Where to find LiDAR data online? (USGS lidar point cloud in Equator)

hi my name is rebecca and today i'm going to show you how to find lidar data online specifically we're going to be looking at usgs lidar data and we're going to be using the equator platform to find that information and extract it so opening up equator now it's an online platform so this is just in the browser i'm going to look for a location in california the golden gate national recreation area it just looks like a really cool place to explore there's some awesome cliffs along the ocean side and it just generates some really interesting looking data so let's have a look here's the spot that i want to look at now so basically what i'm going to do is open up the topography menu in the top here and select usgs from the drop down list here it's already chosen and first i am going to select a 3d surface with a one meter resolution select area to view and draw the shape that i'm interested in looking at once you click yes it's going to start processing the data and i'm going to start the same thing with contours i'm going to generate 5 meter contours from that lidar data all right so here it is my 3d surface has just finished processing and now oh here are my contours as well too so you're probably wondering where is the lidar data i came here to see point clouds and you're showing me contours i don't understand so here's the thing i actually find it's really difficult to look at raw point cloud data so personally i like to see the information in this form it's a lot easier to understand but don't worry i will get to the point clouds at the end of this video i'm just going to walk through a few more things first i'm basically now in the layer menu i'm just showing you that you can change the color of your contours to kind of blend into the actual terrain a little bit better i'm adding different labels for elevation and so on my thinking behind this is that you know there's a lot of people out there that probably don't just need the points they actually need to create some sort of deliverable or pretty figure showing what the what the surface looks like so this is what it's going to allow you to do here basically actually create something that you can include in a report or otherwise share with somebody online i'm just showing you how you would actually create a cross section from that lidar surface here um just drop down a couple points and now once i create a view cross section i can see a really awesome preview there of what that clip looks like um just going over into my project menu now i've set up a figure template that once i click on it you can see that my lidar surface is right in here and i can drop that cross section down so in just a couple of minutes i've actually created something that is is useful for for my work as a as an engineer and maybe for yours too um that's a little bit beyond the point clouds but i will get back to the point clouds in just a minute um let's see going back to this map here so the one last thing i wanted to show you before i pull up the point cloud is basically how you would extract this data for use in cad software um that's a tool that i'm using most often so i'm i'm basically just gonna repeat the same process as before but with contours in dxf format selected for export um so i've chosen one meter contours and now i'm drawing my shape again clicking yes and basically what's gonna happen is an email will be sent to me with the link to download that information once it's finished processing and as soon as i get it i can just open it up right away in my cad software and start working on my project so you'll see that when you actually click on these lines the elevation comes up in the property window here um i've got five meters there and then at the top of the hill you can actually compare very quickly um yeah so the data looks great really interesting site and a place that i wish that i could explore in person um but i'm pretty far away from here so it's nice to be able to do so in equator and yeah so once i've done that i will switch back into the equator platform online and show you how to work with the point cloud info you can see i've just selected viewpoint cloud in equator but you can also choose to export it as well you have the option to export all of the last classifications or just the ground points again draw my shape click yes and then once that data has finished processing it's just gonna pop in give it a second to load the whole data set you can see it's kind of tiling in now and yeah so once it's in i can zoom in really quickly and rotate it and see how detailed the information is also looks great and let me just turn off the base map here it's a little bit easier to see when you don't have the imagery on back in my layer manager i can actually play with the way this data looks a little bit so if i open up colors you have the ability to change the color of the information based on different things like intensity height classification and so on so what i'm doing now is i'm basically just changing um just turning down all the parameters to zero and maxing out intensity so that i can see the detail in a way that's really easy for me to understand um this data is just gorgeous and i find that when i'm viewing it in you know full sort of intensity black and white i can make out a lot of the detail a lot easier um here i'm just drawing a cross section again because i want to compare yeah so as you can see this cross section has picked up the ground as well as some trees and other things that are in this point cloud just remove that there and um yeah it really is an interesting spot so if i turn the base layer back on um what you might want to do if you're sharing this information is just play with the base layer a little bit you have the option to turn saturation up and down as well as brightness uh in a way that features your point cloud in a really nice way um i kind of i i tend to like to turn the brightness down on the base layer just so that the point cloud pops a little bit yeah so there we go um awesome well thank you so much for watching it's been great showing you how to use equator and how to access lidar data online feel free to drop any questions into the comment section below or any suggestions for future videos and don't forget to subscribe if you want to see more thank you [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Equator

Views: 1,738

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: lidar, point cloud, usgs, equator

Id: 4ivk4y8U3-E

Length: 6min 37sec (397 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021