On-Demand 3D Topographic Differencing
By Chelsea Scott
OT Blog
Information and discussion related to high-resolution lidar topography for the Earth sciences
OT Bibliography 2019 - review of publications using OpenTopography
As most OpenTopography users hopefully appreciate, primary support for OT comes from the U.S. National Science Foundation, and thus our primary emphasis is on facilitating access to topographic data oriented towards Earth science research. In the context of academic research, publications are the most important metric for measuring impact. In 2019 we enhanced how we track publications to better understand and communicate how the open and easy access to topography data provided by OT enables scholarly work.
LINZ tutorial: From points to pixels — creating digital elevation models from OpenTopography point clouds
OpenTopography is collaborating with Land Information New Zealand to make 3D point cloud lidar data in New Zealand available for download, processing, and visualization. LIdar-derived DEM and DSM raster products are available for download via the LINZ Data Service. LINZ recently published another nice tutorial on how to use OpenTopography tools to produce custom raster terrain products (i.e., DEMs, DTMs, and DSMs) from LINZ point cloud data.
Topographic Differencing Showcase
OpenTopography recently released on-demand vertical differencing. Here, we showcase a range of anthropogenic, geomorphic, and tectonic processes imaged using topographic differencing on OpenTopography’s portal. In each image, erosion or downward change of the Earth’s surface is colored in red, while deposition or upward change is colored in blue. We include a link to the change detection page for each dataset pair so you can run your own jobs and explore.
LINZ tutorial: Creating point cloud visualizations with OpenTopography
OpenTopography is collaborating with Land Information New Zealand to make 3D point cloud lidar data in New Zealand available for download, processing, and visualization. LIdar-derived DEM and DSM raster products are available for download via the LINZ Data Service. Today, LINZ published a very nice tutorial on how to use OpenTopography tools to produce a 3D, interactive, browser-based point cloud visualisation.
Geomorphometry 2018
The 5th International Conference of the International Society for Geomorphometry - Geomorphometry 2018 - August 13–17, 2018 in Boulder, CO, USA
ABSTRACTS due: 15 March 2018 via EasyChair. More information on abstract submission at: http://2018.geomorphometry.org/
THEMES include but are not limited to:
Geologic Applications of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) at GSA Meeting, Flagstaff, AZ, 2018
We are pleased to announce an unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) theme session and short courses at the Geological Society of America Joint Section Cordilleran & Rocky Mountain Meeting in Flagstaff, AZ, May 14-17, 2018
TECHNICAL SESSION (abstract deadline Feb 20th, 2018):
T25. Geologic Applications of Unmanned Aerial Systems.
Intro to High Resolution Topography and 3D Imaging (TLS & SfM) at GSA 2017
At the 2017 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting (in Seattle, WA, October 20-25, 2017), UNAVCO in collaboration with OpenTopography will be offering a pair of one-day introductory short courses on High Resolution Topography and 3D Imaging. The Friday course will focus on terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), while the Saturday course will cover structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetry.
OpenTopography: 2016 in Review Infographic
OpenTopography had a great year in 2016, with continued strong growth in number of users and jobs run to access and process data. We've also continued to add data and successfully renewed OpenTopography funding from the US National Science Foundation. The infographic below summarizes various OpenTopography metrics from 2016 to illustrate use of the system in the past year.
TauDEM processing on OpenTopography
Topographic rasters produced from OpenTopography's high-resolution point clouds can be used in tandem with TauDEM, an open source analysis toolkit by Dr. David Tarboton at Utah State University, to extract hydrologic information from topography. TauDEM can perform calculations such as flow direction and area contributing to a point within the hydrologic network.