Open Laser Scanning Database for characterization of Forest Biophysical properties and beyond

Highly detailed 3D characterization of trees and forests with close-range technologies offers great potential for modeling carbon, energy fluxes, habitat diversity and much more. Numerous research groups are collecting complex 3D data in forests, and some are making it available as open data to the community. However, there are currently very few open data repositories or even metadata for 3D forest data from laser scans that can be used by different groups on a European or global scale. In the Forest3DTwin project, we want to build a prototype for open storage of measured 3D data with reference data according to the FAIR principles (findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability) and are convinced that this can be established at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Research WSL in the long term and lead to a engagement and commitment of the European and global community to open 3D forest data.