Lidar BreakdownConcerns, Trends & Availability

Eric Morris

ESRI Southeast User ConferenceMay 4th, 2015

Active System•Uses laser ranges, scan angle & positional IMU data to produce x,y,z•Post-processing costly•“point clouds”•>400K pulses/sec

Basics of Light Detection and Ranging

A (Brief) History of Lidar

• 1960s – Apollo landings• 1977 – NOAA/NASA AOL• 1993 – Airborne GPS & IMU• 2003 – ASPRS LAS 1.0 format (open source)• 2010 – NEEA• 2012 – U.S. Interagency Elevation Inventory• 2014 – 3DEP • ~2020 – GEDI

ConcernsGeodesy Vertical & Horizontal Accuracy

RMSEZ & ρ

Slope StabilityOso, WA

Shoreline Delineation

Ocracoke, NC

Beach Erosion

Natural Disaster

Assessments

Fire Island, NY

Willapa, WA

Topobathymetric Lidar

Topobathy

Why TopobathyNOAA NGS Atlantic Coast Mapping Project

Lockwoods Folly Inlet, NC

1 mi

Airborne Lidar Bathymetry (ALB)

• Applicable to oceans, rivers, lakes

• Tides

• Snell’s Law

• Water Clarity

• Eye safety

• Air Space

• Refraction

“Requires more everything”

Tampa Bay, FL

Trends

1997 - 2000

www.coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/

www.coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast

Eric L. MorrisEric.Morris@NOAA.gov

Questions?

Special Thanks:Kirk Waters, PhD, Applied Sciences, NOAA OCMAmar Nayegandhi, Director of Remote Sensing, DewberryChris Parrish, PhD, formerly of NOAA NGS and CCOM-JHC, now at Oregon State Univ.