Generate Uniformly Distributed Plots

Repository for the USFS plots project.

The purpose of this repository:

• Generate uniformly distributed plots (points) in forest stand polygons.
• Plots are generated based on the size of the forest stand (acres).
• No plot can be within n distance of a polygon boundary.

Environment settings

Installing anaconda

anaconda is a repository containing popular packages. The good thing about anaconda is that it is cross-platform.

For installing anaconda, please check its website. After installing anaconda, we need to create a development environment (if there is already a development environment, then no need to create a new one). Use the following command to create a new development environment:

conda create --name ENVNAME python=3.6

Then we need to activate the environment by using

conda activate yourenvname

Having activated the environment, the following dependencies need to be installed:

• geopandas (0.8.1+): conda install geopandas=0.8.1
• sklearn (0.24.0+): conda install scikit-learn=0.24.0
• tqdm (4.56.0+): conda install tqdm=4.56.0

Other dependencies such as gdal, shapely, pandas, and numpy will be installed during the geopandas and sklearn installs.

How to run

If not already done, activate the conda environment created above

conda activate ENVNAME

In the shell, specify the python script, input polygon data (forest stands) and the output shapefile (.shp) or geopackage (.gpkg) path, name of the output plots, and any flags:

python ./stand_plots.py -i /path/to/input_polygon_data.shp -o /path/to/plots.gpkg -r 10 20 30 50 100 -p 1 2 3 4 5 10 -u acres -b 10

The following flags are available:

-i The input forest stand (polygon) data

-o The output plot (point) data. Valid output formats include shapefile (.shp) and geopackage (.gpkg)

-r A list of range values to help determine how many plots will be assigned for each forest stand polygon. For example -r 10 20 30 50 100 would translate to:

Range Values
  0 - 10
>10 - 20
>20 - 30
>30 - 50
>50 - 100
>100

-p A list of the number of plots associated with each range of values. For example, -p 1 2 3 4 5 10 would translate to:

Range Values    Plots
  0 - 10          1
>10 - 20          2
>20 - 30          3
>30 - 50          4
>50 - 100         5
>100              10

-u The units used for the range values: acres or hectares. default = acres.

-b A buffer distance in map units used to ensure plot points are not within a certain distance from the polygon edge. default = 0