Challenge Much of the Lake Michigan shoreline in Wisconsin has a coastal bluff varying in height from less than 20 feet to over 140 feet. These bluffs erode in a number of ways and at varying rates (Figure 1). Over 175 profiles of these bluffs were measured and analyzed for slope stability in the mid-1970s…
As I looked over previous issues of GeoCue Group News, I noticed that we announced in June that we would release LP360 2014.1 in late July! Well, obviously that did not happen. I made the decision in July to postpone the release while we added tools to measure LIDAR vertical accuracy and orthophoto horizontal accuracy…
The LP360 Rail Extraction tools for LIDAR data automatically extract a rail alignment (centerline) vector as well as classify “top of rail”. This feature is implemented as a semi-automated Point Cloud Task (PCT) and is available in the Advanced version of both LP360 for ArcGIS® and LP360 for Windows® (the standalone version of LP360). We recommend…
Challenge Hernando County Florida needed to create a 3-D model of the City of Brooksville and turned to the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) office for help in getting the estimated building heights. Solution Because of LIDAR’s 3-dimensional qualities it is the perfect data source to extract building elevation information. This point cloud characteristic…
Last month’s tool tip discussed using the Planar Point Filter to filter buildings from point cloud data. This month’s tool tip discusses building extraction, essentially the next step after creating a building filter. The Point Group Tracing and Squaring Point Cloud Task will allow you to further refine the point cloud data classified as building…
So you have received LIDAR data and you really need to classify all those buildings in a timely fashion. The LP360 Planar Point Filter is an automatic process for classifying planar surfaces such as buildings. Located in the Point Cloud Task tab of the Table of Contents window of LP360, you can quickly set up…
This month we are busy finalizing features and testing the 2014 annual release of GeoCue, which will be available in the coming weeks. We’ve worked hard to vastly improve the GeoCue update and installation user experience with our recently completed Quick Installer. The new installer handles updates to the software, both client and server, as…
GeoCue’s ongoing software development in support of optimized geospatial processing workflows includes research into Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) technology. GPUs, on both local and remote nodes, provide additional processing power for churning through mountains of imagery and LIDAR data. Stating the obvious, GPU technology has been around for a while. But what is less obvious…
Several of us in the company are avid model airplane enthusiasts, actively flying various types of models. We have been debating the merits of fixed wing “flying wings” versus gliders. Which of these is the better mapping platform? In fact, I covered this topic from a stability point of view in a recent “Random Points”…
Spatial data layers, predictive model outcomes, and GIS maps describing wildlife habitat relationships are now standard tools for guiding wildlife management and monitoring, and for targeting conservation actions in places where they have the greatest impact (Craighead and Convis 2013). Therefore, it’s not hard to imagine why airborne LiDAR has rapidly become one of the…
