Funds from this grant support the collaborative development of software tools, data management needs and community training support in an effort to establish the foundations of a national facility (INTERFACE) to help geoscientists in obtaining high resolution, high precision, 3-D surface data. The facility will provide a one-stop shop for users at any experience level to obtain instrumentation, software, and instruction in the collection of earth surface data by Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR). Existing TLS instruments will be made available for community use through UNAVCO. Ancillary equipment and processing and visualization software would also be made available through the UNAVCO facility. Development of software tools to establish standard workflows for taking users through all steps of obtaining high-quality surface data and visualizing results will be initiated. Community education and outreach through the establishment of best practices for equipment and software use, the conduct of numerous classroom and field instructional sessions, and establishment of a data archive and retrieval portal will be supported.
