In the previous issue of LP360 News, I introduced the use of Triangulated Irregular Networks (TIN) for modeling point derived elevation data as well as the basic concepts of “soft” breaklines. I realized when writing that first article that it is probably a useful exercise to review contours. Thus this part II article will be…
See the 2018 updated version of this article here. One of the more powerful capabilities within LP360 is breakline capture and enforcement. In fact, many LIDAR production shops use LP360 as their tool of choice for supplementing point cloud data (derived from LIDAR or correlated imagery) with breaklines. But what are breaklines and how should…
We often think of using LIDAR data either in simple operations for generating derived products, such as creating gridded elevation files, or for more esoteric operations, such as automatic extraction of building footprints. However, LIDAR data included as a standard layer in your ArcGIS® project (using LP360 for ArcGIS®, of course) can prove very useful,…
LP360 is a family of tools for exploiting point clouds. The fundamental difference between an image and a point cloud is that the point cloud is a three dimensional representation of an environment whereas an image is a two dimensional representation (or, at best, a “two and a half” dimensional representation). A second major difference…
LP360 (both LP360 for ArcGIS® and LP360 for Windows®) manages point cloud data at the file level and the Table of Contents (TOC) Layer level. You have probably noticed (if not used) the Active Layer selection tool in LP360. All commands in LP360 act on the currently selected active layer. For example, if you set…
I often find myself running point statistics in LP360 (either LP360 for ArcGIS or the standalone LP360) using the stamp Point Cloud Task tools. This allows me to take multiple samples across the project for point density testing or classification counts. I realized that it is not obvious that you can append to a shape…
We have recently released a new experimental (EXP) version of LP360 (2012.2.17.0). EXP versions allow us to release in-progress features to the subset of customers who like to experiment with software. If you have an active maintenance contract, you can install this release from the “Check for Updates” function in LP360 (they are web downloads).…
Unfortunately, much LIDAR data has been delivered in text format (American Standard Code for Information Interchange, ASCII) rather than the rich binary LAS format. Many agencies now have disk drives of LIDAR, in ASCII format, on the shelf that accompanied more familiar LIDAR-derived products such as gridded Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and digital contour files.…
LP360 has the ability to manage very large data sets. Unlike some other LIDAR processing applications, LAS files in LP360 are visible as LIDAR content regardless of the “zoom” level. In this article, I will explain how we accomplish this and what it means in terms of interacting with LP360. When you are zoomed out…
Did you know that you can “tune” how LP360 uses memory? This is accomplished via the Performance tab on the LAS Layer Properties dialog (Figure 1). A word of caution is in order before modifying these settings. If you are running a 32-bit version of LP360 (and, unfortunately, LP360 for ArcGIS® is forced to be…
