The awareness for the power of aerial LiDAR is growing in the archaeological research community. The ability of LiDAR to penetrate dense forest canopy producing highly accurate microtopograhic relief is like a huge digital magnifying glass revealing ancient land forms that cannot be understood from other vantage points.
Ancient Mayan City of Caracol Revealed with LiDAR
Gene,
I see this technology’s use in archaelogical research. However, as a commercial real estate appraiser, I would like to inquire as to its usefulness for such things as a topographical analysis of a neighborhood area, for instance.
Can this technology be adapted for a more mundane use like property analysis? I could probably come up with a few more uses to which I could put it if I researched it some more.
Your thoughts?
Using the actual LiDAR data requires extensive training. It has applications in the real estate field. Flood mapping is going to be much more accurate as a result of LiDAR. More accurate topography is the most likely benefit for real estate. If you can use digital terrain models then there is a more direct benefit.
I agree with Gene above – working with LiDAR data does require extensive training: in order to process the data and interpret it. Some researchers in Canada have done something similar (http://www.geosynoptics.ca/beasejour.pdf) – using LiDAR to detect a man-made structure under dense tree canopy from the 18th Century.
Their paper shows that they used a specialized processing technique and required both archaeologists and geomatics specialists to assess the data in order to detect the feature they were looking for. However, LiDAR’s application to mapping landscapes and features is becoming more well-known and I’m sure we’ll see it being used for these types of things more often!