OFSIM - A SIMULATION SHELL FOR FOREST MANAGEMENT

OFSIM (Object-oriented Forest SIMulator) is a forest stand structure s imulator for management purposes, written in object-oriented programmi ng C++. This application for modelling forest management at the stand level has potential application for exploring several kinds of managem ent strategy and possible extension into estate modelling. The computa tional aspects of simulation with OFSIM have two types of object: (1) physical objects in the forest to represent an abstraction of modellin g in forestry such as pines, thinning and abstraction in forest financ ial analysis; (2) computational objects to represent the abstraction o f several numerical techniques for dynamics of size-class distribution of forest structure. The material presented here, however, is a descr iption of the simulation models, their working mechanisms and implemen tation. The percentile-index function for radiata pine from several fo rest experiments and the state-space approach for a regional model in New Zealand have been implemented in the simulation and further model developments and their programming implementation on OFSIM have been d escribed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.