Abstract
Forest scientists build models to study, understand and represent stand growth and dynamics. They are particularly interested in the evolution of ecosystems, at the tree and compartment levels and in the consequences of forest management on volume, shape, wood quality, structural evolution of the stand or sensitivity to meteorological and sanitary problems. Specific computer tools are often developed to implement these models, to test and to explore the consequences of the underlying hypotheses on real or virtual stands. Sometimes, a team may invest in the development of a more integrated tool, based on a parameterisable growth model.The Capsis project aims at integrating several types of forest growth and dynamics models - stand models, distance independent or spatially explicit tree models... - and providing forest management tools to establish and compare different silvicultural scenarios. The objective is to build a perennial, open and dynamic software platform (1) to contribute to the development of models and test their sensitivity to some parameters by simulating the manager's actions, (2) to share tools and methods, (3) to compare results of different models, (4) to transfer models to the managers and (5) to serve as teaching material.Capsis is a portable software, designed around a kernel which provides an organizational data structure - session, project, scenario step. The kernel also proposes generic data descriptions - stand, compartment, tree... These descriptions can be completed in modules - one for each model - which implement a proper data structure and a specific evolution function (growth, mortality, regeneration, dissemination...) with a chosen simulation step. A plug-in architecture provides the possibility to build tools for management, construction of graphics, data exportation, tree group construction, stand representation or connections with other software. At the present time, Capsis hosts six modules, several other integration projects are planned and model integration training sessions are periodically proposed.