Okay I came across a tweet today and I thought I would write a quick blog post.  Remember, I sort of use this blog as a glorified bookmark system 🙂 

As most of us geospatial types know the UK’s Environment Agency has pledged to do a national LIDAR programme and release the data as Open Data. Great news for people like me who love 3D as there are plenty of workflows to use building footprints and LiDAR to create 3D models.  How it works in old town centres is debatable, but its a start at least.

Looks like Sedbergh might be getting a LiDAR update soon (ish)

Anyway they seem to have released an Esri Operations Dashboard which allows you to explore their past and planned LiDAR programme. It seems Sedbergh and surroundings are on their list next year too! Click here to visit the dashboard.

The Operations Dashboard is part of the Esri platform that allows you to build very quickly from your existing GIS layers an interface to explore your data.  Here I think the Environment Agency are on to something as it gives those interested an idea of when we might get revised coverage.     Perhaps they’ll get fewer enquiries with tools like this?   There needs to be a bit more work on terminology and interface elements, but then again I guess this isn’t really going to be used by members of the public outside of the geospatial industry much…

This combined with the LiDAR download site are something we could only have dreamed of a few years ago.  Keep it up Environment Agency please as this data could be so useful to a range of industries!

Related Links:

Here’s the tweet: