OpenTopography News

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for Data Citation and User Interface Updates

2012-05-14T23:39:00-08:00

We are pleased to announce the release of version 3.7 of the OpenTopography system. This update includes improvements to the data selection interface, and dataset metadata pages.

Digital Object Identifiers:
A noteworthy component of this release is the introduction of a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for each OpenTopography hosted dataset. DOIs are persistent identifiers that were originally developed for publications, but are increasingly being used for scientific datatsets. DOIs are managed through time and will not change even if the object is moved or renamed; this means that OpenTopography data can be reliably referenced for future access by humans and software. DOIs also facilitate data citation, enable data reuse, verification, and tracking, and provide a means to recognize and reward data producers. OpenTopography’s DOIs are issued and maintained by the University of California’s Digital Libraries EZID program.

The OpenTopography DOI for each dataset is located on the dataset’s “full metadata” page. When referencing an OpenTopography dataset in a publication, the dataset DOI should be included, allowing readers to directly link back to the data products, metadata, and other information.

User Interface, Metadata and Data Access Updates:

More accurate estimations of number of points for a given classifications in user defined query areas. Previously, OpenTopography provided an estimate of the total number of points that would be returned for a given query. However, that estimate ignored the classification of the points (ground, vegetation, etc) and thus could be inaccurate. As of this v. 3.7 OpenTopography release, estimates of the number of points returned for a given query dynamically adjust as a function of the point classification selected.
Added additional properties to the ISO 19139 format metadata available for each dataset.
Numerous minor updates and bug fixes to map and user interfaces.

Five Datasets Now Available Including Hawaii, California, Idaho, Florida and North Carolina

2012-05-14T21:02:01-08:00

We are pleased to announce that five new point clouds datasets have been posted to OpenTopography. The datasets were collected by the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) and cover portions of Hawaii, California, Florida, Idaho and North Carolina. These datasets were collected for a variety of scientific purposes including identifying Scrub-Jay habitat, detecting a landscape’s response to tectonics and looking at forest leaf structure.

National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping Datasets:
NCALM is an NSF-funded center that supports the use of airborne laser mapping technology (a.k.a. lidar) in the scientific community and is jointly operated by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston and the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California-Berkeley. Four of the five datasets were collected under NCALM’s graduate student seed proposal program that awards ten projects per year to graduate student PIs who need lidar data for their research. Each collection is typically limited to no more than 40 square kilometers. This batch of NCALM datasets were collected in 2008 and 2009.

Hawaii Kauai Survey
Merritt Island, FL: Identification of Florida Scrub-Jay Habitat
Stanley, ID: Linkages Between Hydrologic Complexity and Nutrient Export
Point Reyes, CA: Landscape Response to Tectonics
Nantahala NF, NC: Forest Leaf Structure, Terrain and Hydrophysiology

Point cloud with intensity values (left) and Google Earth (right) image for a portion of the Point Reyes, CA dataset.

8 Airborne Lidar Datasets from Idaho and 4 Terrestrial Laser Scans of Fault Ruptures Available

2012-05-08T17:37:00-08:00

Now available through OpenTopography are twelve new airborne and terrestrial lidar datasets. Eight airborne datasets covering areas of Idaho are provided by the Idaho Lidar Consortium, US Forest Service, and several affiliated institutions and agencies. This release also includes four terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) datasets collected to accurately image surface rupture from earthquakes in Nevada and Mexico.

Idaho Lidar Consortium (ILC) Datasets

OpenTopography is working with the Idaho Lidar Consortium to provide online access to lidar data collected for earth and ecological studies in that state. In this release, eight point cloud datasets, totaling an area of 2,064 square kilometers, are now available via OpenTopograhy. These data have shot densities ranging from 0.35 shots/m² to 12.85 shots/m² and were collected to support forestry planning including vegetation structural modeling, erosion modeling, fuels, transportation planning, timber system planning, wildlife habitat modeling, and stream quality.

Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) Datasets

These data were collected by UC Davis researchers to investigate displacement along active faults. A pair of surveys for both the Dixie Valley earthquake rupture in Nevada, and the El Mayor-Cucapah (EMC) earthquake in Mexico are available. These datasets have very high shot densities but cover a fraction of the area an airborne lidar dataset typically does. The Dixie Valley Fault datasets are from sites along southern extent of the 16 December 1954 M 6.8 Dixie Valley earthquake rupture in central Nevada. The El Mayor-Cucapah TLS datasets captures primary rupture features along a ~200 m long stretch of the 4 April 2010 M 7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake rupture in northern Baja California, Mexico. Researchers from UC Davis were on site collecting these EMC datasets 12 days following the earthquake. The EMC TLS datasets provide high-resolution imaging of sections of the rupture also captured by the El Mayor-Cucapah Earthquake rupture airborne lidar scan also available via OpenTopography.

Lidar for the Willamette Valley and Malheur National Forest, OR and Black Hills, SD Available

2012-04-25T23:57:00-08:00

OpenTopography is pleased to announce the release of another installment of lidar data from the Oregon Department of Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) and two new datasets from the United States Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Willamette Valley, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries Lidar Program Data:
With the installment of the Willamette Valley portion of the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries Lidar Program dataset, the DOGAMI dataset now contains an impressive ~192 billion points, covering an area of 18,664.3 square kilometers. This dataset covers most of the Willamette Valley and includes Eugene, Corvallis, Salem and portions of the Cascade Foothills. DOGAMI has been supervising and coordinating the collection of large swaths of high resolution, high accuracy lidar data in Oregon and adjacent states since 2006.

Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries Lidar Program Data

United States Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station datasets:
Andrew Hudak from the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station has provided interesting datasets from eastern Oregon and South Dakota. The lidar survey of the Malheur National Forest, Oregon contains two polygons covering an area of 128 square kilometers. The lidar survey of the Black Hills Experimental Forest, South Dakota covers an area of 28.5 square kilometers of an experimental forest within the Black Hills National Forest. These data were collected to support of natural resource research and management applications.

Lidar intensity image for Oregon State University football stadium.

New Metadata Pages and Bulk Download Policy

2012-04-10T23:44:00-08:00

OpenTopography is happy to announce several new system updates released this past Friday. These updates focus on metadata presentation, as well as some important changes to bulk data access via OpenTopography. Details:

Enhanced metadata pages for all datasets: Each dataset in OpenTopography now has an expanded and comprehensive metadata page that provides an overview of the dataset, links to the project survey report, dataset outline, as well as other related information. Click the “Full Metadata” link on each dataset page to access the metadata information.

Each dataset metadata record can now be exported as both plain text and CSW-compliant ISO 19139 XML. This is part of OpenTopography’s ongoing work to develop a CSW interface to OpenTopography’s data catalog; a full OpenTopography CSW interface will come in a future release.

The OpenTopography Metadata page now provides a complete list of metadata records (see above) for all hosted data.

New point cloud bulk download interface and policies: Historically, bulk download point cloud access has only been available to OpenTopography power users. The goal of providing simple http access to the tiled lidar point cloud files is to facilitate access to large volumes of data for advanced user who want to work with complete datasets (as opposed to the area of interest queries supported by OpenTopography’s map-based interface). Starting with this OpenTopography release we have changed our bulk download policy to allow access to these data for all registered OpenTopography users instead of just power users. To streamline downloads of these potentially massive datasets we’re now serving bulk data exclusively in the lossless LASZip format which significantly reduces file sizes. Finally, as part of this release, we’ve migrated hosting of the the bulk data to the new San Diego Supercomputer Center Cloud - a 5.5 petabyte storage system that provides cost effective and scaleable storage for large datasets.

Other updates in this release that are less visible to users include code cleanups and bug fixes, as well as migration of all OpenTopography backups to the SDSC Cloud.

New Data Including Hawaii Big Island, Salton Sea, and the Columbia River Basin Available

2012-04-04T22:11:00-08:00

We are pleased to announce the release of seven new lidar point cloud datasets covering areas in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, Washington State, and British Columbia. These data cover a diverse array of geographic areas and feature high-resolution topography for active volcanic regions, fluvial systems, and tectonically active areas.

Hawaii Big Island Survey

Idaho Falls, ID: LiDAR for Modeling Eolian Soil Transport
Pellston, MI: Effects of Forest Canopy Structural Change on Carbon Uptake

graduate student seed proposal program

Boulder Creek Critical Zone Observatory dataset:
Under OpenTopography’s MOU with the NSF CZOs, we will be hosting all lidar data products collected to support research at the six CZO sites. The CZOs are environmental laboratories established to study the chemical, physical and biological processes that shape the Earth’s surface”, and thus lidar is one of several tools being utilized. For this CZO data release, we’ve worked with the Boulder Creek CZO (Colorado) to ingest a dataset inside the Boulder Creek watershed during a snow-off period (August, 2010), near Boulder Colorado. The data were collected by NCALM.

Boulder Creek Critical Zone Observatory August 2010 Snow-Off LiDAR Survey

US Bureau of Reclamation Upper Columbia River Basin West/East datasets:
The US Bureau of Reclamation funded the collection of airborne lidar data for stream channel assessment and potential stream restoration design in portions of the Upper Columbia River Basin. The survey was partnered with the National Parks Service, the Puget Sound LiDAR Consortium and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. The dataset, which is divided into western and eastern components, includes areas in Washington State and the Canadian Province of British Columbia.

USGS Salton Sea Lidar Collection:
The United States Geological Survey collected a lidar dataset for the five kilometer zone around the entire shoreline of the Salton Sea. Data obtained in November 2010, at around annual lake minimum level. The goal of the Salton Sea LiDAR collection is to develop a dataset for pre-construction planning and for locating geologic features such as faults.

2010 Salton Sea Lidar Collection

Lidar in Google Earth Featured at 2012 National Science Teachers Association Conference

2012-03-30T17:46:00-08:00

Nancy West and Shelley Olds from the UNAVCO education and outreach program are in Indianapolis this weekend for the 2012 National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) National Conference. Today, they’ll be presenting a one-hour session on how lidar derived imagery and Google Earth can be used in the classroom to teach students about earth surface processes. Their demonstrations will highlight OpenTopography hosted lidar data and the Google Earth-base lidar visualizations we provide.

Friday, March 30 2:00-3:00 PM
What’s Under the Shrubbery? Study Erosion, Landslides, Dinosaur Tracks, and More with LiDAR and Google Earth

LiDAR stands for Light Detection And Ranging. Virtually strip away vegetation and explore a variety of landscapes unseen by the human eye using LiDAR and Google Earth to teach students about how the land changes.
Presenter(s): Nancy W. West (Quarter Dome Consulting, LLC: Fort Collins, CO); Shelley E. Olds (UNAVCO: Boulder, CO); Christopher Crosby (San Diego Supercomputer Center University of California: La Jolla, CA)

Shelley and Nancy will also be highlighting OpenTopography lidar during daily 30 minute presentations in the Earth Science Learning Laboratory booth in the NSTA Conference convention hall. The presentations in the Earth Science Learning Lab booth provide an opportunity for teachers to “explore classroom-ready resources available from federally funded and not-for-profit scientific organizations”. The booth is a partnership between the American Geologic Institution (AGI), the EarthScope National Office (ESNO), the Geologic Society of America (GSA), the IRIS Consortium, and UNAVCO.

Twelve new datasets in seven states available. Includes Northern Sierras, Yosemite, White Sands

2012-03-07T01:17:00-08:00

OpenTopography is pleased to announce the release of twelve new lidar point cloud datasets covering a range of landscapes and geologic features in seven different states. These data were collected for a variety of scientific applications, and feature high-resolution topography for dune fields, active faults, and various watersheds and fluvial systems.

National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping datasets:
NCALM is an NSF-funded center that supports the use of airborne laser mapping technology (a.k.a. lidar) in the scientific community and is jointly operated by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston and the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California-Berkeley. These ten datasets were collected under NCALM’s graduate student seed proposal program that awards ten projects per year to graduate student PIs who need lidar data for their research. Each collection is typically limited to no more than 40 square kilometers. The datasets released in this batch are seed proposal collections performed from 2007 to 2010. The release of these data via OpenTopography is the product of a memoranda of understanding (MOU) between OpenTopography and NCALM to make OT the primary distribution pathway for NCALM data:

In addition to the ten NCALM seed projects above, this release also includes one larger, 2.8 billion point, 707 square kilometer dataset collected near Iowa City after the 2008 Iowa River Flood. The data collection was funded by the NSF Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) program:

2008 Iowa River Flood LiDAR, Iowa City, and the Clear Creek Watershed

USGS:
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Geologic Hazards Science Center (Golden, CO) coordinated the acquisition of ~198 square kilometers of airborne Light Distance and Ranging (LiDAR) data to support active fault studies in the Northern Walker Lane (California-Nevada border). Faults surveyed include, from west to east, the Mohawk Valley, Grizzly Valley, Honey Lake, and Warm Springs Valley fault systems. The dataset is extremely high-resolution with a mean shot density of greater than 19 shots per square meter:

Northern Walker Lane, CA Airborne LiDAR Dataset

OpenTopography v 3.6 Release

2012-03-07T00:10:00-08:00

Last week OpenTopography rolled out our latest round of software updates (OT version 3.6), which includes several changes to the OT portal user interface and data access features, as well as many updates behind the scenes to our systems and databases. A summary of new features and updates in this release:

User Interface and Data Access:

Updates to the dataset listing pages (Point Cloud, Standard DEMs, and Google Earth Image Overlays) including the inclusion of a “filter bar” which allows users to filter datasets by collection platform (e.g., airborne or terrestrial), dataset funder and dataset collector. Note that the URLs to these pages have changed as a result of this update; we’ve made every effort to provide redirects, but in some cases your bookmarks may no longer be valid. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Derivate products (slope and hillshade products) can now be generated in either GeoTIFF and ERDAS IMG formats.
Dataset survey date(s) are now specified both on the dataset landing pages as well as in the Find Data map interface.

Services, Systems, and Admin Interfaces:

New OpenTopography administrator interfaces for streamlined dataset publication and editing from the browser.
Updates to the derivate products web service to add additional formats (see above), and address bug related to vertical scaling of datasets in geographic coordinates.
Various database changes and improvements; miscellaneous bug fixes.

10,000 Sq. Kilometers of Coastal Oregon Lidar Data Released

2012-02-02T23:04:00-08:00

OpenTopography is pleased to announce the availability of more than 10,000 km² of lidar point cloud data from coastal Oregon. These data, totaling more than 100 billion lidar returns, cover the full extent of the Oregon coast, from the California border to the mouth of the Columbia River. The data were collected by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) Lidar Program, and are available through OpenTopography as part of our ongoing lidar data hosting partnership with DOGAMI.

OpenTopography’s full catalog of DOGAMI Oregon lidar data (currently 12,678 km²) can be accessed via our Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries Lidar Program Data page.