Image of the week - Seeing with lasers |
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The data used to create these images was gathered using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), a technology that utilizes lasers to record precise and extremely high resolution topographical information. The San Diego Supercomputer Center′s OpenTopography portal provides free access to LiDAR data sets, including the EarthScope data shown here. SDSC recently received $1.4 million in National Science Foundation funding for a three-year project to further develop OpenTopography; a smaller related grant of $300,000 was awarded to the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. "The fundamental goal of this project is to provide centralized access to community earth science LiDAR topography data," said Christopher Crosby, SDSC's project manager for OpenTopography in a recent press release. "There is wealth of public domain LiDAR data available, but much of it is not yet easily accessible. We intend to leverage available cyberinfrastructure to make these powerful data sets, as well as online processing tools and knowledge resources, accessible to a large and diverse user community." |