• Point Cloud Data
• Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and Orthophotos

• Point Cloud Data
• Digital Elevation Models (DEMs)

• Point Cloud Data
• Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and Orthophotos

Lidar derived-hillshade showing the San Simeon Fault overlain on a 3" resolution orthophoto.

View looking west at Morro Rock, Morro Bay, CA. Top image is a photo. Bottom image is LiDAR point cloud colored by 2009 NAIP Imagery

Critical Zone Observatory Datasets:
Under OpenTopography’s memorandum of understanding with the six NSF Critical Zone Observatories, we will be hosting all lidar data products collected to support research at the CZO sites. The CZOs are environmental laboratories established to study the chemical, physical and biological processes that shape the Earth’s surface, and thus lidar is one of several tools being utilized. Four CZO datasets have been released including the Southern Sierra Nevada CZO (snow on, snow off) and the Susquehanna Shale Hills CZO (leaf on, leaf off).

• Southern Sierra Nevada Critical Zone Observatory: Snow On
• Southern Sierra Nevada Critical Zone Observatory: Snow Off
• Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory: Leaf On Survey
• Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory: Leaf Off Survey

National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping Datasets (NCALM):
NCALM is a NSF-funded center that supports the use of airborne laser mapping technology (a.k.a. lidar) in the scientific community and is jointly operated by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston and the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley. Two of the three datasets were collected under NCALM’s graduate student seed proposal program that awards ten projects per year to graduate student PIs who need lidar data for their research.  Each collection is typically limited to no more than 40 square kilometers. The release of these data via OpenTopography is the product of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between OpenTopography and NCALM to make OT the primary distribution pathway for NCALM data.

• Landron Peak, New Mexico Survey
• Columbia, NC: Modeling Coastal Plain Wetland Ecosystems
• Survey of Sheepscot, Narragaugus and Pleasant Rivers, Maine

Utah Geological Survey Data:
The Utah Geological Survey as part of its mission to provide timely scientific information about Utah’s geologic environment, resources, and hazards, acquired LiDAR data with its partners in support of various geologic mapping and research projects. In 2011, the UGS and partners acquired approximately 4,927 square kilometers of 1 meter LiDAR data over the Cedar/Parowan Valley, Great Salt Lake shoreline/wetlands, Hurricane fault zone, Lowry Water, Ogden Valley, and North Ogden areas of Utah. The datasets from the UGS and its partners are in the public domain and can be freely distributed with proper credit to the UGS and its partners.

• Utah Geological Survey LiDAR

Oblique view of highest hit (left) and ground (right) hillshade imagery along Joes Valley Fault Zone, Central Utah.

Session: ESSI1.5 - 3D Spatial Data, Analysis, Visualization and Infrastructures in Geosciences - From 3D Point Clouds to Information; Fri, 12 Apr, 08:30 - 12:00 / Room R11

Talk: OpenTopography: Enabling Online Access to High-Resolution Lidar Topography Data and Processing Tools; Christopher Crosby, Viswanath Nandigam, Chaitan Baru, and J Ramon Arrowsmith; Fri, 12 Apr, 08:30 - 08:45.

Also in the same session is a presentation related to complementary work being performed by our partners at UNAVCO related to building an online terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data archive:

Talk: Development of an Online Archive for Terrestrial Laser Scanning Data; Christopher Crosby, Ben Lowry, Jeff McWhirter, David Phillips, and Chuck Meertens; Fri, 12 Apr, 11:45 - 12:00.

If you are at EGU and would like to arrange a meeting to discuss topics related to either of the above talks, or for general discussion of OpenTopography, email: crosby@unavco.org.

Coastal Dune Fields of Garopaba and Vila Nova, Santa Catarina State, Brazil
OpenTopography recently posted our first dataset in the Southern Hemisphere! This small dataset covers a 10 square kilometer area of two coastal dune fields (Garopaba and Vila Nova) in southern Brazil and was collected October 18, 2010. The purpose of the survey was to investigate the morphometry and evolution of coastal dune fields. 

• Coastal Dune Fields of Garopaba and Vila Nova, Santa Catarina State, Brazil

Point cloud image showing oblique view of Vila Nova dune field, colored by elevation. A highway in the foreground (bottom) of the image for scale

• Flathead Lake Biological Station, MT (September 2005)
• LiDAR Survey of Parts of Potomac and Susquehanna Rivers
• North Sister, OR: Collier Cone Lava Flow
• Mojave Desert, CA: Evolution of the Hector Mine Earthquake Surface Rupture
• Northern California Coast: Slope Failure in Low and High Uplift Regions
• St. Elis Mountains and Gulf of Alaska
• North Carolina Coast: Quantifying Patterns of Coastal Change (June 2006)
• North Carolina Coast: Quantifying Patterns of Coastal Change (July 2007)

Hillshade image in Google Earth of Collier Cone lava flow. North Sister, Cascades, Oregon.

This collaborative project between Idaho State University (ISU), Utah State University (USU), and USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) will develop the next generation of analytical and processing tools for new airborne and ground-based LiDAR monitoring data. The tools will help earth scientists and natural resource managers exploit these data streams to address some of our most pressing environmental questions and management challenges. The software tools will target Earth Science-specific analysis of 3-D point cloud data from platforms like airborne LiDAR (ALS), ground-based LiDAR (TLS), multi-beam SONAR (MBS), and/or Structure from Motion (SfM). The tool development will scale-up existing documented and proven algorithms to be more accessible, as well as build new algorithms that are necessary to address emerging challenges such as change detection analysis from repeat surveys, improved bare earth surface generation, and novel fusion of point clouds collected from different platforms (e.g. ALS and TLS). The new software will be developed collaboratively between geoscientists and computer scientists to optimize performance when handling the large and often problematic data volumes associated with point clouds. This work will provide a suite of community software that will permit innovative and potentially transformative data analysis with the potential to enhance our understanding of numerous earth surface processes.

Several of the developed tools will be integrated into OpenTopography as part of our ongoing effort to expand the processing capabilities of the OpenTopography system. By leveraging OpenTopography’s co-location of data and computing, the new lidar processing tools will permit users to perform on-demand processing and analysis of OpenTopography’s growing collection of hosted lidar datasets. In addition, the new software will be made available through OpenTopography’s Tool Registry.

Additional details in this ISU BCAL press release: BCAL awarded NSF grant to develop software tools to analyze LiDAR data

Missisquoi Watershed Data
The Missisquoi Watershed LiDAR data were provided by the University of Vermont’s Spatial Analysis Laboratory. The data were acquired by Photoscience and subsequently reviewed by the United Stated Geological Survey (USGS) and The University of Vermont. The data are made available on OpenTopography through a grant from AmericaView, a nationwide consortium for remote sensing education, research and geospatial applications.

• Missisquoi Watershed LiDAR

Unfiltered hillshade image showing Jay Peak ski resort in Jay State Forest, Vermont.

National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping Data
Three datasets covering areas of the Mojave Desert, the Northern California Coast Range and Southern New Hampshire are now available through OpenTopography. These data were collected from 2004 to 2012 by the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping. NCALM is an NSF-funded center that supports the use of airborne laser mapping technology (a.k.a. lidar) in the scientific community and is jointly operated by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston and the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California-Berkeley. One dataset in this release were collected under NCALM’s graduate student seed proposal program that awards ten projects per year to graduate student PIs who need lidar data for their research.  Each collection is typically limited to no more than 40 square kilometers. The release of these data via OpenTopography is the product of a memoranda of understanding (MOU) between OpenTopography and NCALM to make OT the primary distribution pathway for NCALM data.

• Mojave Desert, CA: Precariously Balanced Rocks in Seismic Hazard Analysis
• South Fork Eel River, CA Watershed Morphology
• West Swanzey, NH: Geomorphic Response to Dam Removal, Ashuelot River (2010)

Crosby, C.J., 2012, Lidar and Google Earth: Simplifying Access to High-Resolution Topography Data, in, Google Earth and Virtual Visualizations in Geoscience Education and Research, edited by S.J. Whitmeyer, D.G. De Paor, J. Bailey, and T. Ornduff, Geological Society of America Special Paper 492, 37-48.

Abstract:

High-resolution topography data acquired with lidar (light detection and ranging) technology are revolutionizing the way we study Earth surface processes. These data permit analysis of the mechanisms that drive landscape evolution at resolutions not previously possible yet essential for their appropriate representation. Unfortunately, the volume of data produced by the technology, software requirements, and a steep learning curve are barriers to lidar utilization. To encourage access to these data we use Keyhole Markup Language (KML) and Google Earth to deliver lidar-derived visualizations of these data for research and educational purposes. Display of full-resolution images derived from lidar in the Google Earth virtual globe is a powerful way to view and explore these data. Through region-dependent network linked KML (a.k.a., super-overlay), users are able to access lidar-derived imagery stored on a remote server from within Google Earth. This method provides seamless, Internet-based access to imagery through the simple download of a small KML-format file from the OpenTopography Facility portal. Lidar-derived imagery in Google Earth is the most popular product available via OpenTopography and has greatly enhanced the usability and thus impact of these data. Users ranging from scientists to K-12 educators have downloaded KML files ~12,000 times during the first eight months of 2011. The overwhelming usage of these data products demonstrates the impact of this simple yet novel approach for delivering easy to use lidar data visualizations to Earth scientists, students, and the general public.

Overview of the Special Paper volume:

GSA Special Paper 492 consists of 35 papers that collectively synthesize the development and current uses of Google Earth and associated visualization media in geoscience education and research. Chapters focus on Google Earth and related tools, such as SketchUp, Google Fusion Tables, GigaPan, and LiDAR. Many of these papers include digital media that illustrate and highlight important themes of the texts. This volume is intended to document the state of the art for geoscience applications of geobrowsers, such as Google Earth, along with providing provocative examples of where this technology is headed in the future.

• Niwot Ridge Long-Term Ecological Research Site, Colorado
• Perry Mesa, AZ: Ancient Agricultural Features and Landscape Transformation
• Truckee, CA: Sagehen Creek Snowpack Measurement
• Greybull, WY: Sheep Mountain Anticline
• San Gabriel Mountains, CA: Tectonics and Topography
• White Canyon and Hite, Lake Powell, Utah
• Henry Mountains, UT: Hillslope-Channel Coupling in a Bedrock Landscape
• Merced, CA: Origin and Evolution of the Mima Mounds
• Pahrump Valley: California/Nevada State Line
• Plum Island, MA
• Yellowstone National Park, WY: Quantifying Gravel-Bed Rivers
• White Sands National Monument, NM: LiDAR Survey of Dune Fields (Jan 2009)
• White Sands National Monument, NM: LiDAR Survey of Dune Fields (Sept 2009)

Lidar hillshade image of Sheep’s Mountain Anticline in Google Earth . View from the north.

• Silver Plume, CO
• Great Smokey Mountains, NC
• Blind Canyon and Box Canyon, Twin Falls, ID
• Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Mt. Tamalpais State Park, CA