Leicester Uni and Bluesky to revolutionise tree mapping

Leicester Uni and Bluesky to revolutionise tree mapping

Thursday 24 Apr 2025

The University of Leicester has joined forces with one of the UK’s leading providers of aerial survey and geospatial data, Bluesky International Ltd, to transform the way we understand trees. This Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) will enhance Bluesky’s National Tree MapTM (NTMTM) product, providing unprecedented insights into the UK’s forests and green spaces.

A KTP is a three-way partnership between an academic institution, a business and a suitably qualified graduate which helps companies innovate for growth. Supported by Innovate UK, the 26-month project will introduce a novel capability to classify tree species using remotely sensed data.

This breakthrough will provide vital information on tree growth, disease vulnerability and carbon storage, benefitting sectors ranging from environmental conservation to urban planning. A cloud-based architecture will be developed to integrate this advanced classification system into Bluesky’s workflows, ensuring cost-effective and energy-efficient service delivery.

University of Leicester academics Professors Kevin Tansey and Huiyu Zhou are the project leads alongside KTP Associate, Dr M. Amin Khalili, a PhD graduate from the University of Naples Federico II.

Professor of Remote Sensing, Kevin Tansey, from the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment at the University of Leicester, commented: “Tree species mapping and labelling with Earth Observation data remains elusive. Current approaches work well for certain species but when scaled up to large areas or complex regions such as the urban environment, accuracy decreases and uncertainty increases.

“By combining our specialist knowledge in deep learning, optical and LiDAR image processing and management of big data with Bluesky’s geospatial and data capture expertise, this KTP will create a first-of-its kind solution that will set new industry standards.”

Professor of Machine Learning, Huiyu Zhou, from the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, added: “This project gives us an opportunity to explore the fusion of multimodal data, such as point of cloud from Lidar and colour information from a standard CCTV camera, in order to identify tree species in a large-scale image. This is a challenging task due to the size of the targets, but we believe that this research exploration will be rewarding to both the University and Bluesky due to the complementary skills each party brings to the project.”

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Source: University of Leicester
Image credit: Bluesky

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