This collaborative grant to the Arizona State University and San Diego Supercomputer Center (PI: Baru/EAR-0930731) will support a three year Facility project to further develop and scale up the OpenTopography Portal (www.opentopography.org) for provision of high-performance, internet-based access to large volumes of high-resolution airborne and ground-based LIDAR topographic data sets and generation of derived data products. The proof-of-concept OpenTopography Portal (OpenTopo) was developed through NSF/Information Technology Research and EAR/Geoinformatics support to the San Diego Supercomputer Center as part of the GEON Project. That portal currently hosts and distributes a limited number of data sets acquired through the NSF/EAR supported National Center for Airborne Laser Swath Mapping (NCALM) at the University of Florida and from USGS and NASA-funded research. This support will enable significant upgrades and assimilation of large volumes of extant and future LIDAR data through: 1) provision of internet-based access to LIDAR topography data in multiple formats, including ?raw? point cloud data, standard LIDAR-derived DEMs, and easily accessible Google Earth products; and 2) development of additional collaborations with existing LIDAR topography data providers and hosts (e.g., NCALM, USGS, regional consortia, states, etc.) to link to their data archives and/or to host and distribute their data and processing software algorithms through a freely accessible web-interface. High-resolution digital elevation models derived from LIDAR (Light Distance And Ranging) methods (both airborne and ground-based) have been revolutionary for Earth science, environmental, and engineering applications. These data are among the most powerful tools available for study of the bare Earth surface, vegetative cover, and civil structures. Capable of generating digital elevation models (DEMs) more than an order of magnitude better resolved than those currently available from digitized USGS topo maps or from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission products, airborne LIDAR (or airborne laser swath mapping - ALSM) provides the ability to acquire meter-scale resolution, decimeter accuracy elevation data sets over large areas at relatively low expense. Ground-based or terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) offers even finer resolution mapping for specific targets. These data enable research on surface processes at fine scales and extents not previously possible yet essential for understanding processes (e.g., erosion, hillslope creep) at the scales at which they operate. OpenTopo will address the challenge of making massive LIDAR data sets and products readily accessible to end users through a freely accessible web-portal.
This proposal was funded to develop a production facility that would democratize access to high-resolution topography data and processing tools by transitioning cyberinfrastructure and geoinformatics research technology to serve the growing needs of the Earth Science community. High-resolution topography data acquired with LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) are revolutionizing the study of geomorphic processes acting along the Earth’s surface. These data are emerging as a fundamental tool for research on a variety of topics ranging from earthquake hazards to ice sheet dynamics. Although high-resolution topographic data collection is burgeoning for research, planning, and regulatory activities, the volume of data generated by the technology currently impedes wider utilization. Furthermore most researchers lack the compute capabilities required to do advanced processing of these datasets. This award enabled the establishment of the OpenTopography facility, specifically the design and development underlying cyber infrastructure, which includes the data management, processing and distribution components, an efficient data QA and ingest process as well as educational and outreach material all available via an efficient online portal interface. Since initiation of funding, OpenTopography has established itself as a portal for earth science oriented high-resolution topography, related tools and training materials, topography expertise and community support. Apart from management and distribution of massive volumes of high resolution topography datasets, OpenTopography has also led a number of airborne and terrestrial lidar workshops, built a strong social media presence, established the OpenTopography Tool Registry, and provided advice and guidance on many lidar-related data acquisition and geoinformatics projects. OpenTopography data holdings continue to exceeded initial projections and include approximately 174,850 km2 and 769 billion lidar returns, thousands of pre-computed digital elevation models (DEMs), and Google Earth imagery, which is very popular with users. The OpenTopography community has grown to about 5771 registered users, with countless others accessing data as unregistered guests. OpenTopography receives approximately 12,280 visitors and 39,773 page views per month. More than 36,070 custom point cloud jobs have accessed over 1,162,261,046,244 (1 trillion) lidar returns. Ever since the new GDAL based raster system was released in may 2013, more than 11,455 custom raster jobs were run generating more than 708 GB of data. More than 36,000 pre-computed DEM tiles have been downloaded in the previous system, and we stream approximately 70 GB of Google Earth imagery per month. OpenTopography provides resources related to using lidar topography for students at the undergraduate and graduate level, documents that explain methods, describe tools, and highlight considerations for using LiDAR data in research as well as using lidar topography and OpenTopography in the classroom. This also includes the OpenLandform Catalog serves as a resource to explore geologic landforms in high resolution digital topography for teachers, students or any interested user. There have been over 106 peer-reviewed papers, 15 thesis and 20 reports/position papers calling out OT for data or methodologies. These publications span various disciplines including geomorphology, hydrology, ecology, computer science, remote sensing, GIS etc. Apart from several NSF funded projects that generate high resolution topography datasets, the groups with whom we have made partnerships rely on OpenTopography as their data management facility, in part because of OpenTopography’s demonstrated ability to efficiently and easily distribute data to a wide and diverse community of users, thus increasing the impact of the data.
