CONDUCTING A LiDAR PROJECT AND WHAT YOU

CAN DO WITH THE DATA

CHRIS GUY
LIDAR PRODUCTION MANAGER
 Meeting The Needs Of The Project
 Choosing Appropriate System And Platform
 Project Planning Methods
 Processing Workflow
Outline
 Resources Necessary To Meet Schedule
 Applications
 Advantages of LiDAR
 Software
Meeting The Needs Of The Project

 Transportation
 Contours
 Transmission Lines
 Contours
 Volumes
 Buildings
 Feature Extraction
 Vegetation
 Erosion
Deciding Accuracy and Application
Appropriate Platform

 Helicopter
 Airplane
 Train
 Boat
 Automobile
 Tripod
Choose the Correct Sensor

 Large area sensor – Leica ALS70

 Corridor sensor - Optech Orion
 Mobile LiDAR sensor- Optech Lynx
 Fixed tripod scanner
 Cameras to support the LiDAR
 LiDAR Project Planning

 Plan based on
 Flightline distance limitations
 Workable blocks of data
 Delivery tiles
 Baseline requirements
 Control locations
 Accuracy
 Application
 Topography
LiDAR Project Planning
• Day or Night
 Safety considerations
• Leaf on or Leaf off
 Application dependent
• Summer, Spring, Fall, or Winter
 Most collects done in the spring and fall
 Summer collects take place for special
applications such as forestry
 Winter collects based on geographic
location
• Weather
• Smoke
Establish a Flight Plan

• Altitude
• System PRF
• Scan Angle
• Speed
• Overlap
 LiDAR Specifications
 Standard LIDAR – Nominal 1m point spacing
 15 cm RMSEz vertical accuracy
 Hydro Enforced breaklines
 20 foot nominal widths for rivers
 1 acre lakes/ponds
 General-use, Meets most needs for LiDAR-based DEM

 USGS Compliant LIDAR – Nominal 1m – 2m point spacing

 15 cm RMSEz Vertical Accuracy
 Hydro Enforced Breaklines
 100 foot nominal widths for rivers
 2 acre lakes/ponds
 Points removed off breaklines in separate class
 1m – 3m DEM
 Metadata
 Processing and Vertical Assessment Reports

 High Accuracy LiDAR – 0.7m or more Point spacing

 9.24 cm RMSEz
 Supplemental 1 foot accuracy specifications
 50% overlap for very dense vegetation
 Supplemental breaklines
 Vertical Assessment Report provided
 Requires very good calibration: Keep overlap
Terrain Impacts Collection and Processing Techniques
Swath Gap?

Possible Void Area

Flightlines with Proposed Base Stations
Planning Specialized LiDAR

 Data collection as required by client

 Contour products
 Sample density – 8 points per meter and higher
 3-D building extraction
 Clients requiring
additional classification
 Water
 Vegetation
 Buildings
Review and Initiate Project
Area 7,754 square miles
Flying Height 1,500 meters
Ground Speed 160 knots
Flight Line Sidelap 50%
Pulse Repetition
70 KHz
Frequency
Scan Angle 40° (total)
Scan Rate 35 Hz
Proposed Tile Format 2000 ft x 2000 ft
Total Number of Tiles 54,064 tiles
Units US Survey Feet
Project Work Flow

 LiDAR Acquisition (field)

 Control Survey (field)
 Airborne or Mobile
GPS/IMU
 Output LAS
 Mission Calibration
 Build Project
 Classify LiDAR point cloud
 Create Deliverables
Flight Plan Overlay On Imagery For Estimating
Establishing Control
 Check Point Surveys
Five Main Categories
 Hard Surface
 Low Grass
 High Grass
 Brush
 Forest
What does this mean?
By region?
Point distribution?
 Verification of Point Class

Legend
High Vegetation Points
Medium Vegetation Points
Bare Soil points
 GPS/GNSS Processing

• Launch GNSS Processor

• Convert Raw data files to
GPB format
• Aircraft
• Base Station
• Published Position and
Antenna Height and Type
LiDAR Processing - Processing
Checking Calibration
Differences between bad calibration and correct calibration

Unresolved Area Resolved Area

Checking Calibration
DZ ortho from several missions
All Points Surface Before Point Classification
Surface After Classifying Points To Ground
Surface From Point Cloud Classified to Ground
Applications
Hydro Breakline Collection Process (LiDARgrammetry)
Additional Classification
• Smooth Water Bodies
• Vegetation - Low, Medium, High
• Buildings - Points, Footprints
More Detailed Line work Buildings, Curbs, Oil Tanks, Road Center Lines
Further Classification Techniques

 Class Examples
-Building
-Ground
-Water
-Non Ground
-Above or Below Ground
-Transmission Lines
-Pipeline
-Rails
DAM Management
DSM- Digital Surface Model Intensity Image
Building and Vegetation Extraction
3-D Buildings
Airborne -Planemetrics
Airborne- Security Management

LiDAR of Mile High Stadium

LiDAR of Bridge at 0.3 meter collection

Airborne – As Built
Airborne – Transmission Mapping
Airborne – HCA and Risk Analysis
Pipeline Mapping
 Materials calculations – construction

 Site Design
Airborne – Change Detection
Contour and Orthorectification Generation
Filtered Bare Earth LiDAR & LiDAR DEM

Bare earth surface model Contours draped on surface Contours

Photography draped over Contours draped over

LiDAR data orthophotography
Terrestrial LiDAR –Construction and Engineering

44
Terrestrial LiDAR (AEC)
Architecture, Engineering, Construction

45
Terrestrial AEC
Architecture, Engineering, Construction

46
Terrestial
Emergency Management

47
Terrestrial -Transportation

48
Terrestrial -Accident Reconstruction

49
Rail Survey
Rail Survey – Image fused with LIDAR
Terrestrial LiDAR
Levee – Picked up cracks in the pavement on the levee
Terrestrial LiDAR
Geomorphology- Coal veins
Terrestrial and Helicopter
Transmission
3D models and Site design
3D Modeling
Survey-Grade Contour and Planimetric
Data
Advantages of LiDAR over Photogrammetry

 Collection day or night

 No sun angle requirements
 Ground data through canopy
 Measure heights of canopy
 Accurate surface models in forest
Thank You