couldn't just purchase the camera and proceed on their own without the need to feed an income stream back to Mother England or anyone else for that matter.

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Jeff Darby

New technology will have it's teething stage untill the interperatation stage is defined and understood.
This will probably be inline with a teaching organistion,on call to a suspect tree which has been slated for removal. Once the tree has been dis- mantled and disected to prove physicaly that their interperatation was correct, hopefully this will be another tool we can use to make good calls.
JayD

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Member: Australian Tree Association

Join the Australian Tree Association...Have your voice heard !

Arboriculture, A life long study for some, a passing phase for others

© Jeffrey J Darby 2011

Marcus The Thermal Imager

Hi Just a quick response to put you all in the picture of where we are with this technology. It has been in existance for 6 years. We developed the first commercial product about 4 years ago and have used it in a full commercial environemnt for three years now. In that time we have had around 500 clients. I don't know the exact number now because we license the technology to 30 companies in UK, Ireland, France and most recently the US. The initial product was developed from 20,000 trees and we have now used it on a further 15,000 trees and this data base is growing all the time. It has an excellent track record in that we have had no unpredicted tree failures in the last 4 years and we have reduced fellings on sites by around 60%. Most organisations that we work with are now moving away from tree risk assessments and instead are doing tree health assessments, in the realisation that this is what the technology can tell them and that this is ultimately the important point, i.e. a healthy tree is less likely to fail that an unhealthy one.

Happy to answer any questions

Regards

Marcus Bellett-Travers

Marcus The Thermal Imager

Just thought I would respond directly to some of the comments in peoples postings. Regarding the reports on the internet, these are relatively old now and we have dramatically revised our advice following thermal images and it is unlikley we would give an advisory of removing over weighted branches but there are circumstances where overweighting will lead to such reductions that the branches would be 'removed' to all intents and purposes (the comments are taken a little out of context/poor use of English). Regarding VTA and dead but not decayed wood. The thermal properties of dead wood are different to those of decayed wood so this is moderately straight forward. We use VTA with the thermal imaging because, VTA tells you about some of the structure, thermal imaging tells you about the conectivity in the structure but also how healthy the structure is. Often a tree will go nto decline only to reinvent itself as a new tree with a different structure, but there are also trees that go into decline never to recover. This is all down to the physiological status and what causes the decline. This cannot be determined through VTA but thermal imaging allow this kind of assessment. Remember IT IS ONLY A TOOL, just as a doctor will have x-rays and scans performed to understand things more clearly, so arborists are turning to thermal imaging in the UK to determine why something is happening not just what is happening. This allows prognosis not just daignosis. Regarding funding Mother England, the technology is licensed so anyone, anywhere can receive training and ultimately use the technology independently. Howvere the analysis of the images is complex and proper training is essential. Also you can rent the cameras so purchase is not necessary.

Marcus The Thermal Imager

One last point regarding the thermal properties of wood. There is a great deal of information out there but you need to know where to look the Canadians and Americans have been interested in this kind of thing for about 40 years. Some is to do with the insulating properties of wood, other bits are related to the spread of forest fires. Both subjects require an indepth understanding of the thermal properties of wood. When it comes down to it the conductive properties are relatively straight forward you have the wood fibre and associated cell water that have relatively similar conductivities (when the wood fibre is 'intact') and then you have air and water vapour that have a conductivity of about a 20th of that of the water and intact wood fibre.

Because heat is a physical principle it follows some fundamantal rules so once you have done the donkey work (about four years of solid work) and found out how the system works then the rest is just maths. Heat is very straight forward; you have areas of high heat energy and areas of low heat energy. It flows from high to low unless you 'work' on the system.

Sean Freeman

Its good of you to take the time to post a response Marcus, thankyou.

You comments about where you are going with the thermal imagery mirrors conversations I have had with others who have been working with this technology...ie it is giving you some idea of how healthy a tree might be at a certain point within its structure at the time of the assessment.

Fair point about the age of the reporting, I would hate to be faced with one of mine from 2 years ago let alone any older! Overweighting is simply not a term I would use...incipient decay or declining vitality at the point of branch union, when identified is always a concern...I would generally consider the threat to structural integrity to be greater from the stress of potential wind loading or additional accumulated rain during weather events than the specific mass of the branch and canopy.

Well aware that it is somewhat a chicken or egg scenario....I suppose my concern stems (sorry!) from the possible misinterpretation of the term 'overweighting' to lead to the removal of excessive photosythetic capacity on limbs and branches that are ill positioned to cope with additional stresses and energy drains.

I do actually like mulling over the images and reading the interpretation being given.

Eric Frei

Marcus, thank you for joining in.

If the connective tissues and union is reasonably sound then an "overweighted" branch can also be cabled, braced or propped.

Marcus, it certainly sounds great and with the volume of experience to refer to it takes the guess work out of it.

Do you have anything running in Australia yet? If not I'm putting my hand up to get involved, I think out of all the technology I have seen this one is a real winner. I have for some time been speculating about a system where vascular flow is seen like a barium meal xray of a heart attack patient ... it would make root mapping easy identifying the vigorous functional from the not so vital (but this is just my imagination) ... however here you have system that is capable of similar results to the root crown.

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Marcus The Thermal Imager

Some seminars and courses are being organised in Sydney at the end of August this year I think details are available by e-mailing

tptraining@hotmail.co.uk

Regards

Marcus

Therrin

Hey! New stuff! Looks pretty niffty.

I'm glad he mentioned rental. I was looking into thermal imaging cameras a couple years ago for other purposes, and for the most part found them to fall in the range of $8K to $15K for any kind of a decent product.

Does that hold true with the devices used for inspection of trees using thermal imaging or have there been either advances in technology since then, or possibly a lower level of sophistication/quality which is acceptable?

Otherwise it seems to limit actual purchase and use to very well established companies, and even at that, seems to be something which would take some time to recoop benefits from.

Any idea what rental rates are like as opposed to purchase?

Is the output via digital media such as SD cards or physical memory downloadable through a USB interface?

Therrin

To add to my previous post. I've just done some more up-to-date research.

The company FLIR (also widely known also as the acronym for "forward looking infrared") has camera's out in the $3K to $8K range, though also selling lenses for those same cameras which cost almost just as much at $3.5K to $4.5K as the actual individual cameras.

What kind of camera specs are we specifically talking about as the most efficient/usefull for tree inspection?

The $3K camera has auto-focus, +/- 2% accuracy @ 0.1°C sensitivity, stores 1000 jpeg images at 80x80 pixels using SD cards.

Whereas the $8k model boasts auto-focus, +/- 2% accuracy @ 0.1°C sensitivity, stores 1000 "radiometric" jpeg images, a larger lcd screen, a temperature range of between -20ºC to +120ºC, and has hot and cold color, dewpoint and insulation alarms, as well as a few other niffty features.

So what're we talking here? What're the specs for a "base model" for arborist application? What is needed specifically for our field, what isn't required (what's fluff)?

Marcus The Thermal Imager

The entry level camera is the B60 don't know what the price is in $AUS but it is around £6K the most appropriate camera is the B360 which retails at about £13K over here. There are other makes available though

Regards

Marcus

I will enquire about hire cost we use Ashtead Technology who ship out of Singapour for Pacifc Rim Countries

trees3111

Thanks for the detailed info Marcus. What is your response about the use in scanning and mapping roots? I own GPR and purchased it because I wanted to scan both stems and roots so it was my only option, or so I thought. I do like the fact that the camera would be much faster, seemingly; however, can you get any idea of the thickness of sound wood for use in strength loss calculations? Do you have any pics of predicted vs. observed of stems removed?

Marcus The Thermal Imager

If you go to the web site Home there is some before and after stuff there but I will try to post some stuff as well. We can look at roots to an extent but it is a radial presence and absence basis in effect. On above ground parts we can measure cross sectional functional wood.

Regards

Marcus

Marcus The Thermal Imager

see this

Attached Files

Thermal Imaging of Trees.pdf (1.18 MB, 1259 views)

Eric Frei

Fantastic document with clear results.

Highly accurate, fast to use.

Now there's one area I feel I'd like to see touched on or talked about.

Hollow trees still functional. Often trees are felled because they have a hollow centre or a basal opening but are still quite healthy and functional however people get concerned about stability. I'm wondering how that looks with TTMS?

From: how much rot| decay| hollow is acceptable?

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Therrin

I get the feeling that they're trying to push only specific cameras for that company, instead of opening up the required specs so the industry can use any thermal imaging camera which would do and equally fine job.

Marcus The Thermal Imager

I guess it does look a bit like that but these are just bench marks of what is required and we would support any camera as long as it can do the job. The basic entry level is a 100 mK sensor and proabaly 180x120 sensor pixel density. Howevere there are limitations of use with some cameras at this spec and what we would recommend would be a 80 mK sensor and preferably either a 320x240 sensor pixel density or 180x120 with telephoto. You can use the 180x180 on the B60 fro most work but for large/high canopies you would need to go to the 320x240 and maybe even to the 640x480 of the FLIR P series or similar again depending on whether you have telephoto or not. We use Ashtead because they provide very good service, good prices and are jolly nice people to work with.

trees3111

Very interesting and well written. Still curious how one could use this data to estimate thickness of sound wood for strength loss calc's. It seems that the only way would be to take the color palette and use it as a road map to drill. However, this defeats the point of a non-invasive eval. One could easily use the visual indicators on the trees in the pics as drill sites if drilling is going to need to be done anyway. So functionality of wood is the main thing you are after with this equipment and it is an awesome tool but to use it for Tree Risk Eval's where one would be rating risk of failure one would still have to leave the strength loss calc's blank on the report to the client unless the drill (Resisto) is brought out. Selling such a service to clients with low tolerances of risk is easier to do when we can say non-invasive. I love the equipment..just wish the clients outside of the halls of academia where willing to pay for it.

How many times do you need to visit the same tree to calibrate? I assume a few times during different environmental conditions prior to your final scan.

Thanks for your insight and hard work put into advancing non-invasive evaluations!

Marcus The Thermal Imager

OK I will try to answer some of this but realy you would need to come to one of my seminars to realy understand since it takes 45 mins to 1hr to explain some of these things.

You only need to visit the tree once to calibrate but you need some other environmental data to calibrate. This is simple to collect and takes about a 30 seconds for each tree. Regarding evaluation of sound wood etc we work to various carefully defined thresholds, so if you feel the need to measure structural wood etc it is only done whe absolutely necessary, i.e. you are looking at having the tree felled anyway.

However, what we have found is that 'tree health' is a much more reliable estimate of longevity than structural calculations. Mainly because trees are very good at self optimisation. This has all sorts of consequences and is a very complex subject. By measuring functional wood you get a sence of how responsive trees are to change, those that are not responsive due to small amounts of functional wood are at some point in the future highly likely to be subject to some kind of gross morphological change in response to a stress, at this point many trees will go into sudden decline. An invasive study is neither here nor there because you will do no more damage to the tree than is already present. You are to all intents and purposes dealing with something that will be standing dead wood. THIS IS A SIMPLIFIED CASE AND THERE ARE MANY SHADES OF GREY. The trick is to develop a scale to deal with the grey. This is what we used the 35,000 trees for, it is far more reliable and effective than any other methodology currently available. It literaly saves trees and reduces unecessary work, but best still it allows a much more reliable methodology for planning work schedules because you get a sence of what is just around the corner and what must be done longer term. Councils like this because it fits in with the way they plan thier budgets and makes thier cost estimates more accurate.

Marcus The Thermal Imager

Just one more quick point. and this is where the light bulbs start to go on in peoples heads. Ultimately why does a tree or part of tree fail. Answer, the structure of the tree changes to such an extent or at such a rate that the tree cannot mitigate the change through growth such that under gravity or under a wind load acting with gravity casuses the tree or part of the tree to fail. So the failure can be looked up as a function of change in the wood properties and tree growth. The wood properties are controlled by the physiological status of the tree, this includes, drying, wetting, delamination, etc. The growth is controlled by the physiological status of the tree. So if you have a methodology that gives you insight into this then you have the whole picture. The organisms that remove wood do little to upset the structure of the tree unless they also compromise the physiological status. Now this can be done in many, many ways and is an involved process, but it is the physiology of the tree that is key. Also do not fall intio the trap of thinking that a tree with lots of leaves is somehow automatically healthy. You can have very stressed trees with lots of leaves but like I said it takes quite some time to explain.

Regards

Marcus

Therrin

Hey Marcus thanks for answering my question about the cameras.

Marcus The Thermal Imager

See 'Crewkerne Oak Saved' in announcements. Hopefully going to be at ISA conference in Providence

Regards

Marcus

Sean Freeman

Andrew looking sharp..BBC NEWS | UK | England | Cameras used to find danger trees

Thermal Revolutionary

Well hallo all....

The viral nature of the internet is quite incredible these days and as the subject of this particular virus I thought I should add my peneth to the discussion.

I started following the use of thermal imaging technology when I was first introduced to it by Giorgio Catina in 2001 and I followed its development closely, more recently getting involved with the commercial launch of the software processing package developed by Marcus Bellett-Travers of Trees Project Ltd.

I established a new company in 2007 ThermoEcology Ltd (Untitled Document) to focus the marketing of a service specialising in the use of thermal imaging technology to look at tree physiology and undertake wildlife surveys.

Attached Files

	AndrewCowanCareerProfile.pdf (1.36 MB, 185 views)
	ThermoAd email.pdf (218.1 KB, 204 views)

treelinx

G'day
Can anyone let me know if they have heard any more about the 'thermal imaging workshop' scheduled for Sydney in August?
I have sent inquiries, but as yet have not had a reply.
Regards

Eric Frei

I suppose we'll find out here, many of us want to see where and how much.

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Marcus The Thermal Imager

Apologoies

I thought I had addressed this, we have had to pospone until later in the year due to interest in the US will keep you all posted

Marcus

K Steuperaert

Hello everybody,

I just want to warn you on the commercial aspect of Tree project and Dc Marcus Bellett Travers. He owns a lot of money to people in europe (like us to whom he owns 21 000 £!) and he is now trying to expend to other countries. If you are interested in working with him, do not pay anything in advance! Be very carrefull even if he tries to convice you. I just hope to stop him robbing people like he did with us.