Streamlined DEM downloads and improved processing speed in OpenTopography v 2.2 release

OpenTopography is pleased to announce another update to our system. This release - OpenTopography v 2.2 - provides a much needed improvement to our standard digital elevation model (DEM) download interface. The new system makes it considerably easier to select and download many files at once, and also fixes issues that were causing stalled downloads in the previous system. We've also updated the OpenTopography Points2Grid algorithm to improve processing speed on custom DEM generation from LiDAR point cloud data, and have made a number of tweaks to the OpenTopography website design and organization.

OpenTopography 2.2 Updates:

User Interface:
- New standard DEM download system, that offers bulk selection and download of files via a Google Maps interface.
- Design changes and minor reorganization to the OpenTopography website. Specifically, changes were made to the home page, /resources/ and sub-pages, and /community/ and sub-pages.
- Addition of Twitter "Tweet this" and Facebook "Like" buttons to OpenTopography Blog and News items to enable readers to share OpenTopography content with other Twitter and Facebook users.

System:
- New standard DEM access and storage system.
- Update to Points2Grid DEM generation algorithm to read LAS input data. Update dramatically speeds gridding of LAS format data.
- Fixed error in handling of GPS time in LAS format point cloud files output by OpenTopography.
- Minor updates to web services and related databases.
- Various bug fixes