Developing a User-Friendly Interface for Interactive Cable Corridor Planning

Traditional methods of determining cable corridor layouts often rely on less accurate tree maps based on forest density estimates and satellite imagery, which can lead to designs that rely on infeasible corridors, undermining their reliability. In our previous research, we used LiDAR forest maps to calculate highly realistic cable corridors in steep terrain. We then used a multi-objective optimization strategy to determine an optimal combination of possible cable corridors, taking into account costs as well as ergonomic and environmental factors. The optimization process is however not easily accessible to users not familiar with mixed integer linear programming approaches. To make the optimization process more accessible to forestry professionals, we have developed an interactive interface to support the layout planning process. This interface provides an interactive overview, a 3D perspective of the current layout, and detailed information on costs and metrics of the current cable corridor layout, facilitating the comparison and modification of different corridor layouts. The interface was evaluated by three subject-matter experts and their suggestions were incorporated into the presented version. The resulting tool can help experts use optimized cable corridor layouts in the planning process, and represents another step towards the digitalization of forestry.