A Portal to High-Resolution Topography Data and Tools


myOpenTopo

History

Origins and Cyberinfrastructure:

The underlying cyberinfrastructure that powers the OpenTopography site was originally developed as part of the National Science Foundation Information and Technology Research (ITR) program-funded Geoscience Network (GEON) project.  GEON was designed as an equal collaboration between Information Technology (IT) and geoscience researchers, with the goal of developing an IT platform to facilitate the next generation of geoscience research and education.  GEON is based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA).  This architecture takes advantage of a distributed network of datasets, tools, and computing resources to provide access to high-performance computing platforms for data analysis imageand model execution. The GEON Portal provides a web-based interface to access the various resources.

In addition to the computing resources provided by the project, GEON was designed to bridge cultural and disciplinary boundaries to bring together Earth and computer science experts for the common goal of developing the next generation of Earth science tools.  This close collaboration enabled GEON researchers to identify opportunities and tackle problems that they might not otherwise be equipped to handle within their own discipline.  The GEON project provided a unique suite of resources and capabilities that could be applied to the LiDAR distribution and processing challenge.

The GEON LIDAR Workflow (GLW) application was initially developed in 2004 as a demonstration project in a partnership between the Active Tectonics, Quantitative Structural Geology and Geomorphology group at Arizona State University and GEON computer scientists at SDSC.  The vision for the GLW was the conceptual workflow that described how LiDAR point cloud data could be accessed and processed in a web-based environment (GEON Conceptual LiDAR Workflow - figure at left).  This vision still largely defines the OpenTopography goals of providing open and easy access to LiDAR point cloud data as well as web-based processing capabilities.

Since the early proof of concept days, the GEON LiDAR Workflow system (now OpenTopography) implementation has undergone many modi cations as the project has evolved from an R&D effort to a community facility.  In 2009, the OpenTopography team submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation Earth Sciences: Instrumentation and Facilities (EAR/IF) program to fund OpenTopography as a LiDAR data facility independent of GEON.  This proposal was success and OpenTopography began operations under this new funding source in fall of 2009.

Data:

Initial GEON LiDAR Workflow development was performed with data from the Northern San Andreas fault in coastal Sonoma and Mendocino Counties, CA and the West Rainier Seismic Zone in Washington kindly provided by NASA.

Early in the process of its development, the GLW proved its utility to the Earth science community by hosting the B4 LiDAR survey data covering the southern San Andreas and San Jacinto faults in southern California.  The success of this application illustrated the need for an online portal and a facility to serve the community of LIDAR data users.

Due in part to the GLW’s success delivering the B4 data, GEON received a sub-contract from UNAVCO to host and provide access to the EarthScope LiDAR data acquired as part of the GeoEarthScope project.  This funding and mandate to provide reliable community access to these important data drove the development of many new features in the GLW, and ultimately spawned the launch of OpenTopography as a free-standing access point to the GEON LiDAR system.

Data Release History:

  • July 27, 2010: Napa Watershed, CA - LiDAR point cloud
  • August, 2008 - January, 2010:  EarthScope LiDAR datasets - point cloud, digital elevation models, and Google Earth imagery
  • Early data releases completed under the GEON LiDAR workflow project:  Northern San Andreas fault, West Rainier Seismic Zone, B4 Southern San Andreas and San Jacinto faults, Eastern California Shear Zone

OpenTopography Release History:

  • July 27, 2010: OpenTopography v 2.1 - New and streamlined data management system to streamline data ingestion and release, numerous user interface updates and systems level bug fixes.
  • June 14, 2010: OpenTopography v 2.0 - Significant system architecture upgrades, a number of new features, and moderate changes to user interface.  Update replaced previous system architecture (depreciated OT 1.0 system diagram).
  • Pre-OpenTopography Facility data and system releases were reported as OpenTopography News items.
  • GEON LiDAR Workflow updates were numerous and not fully documented due to the R&D nature of the project.  See the GEON News archives and GEON Newsletter archives for announcements related to GLW updates.