SamsaRaLight is an R package for simulating light transmission in forest stands based on the ray-tracing model SamsaraLight (Courbaud et al. 2003).
📊 It allows users to estimate:
- Light intercepted by individual trees
- Light reaching the forest floor
- Light at virtual ground sensors
✨ With many features:
- Estimation of direct and diffuse radiation
- Flexible crown geometry (symmetric and asymmetric)
- Multiple transmission models
- Light competition indicators
- Virtual light sensors
- 2D visualization tools
- Parallel simulations
🌐 Model documentation and tutorials are available here: https://natheob.github.io/SamsaRaLight/
Installation
You can install the development version of SamsaRaLight from GitHub with:
install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("NatheoB/SamsaRaLight")Citation
If you use the SamsaraLight in your research, please cite :
- The original publication of the SamsaraLight model: Courbaud, B., de Coligny, F. & Cordonnier, T. Simulating radiation distribution in a heterogeneous Norway spruce forest on a slope. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 116, 1–18 (2003). Courbaud et al. 2003.
- This package stored on CRAN using
r citation("SamsaRaLight"): Beauchamp et al. 2026.
Contributing
Contributions, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome.
Please open an issue or pull request on the github project.