The Google Research team then merged the tree census data with Street View and overhead color imagery. This made available a large-scale, computer-vision tree monitoring tool for the first time.

The tree also produces spiky “gumball” fruits that are a favorite of finches, sparrows, turkeys and other wild birds. Sweet gum trees are hardy to Zone 5 and grow up to 75 feet tall. Give them ...

The AI tree models’ weakness is that they lack training data that describes real-world 3D tree geometry. “In our methods, we needed to generate the data. So our AI models are not simulating nature.