Locating and Downloading Lidar Data (Chapters 7-9)

Section 2 (Chapters 7-9) reviews lidar data discovery—locating and downloading lidar data, and information about the downloaded data. Many lidar data products can be located and downloaded via the internet, free of charge. However, you must be careful of the site selected and the standards used as the data was acquired and processed. Many data can be found via government sources. Chapter 7. Locating Lidar Data covers identifying and downloading .las files from local, state and international sources and then Chapter 8. Lidar and the National Map Viewer demonstrates the process of locating and downloading data from the National Map Viewer. The data found on the National Map Viewer can be locally acquired; it conforms to USGS and ASPRS standards and thus is housed by the U.S. Federal Government. Chapter 9. Information about the Downloaded Files reviews how to access and read metadata for lidar data downloaded from the sources used in Chapters 7 and 8.