Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

wired.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 79 posts

Re: LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

#51

Post by oasisbob »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #47
oasisbob wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data from the Puget Sound LIDAR Consortium [1] is freely available, you just need to ask for an account. (Not 100% sure on licensing terms, though.) Seattle / King County just finished a rescan in 2016/2017 and the data is stunningly good. [2] Really good consistency and density. The DLM/classification/cleanup seems excellent. [1] http://pugetsoundlidar.ess.washington.edu/ [2] (private, need an account) http://pu…

Heh. Good to see people like the products.

Heh, I get the impression you spend a lot of time in Corvallis? ;)

Really though - as a beginner, I started with the 2003 data, and had a really hard time with it. Had to deal with file conversions rerun ground classifications and thin and do all sorts of cleanup to sorta get where I was trying to go.

Re: LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

#52

Post by RosanaAnaDana »

oasisbob wrote: post #51
RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh. Good to see people like the products.

Heh, I get the impression you spend a lot of time in Corvallis? ;) Really though - as a beginner, I started with the 2003 data, and had a really hard time with it. Had to deal with file conversions rerun ground classifications and thin and do all sorts of cleanup to sorta get where I was trying to go.

;-) yep.

Re: LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

#53

Post by robk »

hanoz wrote: post #41
alannala wrote: post #6

Has anyone seen any nice examples of work done with the open LiDAR data?

I downloaded all the 1m dsm composite data from the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales and used C#, System.Drawing.Graphics and hefty server from AWS EC2 to render 2 million png files, which I then moved onto a Scaleway C1 bare-metal ARM server, to produce this slippy lidar map of England and Wales: https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map

This is awesome thanks for sharing

Re: LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

#54

Post by fenwick67 »

mentos wrote: post #13

Anyone know where I could license/purchase hi-res LIDAR scans for use in game development?

opentopography.org has free data throughout the US (point clouds and rasters), but the resolution varies.

I personally [1] have imported it into Unity for a terrain heightmap.

[1] https://github.com/fenwick67/unityterrainfromtiff

Re: LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

#55

Post by monkeydust »

notahacker wrote: post #16
alannala wrote: post #6

Has anyone seen any nice examples of work done with the open LiDAR data?

3D printed model of London. http://www.aeracode.org/2016/5/16/hello-london-rising/

Pretty cool. Is there a way a non coder like me could stick in a postcode and get out a 3d file to take for printing?

Re: LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

#56

Post by notahacker »

monkeydust wrote: post #55
notahacker wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3D printed model of London. http://www.aeracode.org/2016/5/16/hello-london-rising/

Pretty cool. Is there a way a non coder like me could stick in a postcode and get out a 3d file to take for printing?

Finding Digital Surface Models by area (if they exist for the relevant region) on the UK government website isn't too difficult https://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey/index.jsp#/survey

The creator uploaded the convert-to-3D program, so once you've found the files it should be possible to turn them into 3D files provide you're comfortable running stuff from the command line and following his advice on parameters. https://github.com/andrewgodwin/lidartile

I haven't tried it yet though - it's on the to do list!

Re: LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

#58

Post by monkeydust »

notahacker wrote: post #56
monkeydust wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty cool. Is there a way a non coder like me could stick in a postcode and get out a 3d file to take for printing?

Finding Digital Surface Models by area (if they exist for the relevant region) on the UK government website isn't too difficult https://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey/index.jsp#/survey The creator uploaded the convert-to-3D program, so once you've found the files it should be possible to turn them into 3D files provide you're comfortable running stuff from the command line and following his advice on parameters. h…

Thanks! Seems very doable...

Re: LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

#59

Post by MonkeyDan »

kozikow wrote: post #46

Is there any repository of lidar data for US? Especially coastal states like Florida, Texas and California?

Yes! Check out the USGS National Map[1].

A lot of the country isn't covered, and what is there is pretty dated, but there's a recent capture of the entire west coast available.

[1] https://viewer.nationalmap.gov/basic

Re: LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

#60

Post by chx »

saosebastiao wrote: post #35

I really wish this technology could find its way into the hands of Ruth Shady in Peru. She was the discoverer of the Norte Chico civilization, the earliest known civilization in south america, and one of a select few civilizations worldwide that could be called a cradle of civilization (a civilization that emerged without outside influence). And despite the significance of the discovery, there is almost no funding fo…

There is so much land to scan. The vast majority of the Pontic-Caspian steppe for example. There is a lot of history to be found in burial grounds but it's a real lot of sparsely populated land and so noone has the slightest idea where to start.
Post reply on HN