NEWS FLASH: Open LiDAR in Germany starting January 2017

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

we've been waiting for this moment for quite some time because restricting access to national LiDAR (*) simply makes nooooooo sense.

Today at INTERGEO in Hamburg I've found out that he German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) will go all out open data in January 2017. Including all of the elevation data such as raster DTM and DSM as well as the *raw* LiDAR point clouds for any kind of use as long as the source is acknowledged. This is an absolutely *AMAZING CHANGE* and a real *GAME CHANGER* for my native Germany that has traditionally been rather restrictive in giving the public access to their geospatial data. 

http://open.nrw/de/content/geobasisdaten-ab-2017-gebuehrenfrei-0

Once the success of the open data policy of NRW comes evident we hope that this will have a ripple effect throughout Germany for other states to reconsider their restrictive data access policies as well ... (-:

Regards,

Martin @rapidlasso

(*) http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/30/restricting-access-to-national-lidar-is-it-worth-it/

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

even before the data has actually been released the upcoming open data of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is "liked" by many people and we can see that the "OpenNRW" policy will be celebrated as the "pioneer" of opening the raw geospatial data in Germany much like the "Environment Agency of England" has been lauded for their role in opening such data in the UK.

http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/first-german-state-goes-open-lidar-martin-isenburg

Regards,

Martin @rapidlasso