When living in an urban area, it is not easy to spontaneously visit a forest. Thus, many people lack direct contact with nature. In view of the frequent forest fires in regions such as Corsica, it is even more important to give the forest more visibility and public attention. But how can this problem be solved?

In the forest living lab, we work with various tools, including microcontrollers such as the Arduino. These small, programmable computers make it possible to connect sensors and motors that can record and process environmental information.

The data collected by humidity or temperature sensors can be visualized in 3D software. Blender is particularly suitable software for this. It can be used to create a so-called digital twin of the forest, which simulates and displays the real data on the computer. A digital twin is a virtual replica of a physical object, system, or process that uses real-time data and simulation to monitor, analyze, and optimize its real-world counterpart.

The interface between technology and visualization opens up numerous creative possibilities and implementations. The Blender and Arduino communities offer extensive documentation and active support in Internet forums, enabling anyone interested to carry out their own experiments with the 3D forest. Moreover we tested 3D scanning with Polycam to integrate parts of forest into the digital domain.