Veteran Trees and their ages

fbcpmike · #1 (**permalink**) 19-10-2004, 08:34 AM

The Forestry Comission produced a research note FCIN12 "Estimating the age of Large and Veteran Trees in Britain", for those wanting to estimate the age of a range of veteran trees in various environments. However the formulas and data sets involved are complicated and can lead to confusion. I have developed a small program that takes the data sets and a few values input by the user and does all the calculations for you.

If any members here would like a copy of the program please let me know, it's free and it works, but here's the catch, I would like some input from users before I go on to develop the final database structure and printing functions.

StuartDH · #2 (**permalink**) 19-10-2004, 05:50 PM

Sounds good to me Mike. If you like, we can add a link to it on the main Wild About Britain website, as I'm sure that it would certainly come in handy for quite a few people.

fbcpmike · #3 (**permalink**) 20-10-2004, 08:14 AM

Ok Stuart, I'm out of the office today, but when I have it at a download location I'll post the link. As I said, do note it is a work in progress and feedback would be helpfull.

fbcpmike · #4 (**permalink**) 21-10-2004, 12:00 PM

The link to TreeAge is here - TreeAge distribution, it's about 240Kb. When the download is complete unzip the file in a new directory, that's all you need to do to install. Your registry settings are not changed by the install, in fact no files are altered, you just get the contents of the zip file.

To execute the program double click or "open" the file "TreeAge.exe", and take it from there, the program is fairly self explanatory. In this distribution help is defaulted to on so you get a second box with comments on what the program is doing / what you need to do. All items that you have to enter to get a Tree's Age can have default settings, these currently are set to refer to Brickfields Park, but they can be changed in the "Trees.dat" file. So if you have say, 50 Beech trees to do in the same place on the same day, you can edit the Trees.dat file, so that you don't have to enter these fields each time.

TreeAge is a work in progress, please feel free to send in requests / errors / bugs. Print and Database functions will be completed upon feedback fom users as to what they would like to see.

StuartDH · #5 (**permalink**) 26-10-2004, 08:33 AM

Hi Mike,

I downloaded the app on my laptop - XP Home - last night and it unzipped OK, but when I tried to run it, it gave the error message:

This application has failed to start because VB40032.DLL was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

However, it seems to work fine on my desktop - XP Pro

I tried several downloads and they all gave the same result.

Sorry for the delay in putting on it the main site, I had a very busy weekend, but I'll hopefully get it done later today.

Cheers

Stuart

fbcpmike · #6 (**permalink**) 26-10-2004, 02:01 PM

My very very bad.

Yup, without that file the program will not run ! - oops. I have added the dll to the distribution download and uploaded it, installation is the same as before as it appears that it will run with the dll in the same directory as the program. (When I tried it here the message said the dll should be in c:windows/system, if indoubt copy it to the relavent "system" directory for the OS as well). Your laptop must be a slightly different installation with the dll missing. It was intended that the build did not need any addittional dll's, I will have to look into that.

Mike.

Tinkerbell · #7 (**permalink**) 11-03-2005, 02:45 PM

I've posted a photo of a most extraordinary tree in the Gallery this week (Which way is up?). I've no idea what it is but I'll return to the site in a few weeks time to see what leaf it produces. It certainly looks to be very old and is quite exceptional. I shall attempt to find out more and take another photo in due course. Watch this space.

fbcpmike · #8 (**permalink**) 11-03-2005, 04:27 PM

From a quick view the buds looks like a Horse Chestnut, although the bark also looks a bit like Yew or a Leylandii type, both of which it is not as they would have leaves at this time of year. Unfortunatley the picture does not have any more resolution to blow it up and examine the buds, can you photo it with a higher reolution ?. Horse Chestnut will start budding soon so that will answer the question. Not an easy thing to get a tree type in winter.