The recording of the knots on the logs has not been in the focus so far, because there was no demand for this information from the customers. This has now changed; interest in such data has now been expressed on the part of forestry operations and the timber industry.

On the one hand, the timber industry expects to draw conclusions about the quality of the wood from the evaluation of the branches (number, branch diameter). In addition, another potential application has arisen from knowledge of the branch distribution on the log. In order to be able to trace the origin of a log back to the forest at the sawmill, it would be advantageous to record the pattern of branch distribution on the log in trees that are still standing and use it as a fingerprint, so to speak, to identify a log at the sawmill. First probability-theoretical considerations show that the unambiguous identification of a tree or piece of wood should be possible on the basis of only very few knots, with a certainty of about 1:1 billion.

For the practical verification of this theory, it is necessary to analyze the spatial distribution of the branches on the trunk in the point cloud, and to analyze the patterns that can be produced from them for their accuracy and uniqueness.

The project and innovation check application in question is concerned with testing the feasibility of this method on the basis of the most frequently occurring tree species, spruce.