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"The Taiwan champion trees - Giant Tree Mapping Project" Prof. Chi-Kuei Wang Found the Tallest Tree in Taiwan and East Asia by
Professor Chi-Kuei Wang of the Department of Surveying and Spatial Information NCKU and Dr. Jia-jun Xu, an alumnus of NCKU and an assistant researcher at the Forestry Research Institute of the Council of Agriculture, jointly planned the "The Taiwan champion trees - Giant Tree Mapping Project". They have been exploring Taiwan's mountains and forests for five years, and have found 941 giant trees through Airborne LiDAR Scanning, which can provide information on a large area of space in a short period of time. They held a presentation at NCKU on December 10 and introduced the principle of finding giant trees and measuring their height through “Tree climbing activity” and “Tree testing experience through Airborne LiDAR” for parents and children, attracting nearly hundred people.
In the morning, Dr. Jia-jun Xu and a professional tree climbing teacher led the public to experience leisure tree climbing activities, and the tree species climbed were also of great origin. For instance, in front of the Department of Surveying and Spatial Information, on the west side of Polytechnic Avenue, there is the largest rain pea tree in the university, which was first introduced in 1903 and used as a shade tree and street tree in the garden. A little boy Xue, who participated in the tree climbing activity, was very excited and said he would come back for the next activity and said he had never climbed such a high tree before, and besides being very exciting, he had never stayed in a tree for such a long time, which was like an adventure.
The afternoon session was opened by Dr. Xu, who shared her interesting experience of "finding the tree" with the audience. She also shared her first-hand videos and photos of the giant trees that she brought back from climbing the trees to measure their height. Dr. Xu said that this year, with the sponsorship of Yuen Foong Yu Consumer Products Co, she also had good results. Last year, she found more than 300 giant trees. She thanked everyone for supporting her and said that finding trees is an interesting and challenging journey for her. This year, she thought that the two trees in the Ta-Kuei Lake were likely to break the record height of 79.1 meters of the Momoyama, but she was hesitant because it took 10 days to travel back and forth to that area. Therefore, she asked the professor to observe the trees through the Airborne LiDAR and they found that it was actually two trees overlaying together. As a result, she decided to look for another target right before she departed. She said that every discovery is a surprise to her, and the Airborne LiDAR makes her working process more smooth.
Professor Ji-Kui Wang said that Taiwan's giant trees have a unique growth area. There are 950 million trees, of which 941 are over 65 meters tall. Five years ago, he and his research partners at the Forestry Laboratory formed "The Taiwan champion trees" team to search for giant trees over 65m tall using Airborne LiDAR technology, but because of Taiwan's steep terrain, simple tree height models have huge errors, making it difficult to apply them to detect giant trees in primary forests. Since 2018, the team has been using the raw data from the Airborne LiDAR point cloud, processing it into a multi-directional image file of the vertical profile of trees, and using the power of the Internet crowd to jointly interpret giant trees over 65 meters across the island. After four years of hard work, they finally identified 941 potential locations of giant trees over 65 meters in height throughout Taiwan.
Prof. Chi-Kuei Wang said that in August 2020, the team used the photodetector data and conducted four field surveys to locate a giant tree of Taiwania cryptomerioides "Taoshan Giant Tree" located in the valley of Shei-Pa National Park, which is 79.1 meters tall, the first time the research team found a giant tree close to 80 meters tall and the tallest tree in Taiwan by physical measurement. The research team carried 30 kg of expensive ground radar and traveled back and forth for 5 days to bring back the precious point cloud images of the giant tree, hoping to further promote the scientific research on giant trees in Taiwan.
In addition, after several years of efforts to discover many giant trees, they have cooperated with the technical director Chang of JSDC (智紳數位文化事業有限公司) and through the assistance of technology, they were able to release the "Giant Tree Map'' for the first time at the presentation. The distribution of giant trees can be seen on the platform. They hope to combine the power of scientific professionals and the public to uncover the existence of giant trees in Taiwan and inspire the national awareness of conservation. If you are interested, please follow the fanpage on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JRSHENDigitalCulture/about
In the morning, Dr. Jia-jun Xu and a professional tree climbing teacher led the public to experience leisure tree climbing activities, and the tree species climbed were also of great origin. For instance, in front of the Department of Surveying and Spatial Information, on the west side of Polytechnic Avenue, there is the largest rain pea tree in the university, which was first introduced in 1903 and used as a shade tree and street tree in the garden. A little boy Xue, who participated in the tree climbing activity, was very excited and said he would come back for the next activity and said he had never climbed such a high tree before, and besides being very exciting, he had never stayed in a tree for such a long time, which was like an adventure.
The afternoon session was opened by Dr. Xu, who shared her interesting experience of "finding the tree" with the audience. She also shared her first-hand videos and photos of the giant trees that she brought back from climbing the trees to measure their height. Dr. Xu said that this year, with the sponsorship of Yuen Foong Yu Consumer Products Co, she also had good results. Last year, she found more than 300 giant trees. She thanked everyone for supporting her and said that finding trees is an interesting and challenging journey for her. This year, she thought that the two trees in the Ta-Kuei Lake were likely to break the record height of 79.1 meters of the Momoyama, but she was hesitant because it took 10 days to travel back and forth to that area. Therefore, she asked the professor to observe the trees through the Airborne LiDAR and they found that it was actually two trees overlaying together. As a result, she decided to look for another target right before she departed. She said that every discovery is a surprise to her, and the Airborne LiDAR makes her working process more smooth.
Professor Ji-Kui Wang said that Taiwan's giant trees have a unique growth area. There are 950 million trees, of which 941 are over 65 meters tall. Five years ago, he and his research partners at the Forestry Laboratory formed "The Taiwan champion trees" team to search for giant trees over 65m tall using Airborne LiDAR technology, but because of Taiwan's steep terrain, simple tree height models have huge errors, making it difficult to apply them to detect giant trees in primary forests. Since 2018, the team has been using the raw data from the Airborne LiDAR point cloud, processing it into a multi-directional image file of the vertical profile of trees, and using the power of the Internet crowd to jointly interpret giant trees over 65 meters across the island. After four years of hard work, they finally identified 941 potential locations of giant trees over 65 meters in height throughout Taiwan.
Prof. Chi-Kuei Wang said that in August 2020, the team used the photodetector data and conducted four field surveys to locate a giant tree of Taiwania cryptomerioides "Taoshan Giant Tree" located in the valley of Shei-Pa National Park, which is 79.1 meters tall, the first time the research team found a giant tree close to 80 meters tall and the tallest tree in Taiwan by physical measurement. The research team carried 30 kg of expensive ground radar and traveled back and forth for 5 days to bring back the precious point cloud images of the giant tree, hoping to further promote the scientific research on giant trees in Taiwan.
In addition, after several years of efforts to discover many giant trees, they have cooperated with the technical director Chang of JSDC (智紳數位文化事業有限公司) and through the assistance of technology, they were able to release the "Giant Tree Map'' for the first time at the presentation. The distribution of giant trees can be seen on the platform. They hope to combine the power of scientific professionals and the public to uncover the existence of giant trees in Taiwan and inspire the national awareness of conservation. If you are interested, please follow the fanpage on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JRSHENDigitalCulture/about
The professional tree climbing teacher leading the tree climbing activity.
The giant tree map.
The professional tree climbing teacher leading the tree climbing activity.
Dr. Jia-jun Xu, an alumnus of NCKU and an assistant researcher at the Forestry Research Institute of the Council of Agriculture.
Professor Chi-Kuei Wang of the Department of Surveying and Spatial Information NCKU.
The Airborne LiDAR data of Taoshan Giant Tree.
The largest rain pea tree in the university is in front of the Department of Surveying and Spatial Information.
The fourth presentation of "The Taiwan champion trees - Giant Tree Mapping Project" was held at NCKU on Dec.10..
