October 2026 Data Releases

Nov 9, 2026

Our October 2026 data release features five USGS 3DEP lidar datasets, a Community Dataspace contribution from Morocco, and two NCALM surveys, one in Southern California and one in Louisiana

 

October 2026 Data Overview Map
A. New USGS 3DEP lidar data in California, Colorado, and Ohio (green polygons), and OT-hosted NCALM data in California and Louisiana (red markers). B. A new Community Dataspace dataset in Marrakech, Morocco (purple maker).

USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) Datasets

The USGS is currently making 3DEP lidar point cloud data available via an Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 Requester Pays Bucket, and as an AWS Public Dataset. To learn more about 3DEP and AWS see this USGS press release: USGS 3DEP Lidar Point Cloud Now Available as Amazon Public Dataset. Consistent with OpenTopography's mission of making high resolution topography data easier to discover and use, we provide a layer of value-added services that enable our users to subset, grid, download, and/or visualize any portion of the USGS 3DEP collection.

USGS 3DEP data is freely available to our core US academic user community (e.g. users who register with a .edu email domain). However, non-academics can access 3DEP data, as well as all other restricted datasets, by signing up for OpenTopography Plus (OT+). OT+ is a subscription service that enables one-stop, easy-to-use access to the highest quality lidar topography for the US. For more details about OT+, or to sign up, see the OT+ signup page.

New USGS 3DEP Datasets:

OpenTopography Hosted Datasets

Two new NCALM projects in Southern California and Louisiana were released this month. A lidar dataset was collected as part of the SEED grant program to help assess spatiotemporal dynamics of carbon accumulation within the Wax Lake Delta in Louisiana for August Aalto at the The University of Texas at Austin. Additionally, as part of the NCALM NOW program a lidar dataset was collected to help assess change detection and test models for post-wildfire erosion following the Palisades Fire in the Santa Monica Mountains, California for Joshua West at the University of Southern California.

New OpenTopography hosted data:

OpenTopography Community Dataspace Datasets

The OpenTopography Community Dataspace allows users who are producing small to moderate sized topographic datasets (with technologies such as lidar and photogrammetry) to archive their data with OpenTopography via a simple drag and drop user interface. This feature is designed to support data publication and citation, academic data reuse, and educational applications. Each submission is reviewed by OpenTopography staff and approved on a case-by-case basis. Datasets in the OT Dataspace receive a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and are displayed on the OpenTopography Find Data Map so they are discoverable and downloadable alongside data hosted by OpenTopography. The Dataspace is meant to complement standard OpenTopography data hosting for larger datasets produced by our data provider partners.

New Community Dataspace data:

Sample Graphics From Data Released in October 2026

Downtown Cincinnati
Downtown Cincinnati football and baseball stadiums along the Ohio River plotted as 3D point clouds colored by elevation. Data Source: USGS 3DEP: OH StatewideP3 6 B21.

Mt Shasta
Hillshade of the north eastern sections of Mount Shasta draped on Google Earth imagery. Data Source: USGS 3DEP: CA NorthernCA 7 B22.

Crop Circles
3D point cloud colored by intensity of crops in Colorado farmland. Data Source: USGS 3DEP: CO CentralEasternPlains 3 2020.

Colorized Point Clouds
3D point cloud colored by elevation of a section of Marrakech, Morocco. Data Source: CDS: High-Res Pleiades Point Clouds of the Guemassa Fault, Marrakech-Morocco.

Wax Delta
3D point cloud colored by intensity of the Wax Lake Delta, Louisiana. Data Source: OT: Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Carbon Accumulation Within the Wax Lake Delta, LA 2026.