OT Blog
Information and discussion related to high-resolution lidar topography for the Earth sciences
Aug 26, 2009
This week the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) released a new digital map series and a new digital data series featuring LiDAR data collected in the Portland Metro area by the Oregon Lidar Consortium. Details about the release are available in a press release [PDF] and on their new LiDAR Publications page.
The Lidar Imagery Series (LIS) publications are PDF format maps showing bare earth and first return ("highest hit" in DOGAMI parlance) surfaces. 20 ft contours are shown on the bare earth images while the "highest hit" surface has the vegetation colored by... more
Aug 11, 2009
OpenTopography team member Ramon Arrowsmith has been selected as a 2009-2010 EarthScope Speaker. The EarthScope Speaker Series is part of the larger EarthScope Education and Outreach program and seeks to present the scientific results of EarthScope researchers to faculty and students in departmental seminars at colleges and universities.
Ramon's presentation is titled: High spatial resolution tectonic geomorphology of active fault zones of western North America
GeoEarthscope and related LiDAR topography efforts have illuminated thousands of kilometers of active fault traces at... more
Aug 3, 2009
The recently released ASTER Global Digital Elevation Map (GDEM) from NASA and Japan's METI has been widely publicized on geospatial data blogs, email lists and in the mainstream media. At 30 meter resolution, these data promise relatively high-resolution DEM coverage for most of the globe (coverage falls between 83N and 83S latitudes). These data can be accessed either via NASA's EOS archive or Japan's Ground Data System
OpenTopography team member Ramon Arrowsmith has a preliminary comparison of the ASTER GDEM data with 90 m Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data on his blog... more
Jul 17, 2009
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... more
Jul 6, 2009
An announcement from Dr. Nancy Glenn at the Boise Center Aerospace Laboratory at Idaho State University:
Colleagues,
We are advertising for a LiDAR post-doc in Boise - please see the link
below for the great opportunity and pass along!
http://www.isu.edu/humanr/joblist_files/NC0018.shtml
Many thanks,
Nancy Glenn
May 7, 2009
Officially released earlier today, the Intermountain Seismic Belt (ISB) GeoEarthScope LiDAR dataset, covering parts of the Wasatch fault in Utah, and Yellowstone and Tetons National Parks in Wyoming, is quite spectacular. I've been browsing the data via the Google Earth KMZ hillshade file that I produced and thought I'd post some screen captures to encourage you to download the file and explore the data too. The DEM data that was used to generate these hillshades can be downloaded from the OpenTopography Standard DEM page. The full ISB point cloud will be available via OpenTopography soon... more
May 1, 2009
I received this message from Paul Kinder at the Canaan Valley Institute (CVI) regarding their ability to provide LiDAR and digital imagery data acquisition and processing at cost to academic researchers and institutions. More information about CVI's LiDAR program can be found at http://www.canaanvi.org/canaanvi_web...Lidar... more
Apr 29, 2009
For the 6th year in a row, GEON will be hosting the Cyberinfrastructure Summer Institute for Geoscientists at San Diego Supercomputer Center, August 10-14. Of particular interest to the OpenTopography community, CSIG '09 will feature a day devoted specifically to OpenTopo. We will discuss the technology that makes OpenTopography work as well as brainstorm opportunities for integrating high-resolution LiDAR topography into the classroom. CSIG is a great chance for earth scientists to gain exposure to the emerging information technology trends and resources that make community, web-based,... more
Apr 29, 2009
The U.S. Department of Interior Recovery Investments site breaks down how the U.S. Geological Survey will be spending the approximately $140 million they are receiving as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Among the various USGS programs that will be receiving funding is $14.6 million devoted to "Imagery and Elevation Maps". Specifically, this funding will go towards acquisition of high resolution LiDAR topography and orthoimagery to enhance the National Elevation Dataset component of the The National Map.
The National Elevation Dataset (NED), one of eight base layers of... more
Apr 18, 2009
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... more