An airplane collecting treetop data over a Brazilian rainforest
In this view, the viewer flies down to the rainforest canopy and flies through the virtual leaves.
This visualisation shows an airplane collecting a 50 km swathe of lidar data over the Brazilian rainforest. For ground-level features, colours range from deep brown to tan. Vegetation heights are depicted in shades of green, where dark greens are closest to the ground and light greens are the highest.
Lidar (/ˈlaɪdɑːr/, also LIDAR, an acronym of "light detection and ranging"[1] or "laser imaging, detection, and ranging"[2]) is a method for determining ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. Lidar may operate in a fixed direction (e.g., vertical) or it may scan multiple directions, in a special combination of 3-D scanning and laser scanning.[3]
Lidar has terrestrial, airborne, and mobile applications.[4][5] It is commonly used to make high-resolution maps, with applications in surveying, geodesy, geomatics, archaeology, geography, geology, geomorphology, seismology, forestry, atmospheric physics,[6]laser guidance, airborne laser swathe mapping (ALSM), and laser altimetry. It is used to make digital 3-D representations of areas on the Earth's surface and ocean bottom of the intertidal and near coastal zone by varying the wavelength of light. It has also been increasingly used in control and navigation for autonomous cars[7] and for the helicopter Ingenuity on its record-setting flights over the terrain of Mars.[8] Lidar has since been used extensively for atmospheric research and meteorology. Lidar instruments fitted to aircraft and satellites carry out surveying and mapping – a recent example being the U.S. Geological Survey Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar.[9]NASA has identified lidar as a key technology for enabling autonomous precision safe landing of future robotic and crewed lunar-landing vehicles.[10]
The evolution of quantum technology has given rise to the emergence of Quantum Lidar, demonstrating higher efficiency and sensitivity when compared to conventional lidar systems.[11]
^National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (26 February 2021). "What is LIDAR". oceanservice.noaa.gov. US Department of Commerce. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
^Cracknell, Arthur P.; Hayes, Ladson (2007) [1991]. Introduction to Remote Sensing (2 ed.). London: Taylor and Francis. ISBN978-0-8493-9255-9. OCLC70765252.