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LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime

wired.co.uk

71–79 of 79 posts

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

#71

"the power to deploy these technologies at scale will only be deployed to fight serious crime" [proceeds to use dragnet to crack down on people dumping stuff in the woods]

What's the downside to pervasively prosecuting illegal dumping?

It opens the doors for going after even smaller crimes. Imagine if all CCTVs in London where online and they used them to purge all the homeless out of the city or jail them. Does that sound like a great idea to you? The law is often flawed and "micromanaging" people can be destructive for society.

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

#72
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the downside to pervasively prosecuting illegal dumping?

It opens the doors for going after even smaller crimes. Imagine if all CCTVs in London where online and they used them to purge all the homeless out of the city or jail them. Does that sound like a great idea to you? The law is often flawed and "micromanaging" people can be destructive for society.

So no considering the crime when deciding how to direct resources? Only pursue investigations of some murders?

(murder is the extreme example, but that's the argument you've just made, that devoting resources to prosecuting some particular crime is a slippery slope to abusing the homeless)

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

#73
post #41
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

Wow! A heartfelt thank you for this massive effort. Amazing work mate. Cheers!

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

#74
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're looking for just general examples and inspiration for things that can be done with LIDAR data, the LAStools blog [1] has a lot of em. Their mailing list is interesting as well. I've been using LIDAR data for doing canopy height modeling, and screening remote areas for possible exceptional/champion trees prior to checking it out in person. Haven't put anything online yet because I'm very new to GIS and this…

What software are you using? I have found PDAL[0] to be very simple to run with docker, though building from source is a bit consuming, especially as you reach out for more plugins you didn't realize you wanted initially. PDAL is my current software crush. [0] http://pdal.io

I was really pleasantly surprised with LAStools. It's mostly closed source, Windows only, and the free version is subtly crippled - but it works really well.

Getting it running under Wine was dead-simple. There's a significant community around it, and the author fights for open formats.

Checking out PDAL is on my todo list for sure.

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

#75
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/

That's very nice!

I started doing something similar when the Welsh LiDAR data was released ( details in https://theretiredengineer.wordpress.com/category/lidar/ ). I had written some code to manipulate PLY files when I was trying to create 3D models of standing stones using photogrammetry. It was then fairly easy to modify that code to create PLY models using the LiDAR data. However I found two problems for the area that I was interested in ( parts of south west Wales )

  1. The LiDAR data coverage was a bit patchy
  2. There were gaps in the data files which resulted in holes in the model
There was nothing I could do about #1 but it should be fairly easy to fix #2. The other option would be to use a GIS of some sort to process the data.

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

#76
post #41
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 super cool, nice one!

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

#77
post #6

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

Anything in particular you want to see?

Wasn't really after anything specific, just some a few interesting things thrown together. Checked back today and there are some good posts above!

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

#78
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unhelpful when it’s 32 million of them, and especially so when the size of a football field is variable.

> the size of a football field is variable Sure, maybe the local, community field you and me play on, but not the ones where "real" matches are played. They have a standard size. FIFA for example have the dimensions in their first law: http://www.fifa.com/mm/Document/FootballDevelopment/Refereei... Probably they mean a standard football field.

It lists a minimum and a maximum on page 34 and it’s a fair range. Am I missing something? If I google the home pitches of a few famous clubs, they all have different sizes too.

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

#79
post #69

Anyone know about LIDAR hardware i can purchase that is great for high resolution at low range. I'm looking for 1-3mm accuracy at a range from 0.1m up to 2m. 2D or 3D. IP67 rated.

LIDARs are awfully expensive for personal use. Look for other 3D scanning methods, and if you still think it's required, rent one.

This isn’t for personal use.
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