Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), under The U.S. Department of Agriculture  (USDA) Forest Service, recently awarded its annual Technology Transfer Award to a collaborative team co-led by a RMRS forester and Forest and Rangeland Stewardship (FRS) faculty. This internal award recognizes annual publication and research accomplishments during the previous year.

The 2017 award went to RMRS Research Forester Mike Battaglia, an alumnus of Colorado State University, for the General Technical Report titled, “Visualization of Heterogeneous Forest Structures Following Treatment in the Southern Rocky Mountains.” This highly collaborative effort was led by FRS Assistant Professor Wade Tinkham along with collaboration from Associate Professor Chad Hoffman and Assistant Professor Seth Ex.

Their research group (including other partners) adapted a computer visualization program to create three-dimensional renderings for different forest management outcomes. The applied nature of the report addressed a stated need from land managers to help their stakeholders better visualize forest treatments.

The general technical report provides renderings from various forest treatments

The report has been widely distributed to USDA Forest Service offices across Region 2 (Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota) and the Colorado State Forest Service. The computer program can be adapted to other forest systems throughout the west.

Read “Visualizing forest spatial patterns in 3D,” a story published in CSU Source earlier this year for more information.