okansas.blogspot.com

okansas.blogspot.com
Occassional thoughts about orienteering

Monday, March 24, 2008

Playing with Lidar basemaps

I just discovered a bunch of "Lidar" data for the Kansas (aka Kaw) River valley, including Douglas, Jefferson, Wyandotte, and Shawnee counties. So, I figured I'd learn just enough about Lidar to see how hard it'd be to go from data to some sort of basemap.

It turned out to be very easy.

1. Scan the discussion at Attackpoint.

2. Scan the front page of Lidar basemaps for orienteering.

3. Download and install the QuickGrid software (a link is at the Lidar basemaps site).

4. Download some data from the Kansas GIS data site. I downloaded 3 square kilometers of Lidar 2006 bare earth for a park not so far from home.

5. Run the data through QuickGrid and you've got a decent looking 2 meter contour interval map (see above...with fancy colors turned on to make the image a little catchier). QuickGrid also lets you export the contours as DXF, which can be opened in OCAD.

Without actually going to the terrain to check it out, I can say that the contours look reasonable - certainly a bit better than the standard USGS topo.

Judging by the discussion at Attackpoint, there is probably more info one can get from the Lidar data if you're willing to spend the time learning more about it (and have some patience for working with computers and software).

Back to okansas.blogspot.com.

posted by Michael | 9:00 PM

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