Monday, August 19, 2013

Where to Get Lidar Data

The VuePod can view many different types of data, but for this post we are going to focus on lidar data.  According to Wikipedia lidar data is defined as a remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and analyzing the reflected light (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar).  The reflected light is then used to make high resolution maps and 3D images based on the amount of time it took for the light to return to its’ source.





Lidar data can be very expensive, which is why the internet can be helpful.  There are many websites where lidar data is made publicly available, such as government websites.  However, the resolution of publicly available data may not be as good as you want.  But a website that we recommend when searching for lidar data is Open Topography.  This is an open source site where you can download lidar data at a fairly high resolution.         

Figure 1

The website is very simple to use.  First, select the region in which you would like data from.  Figure 2 shows the selection of Provo, Utah. 

Figure 2

Next, choose the data source as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3


Lastly, click on the download as in Figure 4.

Figure 4

As mentioned earlier, this data can also be found at government websites such as gis.utah.gov.

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