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.
Ultra high resolution topography has sharpened our view of many earth surface processes including the direct and indirect effects of earthquake faulting as well as river erosion and sedimentation, landslide motion, and sand dune migration. However, handling these data and specifying proper workflows for their careful collection and documentation has been challenging and non standard. In the INTERFACE project, we developed numerous methods and training documents for the standardization of data collection and handling in Terrestrial Laser Scanning. We also helped to prototype data distribution methods for the data through the OpenTopography project. Finally, we were able to run several workshops oriented towards both user training and towards guiding the community in planning for this valuable resource. In the latter case many valuable ideas were collected and put forth following the Community Workshop (held at UNAVCO) entitled: Charting the Future of Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) in the Earth Sciences and Related Fields. The outcomes include a clearer specification of Terrestrial Lidar Scanning data products; sharpened definitation and standardization of metadata for projects; and establishing additional guidelines for training. The training ideas are about best practices, data processing and analysis, data exploration education and outreach, and user-to-user training and networking. Finally, we have clarified the roles of the various facilities involved in research and education associated with relevant lidar types (UNAVCO, NCALM, and OpenTopography).
