Estimate a tree's weight, cuts, saw time and truck loads before the job. Demo — numbers are estimates.
The tree
1) Stand where you can see the top and the base. 2) Put your distance to the trunk below (tape it, or pace it: one normal step ≈ 2.5 ft). 3) Hold the phone upright, aim the cross at the very top and tap Top, then at the base and tap Base.
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No phone handy? Four old ways to judge height
Stick (the forester's trick): hold a stick straight up at arm's length, with as much stick showing above your fist as your arm is long (eye to fist). Walk until the stick just covers the tree from base to top. Your distance to the trunk ≈ the height. Pencil "felling": at arm's length, line a pencil up with the tree, base to top. Turn the pencil sideways, keeping its bottom on the base. Have a friend walk out to where the pencil's tip lands; their distance from the trunk ≈ the height. Shadow: measure your own shadow and the tree's shadow at the same moment. Tree height = your height × tree shadow ÷ your shadow. Known height: have someone of known height stand at the trunk; count how many of them stack up to the top.
No tape for diameter? Measure around the trunk at chest height and divide by 3.14.
⚡ Within 10 ft of a power line: call the utility. Do not cut. Only trained line-clearance crews work this close (OSHA 1910.333 / 1910.269). The weights below are for planning with the utility only.
What the wood is for
Measure the branches (best, if you can reach them)
Wrap the tape around the branch 1 ft out from the trunk (past the swollen branch collar), then measure its length from the trunk to the tip and how wide it spreads. Do it for the biggest branch coming off and a small one, and count about how many are like each.
Evergreen? Count the whorls (circle of branches around the trunk)
Spruce, fir and pine put out one whorl (circle of branches around the trunk) each year. Not the growth rings inside the wood. Count the whorls from the ground up to your cut height, or give the gap between two whorls, and count the branches in one whorl. This replaces "how many" above: half the branches are counted as big ones, half as small.
A yard evergreen often has branches to the ground (0). Yard trees keep low branches a forest tree loses, so branch numbers from the formula can run low; measure the branches below, and check against your real loads.
Your saw
Your truck or trailer
An 8×5 ft trailer with 4 ft sides holds about 6 cubic yards (8×5×4 ÷ 27).
Stump
Recycling or dump yard
What's coming in or sitting in the pile: how much it weighs, how much room it takes, and roughly how long it takes to rot.
Make it yours
This is designed to help you improve the accuracy of the tool for yourself. After a job, put in what it really was (the scale ticket, or how full the truck was). The app learns your own correction and uses it next time. Your numbers stay on this phone.
Hauled by volume? Truck loads × payload, or cubic yards × your material's weight, gives the pounds.