World Wide Heuristics Solutions

TProfile Features

TCruise has 100 built-in tree profile functions for tree volume estimation. As tree profile functions are found in the literature, they are added to TCruise, and by the end of 2001 it is anticipated that TCruise will contain sufficient profile functions to cover the entire Eastern US. The current set of built-in functions more than adequately covers the Southern, and Southeastern US, but only provides limited coverage of the Northeastern US. If you would like to have a specific profile function added to TCruise, send us www.timbercruise.com/index.html a copy of the publication describing the function, and if possible we will include the function in the next revision.

Even with all of the available profile functions for the Eastern US are added to TCruise, you may not find a profile function that provides good volume estimates for one or more of your species. In this case, you may need to collect tree profile data for a species, and derive a profile function from the data. Collecting profile data is simple but deriving, and implementing a tree function is very difficult.

To provide the individual user an automated mechanism for independently expanding TCruise's profile function list, a program called Tree Profile Fitter (TProfile) was developed. This companion product allows the user to collect tree profile data on sample trees of the desired species, input the data using a spread sheet interface, or as in ascii import file, and fit a selected tree profile function to the data. The fitted profile function can then be imported into TCruise, or TVolume and used like a built-in function. TProfile makes it easy to expand TCruise to meet your requirements. With TProfile, you can fit and use a profile function without getting involved in the complex algebra or statistics of profile functions.

Download 30-day trial copies of TProfile, TCruise, and TVolume. Fit a tree profile function to one of the provided test profile function data set, export the function to a file, and then import the exported file into TCruise, or TVolume. TVolume is the best way to verify that the fitted profile function is performing to ypur satisfaction.