HR: 1020h
AN: H52E-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Airborne LIDAR Data Processing and Analysis Tools
AU: * Zhang, K
EM: zhangk@fiu.edu
AF: Keqi Zhang, Department of Environmental Studies & International Hurricane Research Center, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, United States
AB: Airborne LIDAR technology allows accurate and inexpensive measurements of topography, vegetation canopy heights, and buildings over large areas. In order to provide researchers high quality data, NSF has created the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) to collect, archive, and distribute the LIDAR data. However, the LIDAR systems collect voluminous irregularly-spaced, three-dimensional point measurements of ground and non-ground objects scanned by the laser beneath the aircraft. To advance the use of the technology and data, NCALM is developing public domain algorithms for ground and non-ground measurement classification and tools for data retrieval and transformation. We present the main functions of the ALDPAT (Airborne LIDAR Data Processing and Analysis Tools) developed by NCALM. While Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide a useful platform for storing, analyzing, and visualizing most spatial data, the shear volume of raw LIDAR data makes most commercial GIS packages impractical. Instead, we have developed a suite of applications in ALDPAT which combine self developed C++ programs with the APIs of commercial remote sensing and GIS software. Tasks performed by these applications include: 1) transforming data into specified horizontal coordinate systems and vertical datums; 2) merging and sorting data into manageable sized tiles, typically 4 square kilometers in dimension; 3) filtering point data to separate measurements for the ground from those for non-ground objects; 4) interpolating the irregularly spaced elevations onto a regularly spaced grid to allow raster based analysis; and 5) converting the gridded data into standard GIS import formats. The ALDPAT 1.0 is available through http://lidar.ihrc.fiu.edu/.
DE: 1640 Remote sensing (1855)
DE: 1819 Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
DE: 1855 Remote sensing (1640)
DE: 1894 Instruments and techniques: modeling
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting