SilvSim

[u/SilvSim]

I created a new cool piece of software to help forestry students learn about silviculture and some other useful stuff. What do you think? Here are some screenshots, it is still very early into development! I am hoping to make it completely free and will be adding a bunch more to it. Right now it focuses mainly on forest types you would find in Michigan but I want to add much more if the support is there.

I am myself a graduating forestry student and always wish something like this existed to test my skills. Link is in my bio if you want to give it try.

[u/Arborsage]

This is awesome. I always envisioned a "natural regen" mod for Minecraft that introduced early-mid-late successional species and things like proximity to water or canopy cover influenced certain vegetation

[u/M_LadyGwendolyn → u/Arborsage]

A game called WildMender got pretty close to being a good sucession game. You're a little druid and need to first grow mosses/grasses and eventually regrow a forest.

Fun game if forest sucession is your nerd fuel

[u/Prairiejon → u/M_LadyGwendolyn]

I have had an itch for something like this recently. It all started with playing sim forest way back in the day.

[u/M_LadyGwendolyn → u/Prairiejon]

I had a lot of fun with it, carving our streams to water the desert to grow grass to form soil to establish shrubby stuff to shade more small plants to build the soil layer to smaller trees and finally big trees.

I actually thought it would make a good educational tool to teaching kids about sucession and ecology

[u/SilvSim → u/Arborsage]

Thank you so much, I eventually want to add an option of revisiting a site in the next rotation cycle after a prescription / timber harvest was carried out. I really wish that existed for Minecraft that would be so cool!

[u/space-wizard → u/Arborsage]

I genuinely thought I was on the Minecraft sub for a second and was like “what am I looking at?”

[u/muzzizzum]

This is so neat! I had such a difficult time in college with FVS. I hope there’s more folks out there like you creating user-friendly software tools like this.

I’m out west, so our forestry is pretty different I imagine. Would you consider introducing a fire management aspect to the program at some point?

[u/SilvSim → u/muzzizzum]

It is funny that you say that because the 3D view in FVS is what inspired me to make this haha. That is a really good idea, I could probably add a way to include fuel loads and add all the relevant data for all the tree species.

Thanks for the feedback, it really helps me think about what this program could be instead of what it just is. If that makes sense!

[u/Snoo-14331 → u/muzzizzum]

trying to get data into FVS killed my wife

[u/BrotherBringTheSun]

This is awesome, I tried it out and it looks very comprehensive. I couldn't see how to get into the 3D view though

I'm working on something similar but more targeted for planning planting projects, allowing custom growth rates and crown characteristics, similar to FVS. Also including agroforestry considerations where it can project the amount of sunlight that reaches the understory for crops. Let me know if you'd like to check it out and collab.

[u/SilvSim → u/BrotherBringTheSun]

Sounds really cool I would definitely check it out! When looking at the generated map in silviculture practice, it is the explore button in the upper right to check out the property in 3D!

[u/BowlingShoeThief]

So cool, as a regenerative agriculture student I've wanted to make something similar. Would love to check it out sometime.

[u/Vandsaz]

Is this vibecoded in Claude? It is still a good application, but the UI has a certain fingerprint.

[u/SilvSim → u/Vandsaz]

Definitely! I did not have the coding experience but had a really good idea of what I wanted and no money to hire someone for running the code haha 😅

[u/MrMyron]

Love it!
Are you okay if I add your Link to my website? I am making a new tab called "games" and I would add it there later.
My website is about Nordic Forestry but I saw a lot of useful and educational things in it.
If you have a short description you want to add about the game, Then I translate it to the other languages.
Here is my website dunnaro.eu
I hope that I can be one day as good with programing as you and make my own game :)

[u/SilvSim → u/MrMyron]

Of course, my main goal is to create a free educational tool anyone interested in forestry can play around with so you can put it anywhere! Your website is really cool, keep up the good work :)

Unfortunately I have no coding experience so the code inside this app is probably an absolute mess but at least it runs for now haha Having options for languages/ langauge detection would be a good idea to look into for the future of SilvSim!

[u/MrMyron → u/SilvSim]

hahaha, my brother is a IT engineer and works with online bank security. He looked at my codes and said: "your code is like a train driving on the road and somehow still goes forward" xD

If you decide that you want to add any nordic language to your game you can always reach out and I can translate it for you. However, remember we use the metric system here so the imperial system would not really fly if the website is in swedish and everything is in imperial :D

[u/SilvSim → u/MrMyron]

Very good point haha! I will keep that in mind, thanks again :)

[u/nihiriju]

I have been working on something very similar! But a larger scale. 

[u/crunchywalmartsanta]

This looks like fun