Breaklines, Part 5 – Enforce Varying Elevation

In the last edition of LP360 News, we discussed the creation of 3D breaklines for enforcing situations where the elevation must be a constant along the breakline. The most common example of this applications is “water body flattening” such as lakes and ponds. In this final installment of the breakline series, we will consider the…

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LP360 Tools in the Arc Toolbox

Note: While the Arctoolbox tools are still an option within the product, the introduction of LAS File Analyst in v2018.1 and the ReProject/Shift LAS PCT in v2017.1, the new tools provide more efficient and robust tools and are now the recommended tools to use. LP360 for ArcGIS contains a set of tools which only appear…

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Breaklines, Part 4 – Enforce Constant Elevation

In the last edition of LP360 News, we discussed the creation of 3D breaklines. Recall that, for our purposes, a 3D breakline is a vector that has an elevation value (Z) associated with each vertex. Generally, 3D breaklines can be divided into two categories – those with the same elevation for each vertex (used for…

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Select LAS Files Graphically in LP360

Ever get frustrated trying to find one of your project LAS files in the LAS Files Table of Contents window? The Select LAS Files Graphically button is the tool you need. Simply click the Select LAS files graphically button and then select the LAS tile that you want to find. The corresponding LAS file is…

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Breaklines, Part 3 – Z Conflation

As we have discussed in the last two issues of LP360 News, breaklines are two- or three-dimensional graphic data (points, lines, polygons) that we introduce into an elevation model to alter the topology. When working with Geographical Information System (GIS) models, we nearly always model complex, irregular elevation data as a Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN).…

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Breaklines, Part 2 – Contours

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…

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LP360: Surface Exports with Large Void Areas

KBA-01009-G8L3T4 Purpose & Scope Modify LP360 Settings to Avoid Large Surface Voids Procedure Surface exports with large void areas such as lakes or other water bodies may require changes to the default export settings. LP360 makes inspections of the neighborhood adjacent to small processing blocks in order to correctly identify the right set of points…

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Breaklines, Part 1 – An Introduction

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…

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How Hillshade works in LP360

Hillshading is a way to determine the hypothetical illumination of a surface based on a given light source position in the sky. Positions on the terrain that are most exposed to the light source have high illumination or brightness values, whereas terrain positions that are hidden or protected from the light source have low to…

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Adding the 3rd Dimension to Imagery

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,…

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