OpenTopography Blog

Information and discussion related to high-resolution LiDAR topography for the Earth sciences

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Category: Meetings

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Cyber-GIS Opportunities for High-Resolution Topography Data Access, Processing, and Analysis

Posted on Mon, February 22, 2010 by ccrosby in Meetings • OpenTopography Updates

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of participating in the National Science Foundation TeraGrid Workshop on Cyber-GIS in Washington, DC.  The workshop was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) TeraGrid Science Gateway program and the Office of Cyberinfrastructure with the goal of “underpin fundamental issues of Cyber-GIS for enhancing cyberinfrastructure while advancing the next-generation GIS with synergistic high-performance, distributed, and collaborative capabilities.”

Each participant in the workshop was required to submit a position paper that highlighted an issue or opportunity in Cyber-GIS.  My paper, “Cyber-GIS Opportunities for High-Resolution Topography Data Access, Processing, and Analysis”, highlights activities OpenTopography is currently engaged in, and also points to opportunities and challenges we are pursuing.  You can download a PDF of the position paper, or read it below.

Cyber-GIS Opportunities for High-Resolution Topography Data Access, Processing, and Analysis

Christopher Crosby
San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California, San Diego, CA

High-resolution topography data acquired with lidar (light detection and ranging) technology are revolutionizing the way we study the geomorphic, biologic and anthropogenic processes acting along the Earth’s surface (e.g. Carter et al., 2007).  These data, acquired from either an airborne platform or a tripod-mounted scanner, are emerging as a fundamental tool for research on a variety of topics ranging from earthquake hazards to urban modeling.  Lidar topography data are powerful because they represent processes and features at a scale not previously possible yet essential for their appropriate representation.  These data sets also have significant implications for earth science education and outreach because when visualized, they provide an accurate digital representation of landforms, natural hazards and processes, and the built environment. 

However, along with the potential of lidar topography comes an increase in the volume and complexity of data that must be efficiently managed, archived, distributed, processed and integrated in order for them to be of use to the community.  A single lidar data acquisition may generate terabytes of data in the form of point clouds, digital elevation models (DEMs), and derivative products.  This massive volume of data is often difficult to manage and poses significant distribution challenges when trying to allow access to the data for a large scientific user community. Furthermore, the data sets can be technically challenging to work with and may require specific software and computing resources that are not readily available to many users.

Projects such as the National Science Foundation-funded OpenTopography Facility (http://www.opentopography.org) (e.g. Crosby et al., 2009) are successfully leveraging emerging cyberinfrastructure technologies such as portal-based data access, service oriented architectures, high-performance parallel database systems (Nandigam et al., 2010), and optimized processing algorithms to improve internet-based access to these massive geospatial data sets.  The OpenTopography system provides free and on-demand access to tens of billions of lidar point cloud measurements as well as processing tools that permit users to generate custom digital elevation models on-the-fly.  OpenTopography’s growing user community of several thousand scientists, educators, students, government agency staff, and private sector users illustrate that cyberinfrastructure-based geospatial data access systems can have a significant impact by democratizing access to these massive data sets.

OpenTopography’s success is an illustration of the potential opportunities that exist through the application of cyberinfrastructure resources to geospatial data management and processing. However, the OpenTopography effort has only just scratched the surface of how routine data management and processing tasks could be enhanced with access to cloud or grid-based resources.  As any regular user of high-resolution topography appreciates, many of the existing geographic information system (GIS) algorithms currently available for processing, analysis, and visualization point cloud and DEM data fail, or perform very slowly, when applied to lidar data.  Taking a Cyber-GIS approach to lidar topography processing and analysis would allow users to carry out computationally intensive LiDAR data processing without having appropriate hardware locally.  Resources such as Hadoop (http://hadoop.apache.org/)-based processing in the cloud, the TeraGrid (http://www.teragrid.org/), or Condor pools (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/) could allow users to “outsource” their geospatial data processing to computing resources better equipped to handling significant data volumes.

However, to effectively utilize high-performance grid or cloud resources will require that the user community develop a new “toolkit” of algorithms and tools that are optimized to perform in these environments.  This new toolkit should exist in the open source domain and consist of libraries that allow users to construct customized processing workflows that run in a distributed environment. Examples of necessary algorithms include those for high-performance gridding of lidar point cloud data (e.g. Kim et al., 2006), algorithms for hydrologic processing of DEMs (e.g. Wallis et al., 2009) including calculations of slope, slope-aspect, stream profiles, catchment areas, and topographic roughness and curvature, geomorphic change detection analysis, feature extraction (including vegetation classification and structural analysis, and building footprint extraction), as well as tools for the processing and analysis of full waveform lidar data.

REFERENCES:
Carter, W. E., R. Shrestha and K.C. Slatton, 2007, Geodetic Laser Scanning, Physics Today, Vol. 60, Number 12, pp 41-47.

Crosby, C.J., Nandigam, V., Arrowsmith, R., Baru, C., 2009, Enhancing Access to High-Resolution Lidar Topography – From Point Clouds To Google Earth, Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 41, No. 7, p. 384

Kim, H., Arrowsmith, J R., Crosby, C.J., Jaeger-Frank, E., Nandigam, V., Memon, A., Conner, J., Badden, S.B., Baru, C., An Efficient Implementation of a Local Binning Algorithm for Digital Elevation Model Generation of LiDAR/ALSM Dataset, Eos Trans. AGU, 87(52), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract G53C-0921, 2006.

Nandigam, V., Baru, C., Crosby, C.J., Database Design for High-Resolution LIDAR Topography Data in preparation, 2010 International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management

Wallis, C., Watson, D., Tarboton, D., Wallace, R., 2009, Parallel Flow-Direction and Contributing Area Calculation for Hydrology Analysis in Digital Elevation Models, Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications, PDPTA 2009, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

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AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting Lidar Session

Posted on Mon, January 11, 2010 by ccrosby in Meetings

An interesting Lidar-oriented session at the AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting in Durango Colorado June 13-16, 2010.  Announcement via the GEOMOD-LIDAR-L and ASU LIDAR listservs:

Greetings all,

The AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting will be held in Durango Colorado June 13-16, 2010. In addition to a broad range of technical sessions, the meeting features a session “Multi-scale Observations and the Application of Remoting Sensing and Lidar to Rocky Mountain Petroleum Exploration”.  This technical session is being co-chaired by Tim F. Wawrzyniec (tfw@unm.edu) and Gary Weissmann (weissman@unm.edu).

We invite contributions from all geologic and geophysics disciplines centered around the principle theme of field-based studies that are combined with digital geospatial characterization as applied to geologic problems.  Although lidar technology is of specific interest, we encourage the submission of talks that include studies where seismic, ground-pentrating radar, or other remote sensing approaches that have been deployed to build imagery to enhance our understanding of geologic process.

If you are interested in contributing, please contact either of the technical chairs if you have any questions.  Otherwise, follow either of the following links:

http://www.fourcornersgeologicalsociety.org/meeting_2010/index.asp

or

http://www.aapg.org/meetings/rms/

The deadline for submission is February 1, 2010.

On behalf of the technical committee thanks for your attention and hopefully we will see you in Durango!

Cheers
Tim & Gary

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LiDAR-Specific Sessions at Fall AGU Meeting

Posted on Fri, August 28, 2009 by ccrosby in Meetings

There will be two sessions at the 2009 Fall American Geophysical Union (AGU) Meeting in San Francisco (December 14-18, 2009) specifically targeted at Earth science applications of LiDAR.

One session is focused on terrestrial LiDAR (TLS):

G17: Ground Based Geodetic Techniques and Science Applications
Conveners:  Gerald W Bawden- US Geological Survey, Benjamin Brooks - University of Hawaii, David Phillips - UNAVCO

Ground-based geodesy is a rapidly expanding and evolving technology and because of their portability, relative ease of use, long acquisition ranges, and sub-cm spatial resolution, tools such as terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) and/or ground-based radars (GBR) promise to expand our detailed understanding of the fundamental processes that drive a broad range of spatial (3D) and temporal (4D) science applications. This special session invites contributions that discuss both the technical aspects of the technology and process-based geoscience studies using ground-based geodetic tools such as, but not limited to, TLS and GBR. What are the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of the technologies? How is the technology being used to address static and dynamic scientific problems? We envision contributions from many disciplines such as natural hazards, geomorphology, structural geology, glaciology, hydrology, snow science, biological science, tectonic, and volcanology.

while the other emphasizes airborne data:

G13: Airborne Geodetic Imaging: Advances in Instrumentation and Methods
Conveners:  William Eugene Carter - University of Florida, Ramesh L Shrestha - University of Florida, Mahta Moghaddam - University of Michigan

Modern airborne geodetic imaging sensors, including airborne laser swath mapping (ALSM), interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR, UAV SAR), multi-band digital photography, and hyperspectral imaging make it possible to collect high resolution (few meters down to sub-meter scales) topographic data over areas of hundreds to thousands of square kilometers, in time periods of hours. The resolution of these geodetic images is sufficient for developing and testing theories pertaining to land surface processes, and are increasingly being used for such other applications as surface-water hydrology, bathymetric mapping, landscape ecology, mapping of wildlife habitats, and forestry research and management. The focus of this session will be on recent advances in geodetic imaging technologies and methods, and more specifically on advances in the state-of-the-art of the instrumentation, operating procedures, processing, and filtering of observations to achieve the highest resolution and accuracy. Also of interest will be presentations focusing on possible improvements to the information content that might be achieved by combining observations from different geodetic imaging sensors (particularly of different resolutions), and combining geodetic imaging data with other types of observations. Presentations reporting scientific results obtained using geodetic images will be welcome, but the emphasis should be on the geodetic aspects of the research as opposed to discoveries more appropriate for presentation in sessions organized under other disciplines.

The AGU abstract submission deadline is September 3rd, 2009, 23:59 EST

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LiDAR Short Courses at the 2009 Geological Society of America Meeting

Posted on Thu, July 16, 2009 by ccrosby in Meetings • Workshops

The 2009 GSA Annual Meeting in Portland, OR will include two workshops devoted to LiDAR derived topography and applications to geoscience.  Ramon Arrowsmith and I taught a LiDAR-oriented GSA short course in 2007 (Denver) and found it to be an excellent way to introduce geologists to LiDAR topography.  You can find information and materials from our 2007 course here: Processing and Analysis of GeoEarthScope and Other Community LiDAR Topography Datasets

Additional information about the 2009 LiDAR short courses as well as the many other workshops offered by GSA is available on their Short Course Program page.

2009 GSA LiDAR Short Courses:

501. INTERFACE WORKSHOP: Recent developments in the methods and applications of terrestrial laser scanning (ground-based LiDAR) in geologic research and education
Fri., 16 Oct., 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Instructors: John Oldow and Carlos Aiken, Univ. of Texas at Dallas; David Phillips, UNAVCO

This workshop will provide faculty, students, and professionals with the basic principles of Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), aka ground-based LiDAR, workflows and best practices for the acquisition and processing of TLS data, an overview of various TLS platforms, and examples of science and education applications. This one-day workshop will consist of lectures and hands-on application of TLS equipment and data processing. TLS provides very high-resolution images over relatively small areas, is relatively inexpensive to acquire, and has been used successfully to support a wide range of geoscience investigations from outcrop mapping to deformation monitoring.

GEON / OpenTopography are collaborators on the INTERFACE project and this should be an excellent workshop for geologists interested in learning about the exciting potential of Terrestrial Laser Scanning.

The second workshop is devoted to airborne LiDAR topography data of the type hosted by OpenTopography.  This 1.5 day course features a long list of very qualified instructors (including me!) and should be an excellent overview and introduction to LiDAR topography for geologic applications.

515. Introduction to the acquisition, visualization, and interpretation of airborne LiDAR-derived digital elevation models
Sat., 17 Oct., 9 a.m.–6 p.m.; Sun., 18 Oct., 9 a.m.–12 p.m. Instructors: Ian Madin, Oregon Dept. of Geology and Mineral Industries; Ralph Haugerud, USGS; Michael Oskin, Univ. of California at Davis; Chris Crosby, Univ. of California at San Diego; Ramon Arrowsmith, Arizona State Univ.

LiDAR-derived elevation datasets are becoming widely available and offer digital elevation models (DEMs) of unprecedented resolution and accuracy. This course will teach geoscientists to acquire, visualize, and analyze LiDAR-based DEMs. Guided tutorials on individual workstations will use ESRI ArcGIS software, GEON software products, and LiDAR viewing freeware. The field portion of the class will compare recent high-resolution LiDAR images with the real environment of the surrounding area. The instructors are geologists who have worked with LiDAR data for many years at UC-Davis, Arizona State Univ., the GEON program, and the Puget Sound and Oregon LiDAR Consortia.
This course will be held in the Portland State University Geology Department GIS training laboratory.

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Report from the Workshop on Studying Earth Surface Processes with High-Resolution Topographic Data

Posted on Fri, April 17, 2009 by ccrosby in Meetings • News

The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) has released the report from the workshop organized by their steering committee last summer (June 15-18, 2008) in Boulder, CO on Studying Earth Surface Processes with High-Resolution Topographic Data.  The workshop, attended by 50 researchers, provided an opportunity for discussion of current research activities utilizing LiDAR as well as to identify emerging research opportunities, community challenges, and technological and education needs.

This report, prepared by members of the NCALM steering committee with contributions from participants at the WSESP, highlights key scientific opportunities presented at the workshop, and identifies some of the challenges for maximizing the scientific potential of research with high-resolution topographic data. During the final day of the workshop, participants identified key areas emerging in this field, new ways to detect and characterize processes, and approaches to detect changes in dynamic systems.  Three areas that attracted particular attention were 1) the connections between ecosystems and topography, 2) the flux of water, sediment, and other substances down hill slopes and through drainage networks, and 3) the use of repeat LiDAR surveys to study landscape change in response to geological and biological disturbances (e.g., earthquakes, fires, dam breaching, and timber harvest).

OpenTopography was represented at the workshop by Ramon Arrowsmith and I.  It was quite apparent during the workshop that there is a need in the Earth science LiDAR community for better access to datasets as well as a centralized repository for sharing software and tools.

The rapid emergence of new technology, datasets, and ideas poses challenges as well as opportunities for the Earth science community. Foremost among the challenges are the needs to 1) better facilitate sharing of public-domain LiDAR databases and tools for analysis and visualization, and 2) maximize dissemination of new ideas and discoveries.

The workshop attendees appreciated the need for a system such as the OpenTopography Portal and the report nicely articulates this need in sections III. Software, Tools, Tutorials, and Education and IV. Improvements in Gathering and Disseminating High-Resolution Topographic Data

I have posted the full Workshop report in the Documents portion of the OpenTopography Portal (under Resources).  Directly download the report (PDF) HERE

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Lidar Session at 2009 Portland GSA meeting

Posted on Mon, April 06, 2009 by ccrosby in Meetings

Abstract submission is now open for the 2009 GSA Annual Meeting in Portland, OR.  Ian Madin of DOGAMI is convening a session on LiDAR applications to geologic, geomorphic and geohazard mapping.

T145. Use of High-Resolution Lidar DEMs for Geologic, Geomorphic and Geohazards Mapping
High resolution lidar DEMs are becoming widely available, and can revolutionize geomorphic, geohazards and geologic mapping. This session will provide current examples of the use of this data

Abstracts are due by 11 August 2009.

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AGU Joint Assembly and Silvilaser 2009

Posted on Mon, February 23, 2009 by ccrosby in Meetings

A few recent announcements about upcoming meetings that may be of interest to the OpenTopography community:

”Application of Laser Scanning to Geophysical Studies” at the AGU Joint Assembly 24-27 May 2009 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada:

G04:  Application of Laser Scanning to Geophysical Studies

Laser Scanning methods (e.g. LiDAR) have opened up new realms of resolution in the surveying and characterization of the surface of the earth. This rapidly evolving technology enables new perspectives on geodetic and geophysical problems, while presenting new challenges in developing techniques and software to process, visualize and interpret the vast quantities of data it can produce. This session will focus on geophysical investigations using terrestrial or airborne laser scanning or studies that address technical issues of applying laser scanning to geophysical problems.

The abstract deadline is 4 March 2009.  Abstracts related to either airborne or terrestrial laser scanning are welcomed and encouraged.

Sincerely yours,
James Foster and David Phillips

Silvilaser 2009 - Lidar Remote Sensing for Vegetation Studies

Dear Colleague,

As you may know, the Silvilaser 2009 conference on Lidar Remote Sensing for Vegetation Studies will be organized in College Station, Texas, USA, October 14-16, 2009, on the Texas A&M University campus. Silvilaser 2009 is the 8th international conference on lidar applications for assessing vegetation, with a spectrum of topics that include ground-based, airborne, and satellite sensors. The range of applications is broad and contains forest inventory, mapping of biophysical parameters – biomass, carbon, and LAI - habitat, and 3D structure assessment. The aim of the conference is to bring together an international group of lidar scientists to present ongoing research on assessing vegetated ecosystems, to facilitate and reinforce international ties, and to discuss future research directions for studying vegetation with lidar sensors on all three platforms. 

The conference website has been updated, so please take a look and find information about topics, important dates, and the template for preparing a paper submission. The deadline for submission of papers for oral or poster presentations is April 3rd. Papers of up to eight pages will be blind-reviewed by the Scientific Committee for being accepted for presentation. Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing (PE&RS) will publish a special issue with papers presented in the conference, in January 2011. PE&RS papers will be selected through the journal review process.

On behalf of the Organizing Committee, I kindly invite you to visit http://silvilaser.tamu.edu/ and consider submitting a paper or participating in the conference. Please forward the message to colleagues of yours that might be interested and accept my apologies for any cross-postings.

I look forward to seeing you in College Station. Best regards,

Sorin Popescu, Silvilaser 2009 Chair

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High resolution terrain session at MODSIM09

Posted on Sun, December 21, 2008 by ccrosby in Meetings

Another email announcement about an upcoming meeting with a session devoted to high resolution topography data.  This session looks quite interesting as the MODSIM09 conference has the stated goal of “Interfacing Modeling and Simulation with Mathematical and Computational Sciences”.  The abstract deadline is December 31st.  Email initially distributed via the ASU LiDAR listserv.

Dear lidar listserv members

At the Modelling and Simulation conference next July in Cairns, Australia, we are running a session on using and working with high resolution terrain data with a particular interest in lidar - see details below.

We extend an invitation to submit an abstract (up to 500 words) for this session. I apologise for the late notice, abstract submission closes at the end of December.  Abstracts can be submitted through the conference web site http://www.mssanz.org.au/modsim09/index.html

Best wishes

John Gallant
Research Team Leader - Terrain Analysis John.Gallant@csiro.au +61 2 6246 5734

F13. Terrain analysis and geomorphometry with high resolution terrain data
Organisers: Drs. Gregory Summerell (Gregory.Summerell@environment.nsw.gov.au)
John Gallant, Trevor Dowling and John Wilford

This session covers the broad area of high resolution terrain analysis and geomorphometry with regard to data capture, processing, integration and applications. The session aims to broaden these topics to include new or improved techniques that have lead to wider availability and use of high resolution terrain data, encourages knowledge sharing of experiences, problems and advances in this rapidly growing area of technology and science. The session wishes to build from previous MODSIM sessions on this topic where key areas identified for further development included: 1) the need to develop a library of algorithm techniques to avoid duplication of effort when using finer scaled terrain analysis data, 2) advances in utilising the multiple returns acquired from data acquisition techniques such as LiDAR, 3) developing the most efficient ways to utilise technology for data storage and handling, 4) integrating terrain analysis data at different resolutions to provide different but compatible elevation data for different purposes, and 5) development of tools for terrain analysis quality assessment. Papers that are showing progress on these issues are encouraged. In addition general topics of interest to this session also include: A) new applications of terrain analysis data made possible by higher resolutions, B) new methods to extract information from high resolution terrain data, C) applications in geomorphology, ecology, soil science or hydrology opened up by the new technology, D) any other topic related to the collection, processing and use of high resolution terrain information.

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SSA 2009 special session on LiDAR

Posted on Wed, November 26, 2008 by ccrosby in Meetings

Here is a call for abstracts for a special session at the 2009 Seismological Society of America meeting in Monterey, CA devoted to applying LiDAR data to the study of active faults.  Full announcement courtesy of Carol Prentice (USGS):

Dear Colleagues - we are organizing a special session for the 2009 Seismological Society of America meeting (April 8-10, in Monterey, CA
- see http://www.seismosoc.org/meetings/2009/index.php) on the application of LiDAR data to the study of active faults.

I hope you will consider submitting an abstract to this special session (deadline is January 11). If you do plan to submit an abstract, could you please as soon as possible - this will help us to put together the best possible session. Also, if you know that you will not be able to submit and abstract, that would be useful information as well.

Thanks very much, and please forward this to any colleagues who you think might be interested.

Carol Prentice (cprentice@usgs.gov)
Timothy Dawson
Ashley Streig

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