March 31, 2005

Jason Freeburn

President, Freeburn Forestry Inc.

3476 Loolike Dr.

Thunder Bay, On.

P7A 3C2

Dear Mr. Freeburn,

First, we at mikQuest would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to bid on this work. We are confident that we can offer the highest quality product for a reasonable price. We have built our company on a tradition of putting quality and clients first; we can assure you that these values will not be compromised.

As a growing consulting firm in the forest resource sector, we have taken advantage of the close proximity of both the university and college in Thunder Bay. Our workforce is composed of highly motivated individuals who are current with the latest technological advancements and are committed to continual learning. These qualities will keep you, as our client, at the forefront of technology. As I am sure you would agree, our staff are knowledgeable and always available to help in any way possible.

We feel that there is a strong working relationship between Freeburn Forestry Inc. and mikQuest. These local relationships are highly valued at mikQuest, as they offer a quality of work which enables us to keep some of the most qualified people in the industry at your disposal. Please feel free to contact us with any questions that you may have regarding this project or others - (807) 343-8653, .

Sincerely,

Karen Jackson,

President, mikQuest Inc.

4215 Braun St.

Lakehead, OntarioP7B 5E2

We have found the following approach to classifying burn intensities to be the most cost effective and proficient method for your needs. We offer a high resolution burn intensity classification within a time period of 14 days. Our product will ensure precise and timely burn intensity classification, and depletion mapping of burn areas for forestry futures funding applications. We are confident that after reviewing our project budget (below) you will agree that our approach is the most efficient and cost effective means to accomplish this project.

Image Acquisition

We propose to use digital colour infrared photography to perform a burn intensity classification for the area of study. Imagery will be acquired through Starlite Imagery Solutions Inc. out of Thunder Bay. We have secured their services for the next two weeks pending the award of this contract. Starlite’s reputation for quality and timely delivery is impeccable; we feel that they are an appropriate choice for this work. The advantages to using this type of imagery are numerous, including:

  • Short acquisition time (imagery available within 1-2 days of mission)
  • Photo acquisition considerably less weather dependant than satellite image acquisition (weather effects from Lake Nipigon troublesome for area of study)
  • Ability to view imagery in stereo
  • Much finer resolution combined with stereo capabilities eliminates the need for expensive field data collection.
  • Data delivered and stored in digital format, eliminating need for scanning and storage of photographs.

Image format

Digital photographs will be acquired using Starlite’s pressurized aircraft with flight lines funning north-south (see map on next page). Imagery will be collected using a 36x36 mm rectangular sensor. The focal length of the sensor is 35 mm with a 4000 x 4000 pixel resolution. Contact scale for the mission will be 1:111,200. Photo size will be adjusted to result in a 1:20,000 scale. The focal length of the sensor combined with the desired resolution will require the mission to be flown at 12,769 ft agl. Georectification will be performed in real time using an inertia measurement unit (IMU) directly linked to the sensor. The IMU measures the yaw, pitch and roll of the aircraft as data is collected.

Image Classification

To classify the image (photo mosaic), we will use eCognition Professional 4.0 software. There are three main steps that we will follow when classifying. First, eCognition is object oriented; therefore, our first step is to create objects. The objects are essentially polygons. After the objects are created, we will separate out the various land classes using a supervised classification. The land classes we propose to use are forest, water, wetland, old clear cuts and burn. For the classification of clear cuts we will also use your GIS layer.

From the burn land class we will further classify the burn area into light, moderate and severe burn intensities through a supervised classification. Training areas for the classifier will be selected from softcopy stereo delineation. The criteria for the three burn intensity levels are found below:

  • Light –burnt ground, some needles may be brown
  • Moderate – 50 percent of crown consumed, burnt ground
  • Severe - entire crown consumed, areas of exposed soil

The above classification processes will produce a polygon shape file that has the following land classes: light, moderate and severe burn intensities, forest, water, wetland and clear cut areas.

Product

The following is a list of what will be delivered as part of the final product:

Individual colour infrared digital photos in .tif format

Orthorectified tile of study area in digital format

Shapefile of land cover/burn intensity classification for the study area

Project Budget

Photo calculations
Number of days / 7 / days
Total photos / 189
Total flight line / 290.00 / km
unit cost (km) / 34.50 / $/km
Photo cost / $10,005.00
Ortho Mosaic
Number of days / 1 / day
Number of photos / 189
Number of workers / 1
Ortho cost / $500.00
Obtaining burn intensity areas from softcopy for classifier training
Number of days / 1 / day
Number of worker / 1 / day
# of plots/class / 3
Cost softcopy analysis / $500.00
Image Classification
Number of worker / 1
Primary Classification (broad land classes) / $500.00
Secondary Classification (Burn intensities) / $500.00
Total Classification Cost / $1,000.00
Contribution
Total cost / $12,005.00
contribution (12.5%) / $1,500.63
Total price
Total price to Freeburn Forestry Inc. / $13,505.63