OBJECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE FOR MODELING GROWTH AND SIZE-CLASS DISTRIBUTIONS OF TREE CROPS - AN OVERVIEW OF THE DESIGN

Techniques for modelling growth and tree size-class distributions of f orest stands have been developed and implemented in an object-oriented program with C++. The object-oriented concept represents high-level a bstraction of physical objects in forests and in objects emanating fro m the data abstraction used for numerical computations of growth. The objects in this forestry context represent relationships of the pines, weeds and site factors and their interactions in a stand, and also us e the computational objects. The objects mainly comprise the computati ons for modelling growth and size-class distribution of tree crops. Th e percentile interval, a technique derived from the geometry of the in terval and its percentile of tree size-class distribution, is used her e for modelling tree crops, and the interval with a fixed percentile c ould be projected over time. This technique could also be used for rec onstruction of the distribution to characterize the effects of thinnin g. The projection of a distribution involves modelling with the initia l growth and the long-term changes in tree crops. Initial and later gr owth could be joined using the algorithm which was derived from an app roximation of the linear phase of the cumulative growth function. Expe rience so far with and future plans for implementation of the developm ent work for prediction of forest stands with object-oriented software are also presented.