LIDAR Data

Howdy all, I read the guide on the wiki about finding lidar data online, but none of the links worked. the only website I found to download lidar data with doesn't use any of the usable file formats. any help would be appreciated, and I will be glad to answer any questions.

 

What country are you looking for?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_lidar_dataset

This shows countries that currently have a national LIDAR dataset, either completed, or currently being completed. This list is definetly not complete nor accurate, as i have found websites for many different places, with different levels of user-friendliness (the French LIDAR and DEM wesbite has no option for english, have fun using google translate!). I find that LIDAR has some limitations, including of lack of data below tree lines or buildings, which can reduce the accuracy of the terrain below. This depends on the provider, Queensland has much better LIDAR data than New South Wales as it includes much more points under the tree cover, etc. I tend to use DEM (Digital Elevation Maps) more, as they are easier to use, and provide higher terrain accuracy, dependent on the resolution of the DEM.

Australia has the ELVIS website (Elvis - Elevation and Depth - Foundation Spatial Data). Just draw a polygon on the map, and choose the possible data for the location, type in an email and choose what you are using the data for, then complete the captcha. There are different resolutions for DEMs, white shows 1 second (1 Arc second is about 30 metres), darkest blue shows <1 metre. There is also LIDAR for some select areas. Go to layers, scroll down to "Point Cloud", select the option and it will show you where LIDAR is available. I like using australian data as it has a very wide range of terrains and environments.

https://elevation.fsdf.org.au/

Hope this helps!

 

I've spent the last two weeks collecting interesting roads to drive on.

LIDAR sources:
USA: https://www.coast.noaa.gov/dataviewer/#/lidar/search/ -good quality scans, draw a rectangle and get the goods,
Finland: https://tiedostopalvelu.maanmittauslaitos.fi/tp/kartta?lang=en -ok quality, select from a grid
Norway: https://hoydedata.no/LaserInnsyn/ -mostly good quality, draw a selection

Scout out possible roads in google maps with globe view enabled. You can right click and copy the latitude/longitude and then paste into the search bar of the above sites
This is a fun road: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.0190085,-81.0554548,2476m/data=!3m1!1e3

If rally is your thing this is a great site: https://www.rally-maps.com/database

Basic workflow:
Get point cloud data in a text file in the XYZ format. Otherwise convert with las2txt64.exe [ex. las2txt64 -i yourFile.laz -parse xyz -sep comma]
Open in MeshLab
Filters> Normals, Curvatures and Orientation> Compute normals for point sets -the default settings are good
Now you may want to delete points to save filter computation time and reduce poly count
Filters> Remeshing, Simplification and Reconstruction> Surface Reconstruction:Screened Poisson -Reconstruction Depth =11 Minimum number of samples =5
Higher Reconstruction Depth gives you a more detailed mesh if there are enough lidar points
You can edit out unwanted polygons and then save the mesh to OBJ.

Good luck

 

the US

 

I think the USGS has lidar data available for the US still, it's a bit obscure and hard to find but it should still be accessible and free as far as I know, I don't remember the specific website though. I know I was able to download it for one of the maps I was working on. Basically it lets you mark out the area you want to download and it will get all the geo data available like height maps lidar and other maps, the lidar data usually come in .LAS or .LAZ I think you pick and then I used Cloud Compare to edit and merge those files and convert them into 3D models.