RTM-Suite is now available

Radiative transfer models provide the physical link between vegetation properties and the spectral signals measured by field instruments, airborne systems, and satellites. RTM-Suite makes this modelling chain easier to use, compare, and reproduce. It combines models of leaf optics, canopy structure, soil moisture, atmosphere, energy balance, and sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence within one documented environment.

The suite currently brings together five complementary packages and libraries:

• ToolsRTM and toolsrtm for leaf and canopy optical modelling, sensor convolution, spectral indices, and trait inversion;
• SCOPEinR and scopeinpython for the SCOPE energy-balance, photosynthesis, and fluorescence model; and
• ToolsRTM.app, a collection of interactive applications that makes the models accessible through point-and-click workflows.

Implementations in R and Python are kept numerically aligned and verified against one another. Researchers can therefore choose the language that best fits their workflow while working from a shared physical foundation.

RTM-Suite is accompanied by 31 step-by-step tutorials in R and Python. They range from first simulations with PROSPECT and fourSAIL to advanced workflows for SCOPE, sensor convolution, look-up tables, machine-learning inversion, and satellite data access. The tutorials include figures generated by code that users can run and adapt themselves.

Radiative transfer modelling is central to HYDRA-EO’s hybrid approach to crop-stress detection. Physically based simulations help interpret spectral, thermal, and fluorescence observations and support machine-learning models that remain connected to plant traits and processes. RTM-Suite provides an open and reusable foundation for this work, while also serving the wider vegetation remote-sensing community.

The software is developed through collaboration between the Laboratory of Geo-information Science and Remote Sensing at Wageningen University & Research and CNR-IBE in Florence, Italy.