The iLand software

The iLand software consists of several components:

  • The iLand viewer: this is a GUI shell around the core model. Usually, this application is the prime tool when working with iLand.
  • The iLand console application (ilandc): a non-GUI version of the model, which will be useful as a command line based workhorse for large simulation jobs or for simulations jobs in a computer cluster.
  • The LightRoom is the auxiliary tool used to create the pre calculated light influence pattern that are consequently used in the core model.


From time to time, we create "official" iLand releases; usually this are versions of the model that are used for some "important" simulations (e.g. those that are used to produce publications). This helps, together with the source code repository, to keep the model development process traceable and transparent. The more technical release notes page contains useful information on single iLand releases (e.g. for upgrading database tables).

iLand source code

The iLand software itself is released under the GPL open source licence. The full source code of iLand is packaged together with the official iLand releases. However, as we use a subversion repository for iLand development, the code is also available online at iland-model.org/publicsvn. We also generate additional documentation directly from the source code using Doxygen. A current snapshot of that is online at our doxy site.

Building iLand

The source code of iLand is bundled with the download package of the model and is also available online at http://iland-model.org/publicsvn . Within the download package, the full source code of the model is in the ZIP archive “sourcecode.zip”. In order to be able to modify and compile iLand for yourself, you will need Qt and the QtCreator IDE. Both packages are freely available at http://qt.io/ .
After installing the Qt Creator IDE, open the “iland.pro” project in the “src/iland” folder (be sure to preserve file paths when extracting the source code). iLand uses no external libraries (except the Qt libraries) which should simplify the building process considerably – a click to “build” should suffice.

project files and folders

For iLand, a project combines all the necessary settings and input files that are needed to run a simulation for a specific case. The different files that are needed by the model may (but not necessarily have to) be stored in a specific folder structure. Examples are climate files, files to initialize trees or to initialize the landscape. The iLand packages contain example projects that demonstrate the organization.
The project file is a single file in a XML format that contains various model settings:

  • paths and locations to other data (see also filenames and paths)
  • the definition of the simulation space, i.e. the size and the properties
  • general switches for the model (e.g. switch regeneration sub module on or off)
  • more specific model settings (e.g. the definition of nitrogen response classes)
  • settings relevant for the simulation software (e.g. whether multithreading is enabled)
  • properties of the outputs that should be produced.