These methods assume the tree is not growing on a slope and the top of the tree can be determined (by surrounding trees or by the round shape of the crown the actual top of the tree can remain hidden for the observer).
The height of the tree equals the distance from the tree to that spot. Then turn the stick horizontally and remember with which spot (as far away from you as the tree is) the tip of stick corresponds. Walk away from the tree until the top of the tree corresponds with the tip of the stick, from your point of view. If you are not sure your guess of the 45° angle is any good, you can do it like this too: take a stick of about 1 to 2 ft and keep it vertically with a straight, horizontal arm. (or make you use of an inclinometer or tilt meter), then such a height guess can be quite good theoretically.īut keep in mind that height measurements should be looked at very critically. If you make your steps correctly (or use a tape to measure your distance from the tree) and if you're sufficiently able to determine an angle of 45° 3 ft, you can relatively quickly determine the height of something. Provided you train yourself a couple of times in making steps of eg. This means that the height of the tree then equals the distance tree-observer.īut since your eyes are not on the ground, you need to add your own eye height as an extra (see image). The idea is that if there's an angle of 45° (the angle between your line of sight and the ground) in a right-angled triangle (a triangle with an angle of 90°, the corner tree-ground), then both small sides have an equal length.
(the distance from the ground to your eyes, eg. The height of the tree is then the distance from the tree to where you're standing (eg. You start to walk away from the base of the trunk until you see the tree's top from an angle of 45° a more correct method is based on goniometry:.You could also do this on a photograph that was preferably taken from a distance as large as possible (to have the smallest perspective distortion of the tree possible) with the largest zoomfactor your camera has (to have the least lens distortion possible). a pole or a house of which you know or can measure the height and by looking from a distance how many times that objects fits the tree. comparing with a measurable object nearby the trunk, eg.You can obtain a rough guess of a tree's height by: There are a number of easy ways to get a rough estimate of the height of a tree.