OT Blog

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

Haiti LiDAR

Recent reports indicate that there is LiDAR data being collected by a number of groups over Haiti in the wake of the 12 January magnitude 7.0 earthquake. These data will potentially be powerful for earthquake relief workers and the scientific community, and should be an important geospatial resource in the recovery and rebuilding of Haiti.

LAS Conversion Tools: LAStools and LASUtility

The ASPRS LAS format has become the standard for delivery of lidar point cloud data. However, because LAS is a binary format, a reader of some kind is necessary to ingest the data, visualize it, or perform additional analysis. Many of the major GIS software packages now support LAS (e.g. ArcGIS) and all of the commercial lidar specific software read and write LAS data.

Pardon Our Dust

OpenTopography is taking advantage of the expected lower than normal visitor traffic over the upcoming holiday week to make some site updates. We will be rolling out a new logo, site skin, and modified navigation among other things. We apologize in advance if you visit over the next week or so and things seem a little off - rest assured that the site should be back to normal by the first week in December. Here's a sneak peek at what the site will look like when we are done:

USGS LiDAR Funding Opportunity

Last week the USGS released its much anticipated LiDAR and Orthoimagery RFP. The ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) funded RFP will award 15 grants of up to $500,000 each for the "collection and processing of high resolution elevation data and orthoimagery". The grant is only open to institutions of higher education and state, local and Indian tribal governments.

Pages