Abstract
Abstract. Distance education has been offered for years, but the integration of technological developments and opportunities into education has recently increased its popularity and event it became an indispensable method during the Covid-19 pandemic period. In distance education, accessing all class materials such as lecture presentations, class notes, reading materials, videos, live chats or class hours, and archive records allow students (participants) to learn without being in the same environments with teachers or learners. Technology has made vast contributions to the field of education. For instance, 3D as a teaching tool for the class attracts students’ attention, makes the learning process more enjoyable, and increases participation. In particular, for the disciplines, such as forestry, earth, and environmental sciences, which require laboratory exercises, field observation, field trips, and in-situ measurements, 3D modeling has provided many benefits in distance education. It enables 3D demonstration of the individual tree species to develop a virtual field laboratory. This study focused on the data sources and techniques to generate a 3D model of the individual tree species that forestry students used for distance education. The capabilities of the method in the generation of 3D models were evaluated by using UAV-based SfM photogrammetry. The results indicated that implementing 3D images of individual tree species can be a promising method that may increase the interest, interaction and satisfaction of the students in distance education in forestry.
Highlights
The use of aerial photographs and satellite images is quite common in the field of forestry
High-resolution satellite images or aerial photographs can be unsuitable for the researcher in terms of cost and time consumption; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are considered an economical and practical tool that turns the concepts of time and space in favor of the researcher
The students' perceptions about the type of distance education tools are vital as it affects students' performance
Summary
The use of aerial photographs and satellite images is quite common in the field of forestry. UAVs provide high mobility, flexibility, security, programmability, time, and cost-effectiveness They are highly preferred as a remote sensing tool among today’s alternatives (Wing et al, 2014). Unlike multi-rotor UAVs, fixed-wing type models never use energy to stay afloat while fighting gravity. Instead, they proceed along the designated route as long as their energy sources (battery) allow. The digital elevation models can be produced in raster data or point cloud data by using the images obtained from UAVs. The accuracy and the quality of the DEM and three-dimensional model can be affected by characteristics of the camera mounted on UAV, such as positional accuracy, sensitivity, resolution, depending on the sensor, or other factors like overlay rate, flight speed, and battery life. Point clouds data generated from highresolution UAV imagery using the SfM method can be effectively used in the 3D modeling of individual tree species
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