Data Management Plan

These files were collected by Fugro and contain topographic data collected with a RIEGL VQ-480 airborne lidar system over the California coastline. Data coverage generally extends along the shoreline from the waterline to 500 meters onshore. The VQ-480 sensor configuration produced a pulse repetition rate of 200 kHz at near-infrared laser wavelength. VQ-480 data was collected concurrently with SHOALS-1000 bathymetric lidar sensor; the line scheme flown was planned for the narrower scan swath of the SHOALS sensor (230 m) therefore VQ-480 data presents overlap that exceeded over 200% (460 m) of area coverage and point density requirements. Quality assessments allowed to keep best quality flight line data and discard redundant or flight lines of lesser quality. Native lidar data are not generally in a format accessible to most Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Specialized in-house and commercial software packages are used to process the native lidar data into 3-dimensional positions that can be exported to standard formats and imported into GIS software for visualization and further analysis. Each flight line lidar data containing the XYZ points were exported to ASPRS LAS format. The data file naming convention is based on a standardized structure. LAS format is version 1.2. The files also contain airborne bathymetric lidar data collected with the SHOALS-1000T sensor over the California coast. Data coverage generally extends along the coastline from the waterline to 1,000 meters offshore or to laser depth extinction. The SHOALS system has a laser pulse repetition rate of 2.5 kHz at 532 nm (green wavelength). SHOALS lidar data are contained in two basic file types: HOF and INH. HOF files (Hydrographic Output File) contains the XYZ and supporting information for all shots within a flight line; the INH files (Hydrographic Input File) contains information describing the flight line and the digitized laser shot data (waveforms). These data formats, proprietary of Optech, Inc. (Canada), are commonly used in software packages that include SHOALS-GCS and CZMIL-HydroFusion. The Las files were then classified with class 1 being unclassified, 2 being ground and 29 valid bathymetric data in Terrascan. The 3-D position data are used to generate a series of LAS file products, with each covering approximately 5 kilometers of shoreline. In addition to the lidar point data, topobathy bare earth Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), created from the lidar point data are also available. These products have not been reviewed by the NOAA Office for Coastal Management (OCM) and any conclusions drawn from the analysis of this information are not the responsibility of NOAA or OCM. These data are available for download here: https://coast.noaa.gov/dataviewer/#/lidar/search/where:ID=5189 DEMs that were created from all classes of points (1, 2, 29) at a 1 meter grid size are available by request via email at: coastal.info@noaa.gov.

Original contact information:

Contact Org: JALBTCX

Title: Data Production Manager

Phone: 228-252-1131

Email: JALBTCX@usace.army.mil

Process Steps:

• 2014-09-08 00:00:00 - The topographic lidar data were collected using the RIEGL VQ-480 lidar system, operated by Fugro Pelagos through contract. The system collects topographic lidar data at maximum pulse rate of 200 kHz in a near-infrared wavelength producing point cloud density between 2.5-2.8 pts/sq m. Aircraft position, velocity and acceleration information are collected a Applanix POS AV 510 sensor. All logged raw data were transferred to the office and processed in RIEGL RiPROCESS software v1.6.1. Aircraft position data are processed using Applanix POSPac MMS v6.2.2 software and the results combined with the lidar data to produce 3-D positions for each lidar shot. 3D point clouds are inspected in RiProcess software and scan adjustments performed after careful scrutiny. The 200% redundant coverage achieved with the VQ-480 flight plan helped in the data validation efforts by removing scan lines that presented excessive mismatch and misalignments. Upon processing and export to LAS format, QA/QC is performed with QPS Fledermaus v7.3.3 software. These bathymetric lidar data were collected using the SHOALS-1000T bathymetric lidar system. It is owned by Fugro Pelagos Inc. and operated through contract. The system collects bathymetric lidar data at 2.5 kHz and RGB imagery at 1 Hz, producing point clouds with an approximate spot spacing of 4.0-5.0 m x 2.5 m. Aircraft position, velocity and acceleration information are collected through a POS AV 510 sensor. All logged raw data streams are transferred to the office for downloading and processing in SHOALS GCS v 6.32 software. Aircraft position data are processed using Applanix POSPac MMS v 6.2.2 software and the results combined with the sensor data to produce 3-D positions for each lidar shot on the NAD83(2011) reference datum. Upon inspection and QA/QC in the software package Fledermaus v7.3.3, anomalous data are flagged as invalid; a percentage of data are also re-processed after further refinement of parameters to account for system-related biases. The data files also contain topographic coverage of adjacent terrain (land elevations). Upon inspection at JALBTCX, utilizing the QA/QC software packages Fledermaus and PFM_ABE, any additional anomalous data are flagged as invalid. PFM_ABE software then exports all bathymetric lidar data as a series of unclassified LAS files.
• 2016-02-02 00:00:00 - LAS files are imported into GeoCue V2014.1.21.4, which is a geospatial workflow production and management software tool employed by JALBTCX to perform and monitor production of data products. Upon import into GeoCue, a customized classification macro, built upon the TerraScan V13 module within Microstation V8i, classifies valid topobathy data as ground points (2) and unclassified points (1), and valid bathymetric points (29). Upon completion the macro, the classification results undergo quality control and any misclassified points are manually edited. In areas of dense vegetation the bare earth ground points might be incorrectly classified due to the inability of the laser to penetrate the canopy and reach the bare ground. In these areas, JALBTCX defaults to the algorithm's "ground" surface instead of manually reclassifying those points. They are partitioned into a series of 5km or quarter quad delivery boxes, one Classified LAS file per box. The format of the file is LAS version 1.2. Data are classified as 1 (valid non-ground topographic data), 2 (valid ground topographic data), and 29 (valid bathymetric data).
• 2016-11-15 00:00:00 - The NOAA Office for Coastal Management (OCM) received 117 files in las format from JALBTCX. The files contained lidar intensity and elevation measurements along the coast of California. The data were in geographic coordinates and ellipsoid elevations in meters. OCM performed the following processing on the data for Digital Coast storage and provisioning purposes: 1. Data filenames were standardized to OCM file naming convention (retaining USACE names). 2. The LAStools software scripts lasinfo and lasvalidate, were run on the las files to check for errors. 3. Internal OCM scripts were run on the las files to check for elevation outliers, to assign the geokeys, to sort the data by gps time and zip the data to database and to http.

This data can be obtained on-line at the following URL: https://coast.noaa.gov/dataviewer/#/lidar/search/where:ID=4912;