SC LiDAR Workshop 2008
1
Using LIDAR data
with ArcGIS
Clayton Crawford
Lindsay MacDonald
ESRI
Purpose
• Discuss ESRI solutions pertaining to LIDAR
• Managing the data
• Deriving useful information
• Examples and demonstration
Perception, Understanding, and
Point of View
• What is LIDAR?
• What’s it used for?
• How is it used?
• Answers vary depending on who you ask
– Aerial vs. terrestrial
– Points vs. rasters
– DTM vs. DSM
Different Types of Users
• Data collection
– Fly
– Process
– Deliver
• Management
– Store
– Distribute
– Update
• Use
– Display
– Query
– Analyze
ArcGIS
Wide Range of Tools
• Different types of organizations
– Small business
– Larger enterprise
• Applications
– Generic tools
– Customizable
• Flexible workflows
Data Types Generally Associated
With Surface Modeling
• Vector source measurements
• Contours
• Rasters
• TINs
• Terrain Datasets
Terrain Dataset
• Multi-resolution TIN based surface
• Resides in database
• Lives next to source measurements
• Scales to handle large data collections
Multi-resolution terrain dataset (TIN structure)
Multi-Resolution Surface Model
Points and Breaklines
Terrain Pyramids
Implementation
• TIN surface generated on-the-fly for given area of
interest and level of detail
• Supports point, multipoint, polyline, and polygon based
features
• Seamless
• Fast
• Scalable
Contours
Terrain Dataset Workflow
Data Conversion
Product Generation
Proprietary or de-facto
standard formats
Surface Integration
ArcGIS
Terrain
Dataset
Pyramid
TIN surfaces
Points
Breaklines
DEM
TIN
LIDAR post-
processed data
(points)
SONAR post-
processed data
(points)
Photogrammetric
data
(points & lines)
Initial Steps
• Preliminary Inspection
• Import
• Terrain construction
• Examination
Editing
• Updates accomplished through edits to source
measurements
– Coarse grained area operators to append, remove, replace
mass points
– Standard/custom edit tools (e.g. ArcEditor) used to modify
polylines, polygons, spot heights
– Terrain rebuild based on dirty-areas
• Support for versioning
– What if