Where to find LiDAR:

Online Data Resources

2. Point Cloudx, y, z, …

Complete LiDAR Workflow

1. Survey

4. Analyze / “Do Science”

3. Interpolate / Grid

USGS Coastal & Marine

LiDAR coverage of the southern San Andreas and San Jacinto faults

- ~ 3.7 billion LiDAR returns, ~1.9 TB

- Very high-res., supports 25-50 cm DEMs

The Challenge of Community LiDAR data

The Challenge of Community LiDAR data cont.

National LiDAR Initiative

Rough calculation using a NASA highelevation acquisition approach:

Land area of US = 9,161,923 sq kmAssuming:• 2 laser pulses per sq meter• an average of 1.5 returns per pulse• 35 data bytes per return• = 1 x 10• 15 bytes of point cloud data• = 1 petabyte (1,000 terabytes)

Stoker et al., 2007, Report of the First National Lidar Initiative Meeting,February 14-16, 2007, Reston, Va., U.S.G.S. Open File Report, 2007-1189.

“For comparison, that is 3 times more data than produced by all the instruments combined on NASA’s flagship Earth Observing System Satellite, Terra (ASTER, MODIS etc.) , over the course of a full year.”

GEON / ASU node

• Multi-institution collaboration between IT and Earth Science researchers• Funded by NSF “large” ITR program

• GEON Cyberinfrastructure provides:– Authenticated access to data and Web services– Registration of data sets and tools, with metadata– Search for data, tools, and services, using ontologies

• “GEON was designed as an equal collaboration between Information Technology (IT) and Geoscience researchers, with the goal of developing an enabling IT platform to facilitate the next generation of Geoscience research.”

Distributed Network

- Scientific workflow environment- Data and map integration capability- Visualization and GIS mapping

Cyberinfrastructure-based system with multiple pathways

• Single point of entry for access to various levels of data:

– “Standard” products for majority of users

– “Raw” data access for expert users

– + processing tools

The Vision:• Utilize

cyberinfrastructure developed by GEON to offer online data distribution, DEM generation, and analysis of large LiDAR datasets.

• Completely internet-based workflow:– Point cloud to

visualization

• Utilize modular web services to complete a variety of processing and analysis tasks.

• Offer users control of processing and analysis parameters.

Conceptual GEON LiDAR Workflow

GEON LiDAR Workflow Architecture

A cyberinfrastructure-based model for integrated access to community LiDAR datasets

Current GLW Status

Datasets online:1. Northern San Andreas Fault2. West Rainier Seismic Zone

3. E. California Shear Zone (Mike Oskin, UNC, PI)

4. Full B4 Dataset (Southern SAF and SJF)

5. GeoEarthScope NoCal

Total of ~6.4 billion LiDAR returns available via GLW

Currently ~4200 1 km2 DEM tiles available

Source:

GeoEarthscope Data Distribution Plan:

• Data available via the GEON Portal:– Delivery of standard data products– Delivery of “raw” point cloud data and dynamic

generation of digital elevation models – Provide statistics on downloads to illustrate use.

• Data released in batches as is it delivered by NCALM:– Batch #1: online November 29th, 2007– Batch #2: online February 14th– Batch #3: soon…– Batch #4 (complete): Unknown – awaiting final NCALM

processing

GeoEarthScope Data Distribution Plan:

• Multi-Phase release process:

– Phase 1: 1 km2 tiles of 1/2 meter DEMs via Google Earth / Google Maps

– Phase 2: Seamless query and custom DEM generation from LiDAR point cloud data

•Similar to current B4 distribution in GLW

GeoEarthScope Tile Downloads:

Per Day

Cumulative

www.GEONGRID.org

Getting the Data

• Download KML and open in Google Earth

• Use Google Maps interface

• Data Delivered as compressed ESRI (ArcGIS) binary grids (DEMs)

• Requires software capable of viewing these files

http://lidar.asu.edu/points2grid.html

http://lidar.asu.edu/LViz.html