There are three overall requirements for managing aerial lidar—deriving elevation surfaces from 3D lidar points; managing point clouds and elevation rasters; and facilitating quick access to all that data for end users.
In most organizations, managing lidar data is part of a larger data management effort that includes elevation data. Nearly all lidar projects need to derive elevation surfaces from 3D points, including bare-earth digital terrain models (DTMs) and first-return digital surface models (DSMs). The elevation data within an organization will typically come from many projects, in some cases with the same area covered by multiple data collections, which can pose data management difficulties.
After lidar has been processed into rasters, end users often need to access the data quickly to visualize elevation surfaces as a hillshade or slope, or to use the raster surfaces for fast viewshed and volumetric analysis.
Alternatively, some projects will require analyzing lidar data in 3D-point format. In this case, users may need to access lidar point clouds directly, either as services or as downloadable data. It may also be possible to serve geoprocessing tools that use the underlying 3D points in an analysis task and return only the required results to the user.
To meet these requirements, some or all of the following tasks are commonly used to manage and share lidar data using ArcGIS:
- Manage your separate lidar collections using LAS datasets.
- Perform quality control (QC) checks to verify the lidar data.
- Determine parameters to create raster files.
- Create derived raster surfaces for visualization and analysis.
- Create mosaic datasets to manage and serve the rasters.
- Share the lidar points for visualization on the web.
- Enable download of the lidar point files.
- Build and share geoprocessing services for server-side analysis.
Explore the following resources to learn more about managing aerial lidar data in ArcGIS. (Not sure where to start? Look for the star by Esri's most helpful resources.)
Note:
To create and edit mosaic datasets, you'll need ArcGIS Pro Standard. To manage lidar using LAS datasets, you'll need ArcGIS 3D Analyst extension. If your organization will serve elevation rasters as dynamic image services, you'll need ArcGIS Image Server. Alternatively, you may want to use ArcGIS Online to share cached elevation data as elevation surfaces suitable for visualization. You may also want to use ArcGIS Online to share point clouds as 3D scene services; hillshade views of DSM or DTM elevation tiles; or feature classes that can be used to explore and download hillshade tiles or lidar data.Imagery Workflows resources
Review the community-supported tools and best practices for working with and automating imagery and remote sensing workflows:
- Read a description of best practices for managing lidar point clouds and derived products.*
- Download sample Python scripts and sample elevation data to see how to automate the management of lidar-derived elevation datasets.
- Download hands-on exercises (including scripts, tools, data, and documentation) demonstrating how to extract building footprints from classified and unclassified lidar.
- For users who have USGS lidar data in LAZ 1.4 format, use this tool to decompress LAZ data to LAS format before using in ArcGIS.
ArcGIS help
Review the following links on reference materials for ArcGIS products:
- Learn more about what lidar is and how it's stored.
- Read about using and sharing lidar data in ArcGIS Pro.
- Learn about LAS datasets, which are used to manage airborne lidar data, and how to use LAS datasets in ArcGIS Pro.*
- Read about point cloud scene layers, which provide fast display of large volumes of symbolized and filtered point cloud data.
- Read about using the Share Package geoprocessing tool to publish a point cloud scene layer package file (SLPK) to ArcGIS Enterprise or ArcGIS Online.
ArcGIS blogs, articles, story maps, and technical papers
Review the following supplemental guidance about concepts, software functionality, and workflows:
- Read this blog to learn how deep learning tools were used to restore 3D buildings from aerial lidar in ArcGIS Pro.
- Read a blog that explains how to visualize lidar in a 3D web scene in ArcGIS Online and see a point cloud scene layer in action.
Videos
Review the following Esri-produced videos that clarify and demonstrate concepts, software functionality, and workflows:
- See a 3D terrestrial lidar animation created using ArcGIS Pro. (1 minute)
- See how to load and configure I3S point cloud scene layers in ArcGIS Pro. (4 minutes)
Training and tutorials
Review the following guided lessons and tutorials based on real-world problems and key ArcGIS skills:
- In this tutorial, you'll use a point cloud dataset to extract roof forms from lidar to support city planning efforts. (1 hour, 25 minutes)*
- In this tutorial, you'll use multipatch editing to create realistic building models using high-resolution aerial imagery, a lidar dataset, and the building footprint. (1 hour, 30 minutes)
- Complete trainings to learn about managing lidar data using mosaic datasets (3 hours, 30 minutes) and managing lidar data using LAS datasets (2 hours, 30 minutes). These web courses use ArcMap, but the concepts are still relevant in ArcGIS Pro.
ArcGIS Solutions
Review the following industry-specific configurations for ArcGIS:
- Deploy a set of tools and workflows created for local governments that help you create high-quality 3D scenes from lidar and publish them to ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise.
Esri Community
Use the online imagery community to connect, collaborate, and share experiences:
- See what the Imagery and Remote Sensing community is saying about managing lidar data.