Biometrics of Cut Tree Faces

An issue of some interest to those in the lumber and timber industry is the rapid matching of a cut log face with its mate. For example, the U.S. Forest Service experiences a considerable loss of its valuable tree properties through poaching every year. They desire a tool that can rapidly scan a stack of cut timber faces, taken in a suspect lumber mill yard, and identify matches to a scanned photograph of stump faces of poached trees. Such a tool clearly falls into the category of a biometric identifier. We have developed such a tool and have shown that it has usefully high biometric discrimination in the matching of a stump photograph to its cut face. It has certain limitations, described in this paper, but is otherwise eminently suitable for the task for which it was created.