Teaching AI the shape of the countryside<\/p>\n
To bridge the gap between pixels and planning, we developed a high-resolution deep-learning framework designed to explicitly map features across the complex patchwork of agricultural land.<\/p>\n
Training an AI to recognize specific features of the British countryside like a managed hedgerow requires deep expertise, but we only had a relatively small set of annotated data (~247 km\u00b2). To overcome this, we used Remote Sensing Foundations\u2019 (RSF) Vision-Transformer (ViT) Backbone<\/a> pre-trained on more than 300 million global satellite images. RSF is part of Google Earth AI<\/a>, our collection of geospatial models and datasets to transform planetary data into actionable insights. By starting with this robust foundation of spatial textures, we fine-tuned the model to recognize the specific nuances of the British landscape with much higher precision.<\/p>\n With this trained model as our foundation, we designed a pipeline to resolve our core spatial, semantic, and scaling challenges.<\/p>\n To handle the layered topology of the countryside, where a stone wall might sit directly beneath the canopy of a hedgerow, we developed a dual-layer labeling system using submeter imagery and 1-meter LiDAR<\/a> data. This allowed our model to see two things in the same space: (1) the ground-level boundaries (like farmed land or water) and (2) the above-ground features (like the trees and walls that sit on top of them). To fix the artificial slices at tile borders, we developed a scalable algorithm that merges geometries across cells, ensuring every feature is geometrically complete.<\/p>\n We then addressed the semantic challenge. An AI model can easily detect greenery, but it doesn’t naturally know the difference between a small cluster of trees and a long, thin hedgerow. To turn the model’s raw digital outlines into a useful ecological inventory, we applied a mathematical test called the Polsby\u2013Popper compactness score<\/a>. By analyzing the physical footprint of each detection, we programmatically categorized the countryside’s geometry. We defined woodlands as substantial, contiguous canopies with at least a 30-meter diameter, woody patches as small copses or individual trees, and linear woody features \u2014 such as hedgerows and elongated corridors \u2014 by their stretched footprints, strictly defined by a compactness score of less than 0.5. This geometric intelligence allowed us to programmatically isolate the long, thin corridors that are so vital for wildlife movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teaching AI the shape of the countryside To bridge the gap between pixels and planning, we developed a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-508558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}