Workshop - Airborne Lidar Processing System (ALPS)

Date: February 12-15, 2008

Location:

U.S. Geological Survey, Florida Integrated Science Center (FISC),
600 4th Street South, Saint Petersburg, Florida 33701.  

Workshop Objectives:

The primary objective of this workshop is to educate attendees on the Airborne Lidar Processing System (ALPS) software and its applications to explore and process lidar data and imagery acquired by the Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar (EAARL).

The NASA-USGS ALPS system has been developed in an open-source programming environment on a Linux platform. ALPS supports the exploration and processing of lidar data acquired by the EAARL system in an interactive or batch mode. This class will provide hands-on training for attendees to interact with modules developed for lidar raster and waveform investigation, and digital camera image playback. Processing workflow of converting raw lidar data to digital elevation models that represent submerged, bare-earth, or canopy topography will be addressed, including automated and semi-automated tools to filter and manually edit data. The training class will also provide an opportunity for users to better understand the EAARL lidar waveforms and explore the use of these waveforms in various scientific, inventory, and monitoring activities.

What to Bring and Prepare:

Please try and secure a laptop to bring to the workshop.  If you are not able to bring a laptop please let us know by January 15th so arrangements can be made beforehand. 

Also, please have the following software installed on your laptop computer:

• FileZilla - the free FTP solution
• Google Earth - (free version)
• UltraVNC - Remote PC software
• GlobalMapper - Converts, edits, prints, tracks GPS and allows you to utilize GIS functionality on your datasets
• Active Tcl - Includes core Tcl, popular extensions, the Tcl Package Manager (TEApot), and complete documentation.

You can download the latest trial version of GlobalMapper from http://www.globalmapper.com and activate its full functionality using the expiring registration key provided.  The registration key will work until 2/16/2008.

You must have administrative rights to your laptop computer so that the system administrator can conduct a security check and make any required changes to allow network (Internet) access at our facility.