Elevation – Lidar
Lidar - Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing technique that utilizes light in the form of a rapidly pulsed laser to measure return distances from the Earth captured by a sensor at the source of the pulse. These combined pulse return measurements with additional spatial and temporal data recorded by the acquisition system (airborne or terrestrial) produce a three-dimensional (3-D), detailed representation of the shape of the Earth illuminating its surface characteristics.
TxGIO acquires lidar data through partnerships with other federal and state agencies through the StratMap Contract , which operates through the Texas Department of Information Resources (TxDIR).
TxGIO Lidar Coverage
TxGIO and partners have successfully flown Lidar to cover the entire State of Texas. All Lidar projects can be downloaded for free on the DataHub. An index of all collection footprints can be downloaded here. Specifications vary by collection. Active lidar project coverage and project details (date, nominal point spacing, vendor, etc.) can be found below on the Lidar Status Map. Complete details about each dataset in our collection can be found in the supplemental reports for each project on the DataHub.
You can download an index of best available lidar data at TxGIO. This index represents the best available data and not complete coverage of all collections, especially where new collections overlap older collections.
StratMap Lidar by the Numbers
past agency partners and counting...
project Statement of Work (SOW) releases since 2009 and counting...
worth of funds put towards Lidar projects
Lidar goes beyond traditional bare earth digital elevation models (DEMs) by producing point cloud information that can be classified into existing features such as vegetation and man-made structures.
Below is an example of a 3-D rendered cloud classification model, along with its RGB value counterpart..
Courtesy of our DataHub