LiDAR leak hits Pentagon! Classified data online!

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Martin Isenburg

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Mar 13, 2017, 3:58:56 AM3/13/17
to LAStools - efficient command line tools for LIDAR processing, The LAS room - a friendly place to discuss specifications of the LAS format
Hello,

the BREAKING NEWS today is that a "LiDAR leak" has hit the Pentagon! Classified data is online! President Donald J. Trump has already informed his people with a tweet stating: "Total disaster! Obama's fault! Sad!" ... (-;


What is exciting is that this is a data release in LAS 1.4 format that uses the new point type 6. We used the opportunity to scrutinize how the new point attributes are populated. And it really is a "Total disaster!". The extended return numbering in those YUUUGE and uncompressed LAS 1.4 files is messed up. "Sad!" But it was a great learning experience so we wrote up our findings in great detail:


But we have an algorithm. A really great algorithm actually. Everybody tells us what a great algorithm it is. Not even China has such great algorithm. China!!! Or Sweden? Whatever. It's time to "make a DSM great again!" … (-;

Regards from the CRO (*) of rapidlasso GmbH

Martin

(*) CRO = chief rogue officer

dc_lidar_2015_pentagon_hillshade.jpg

Wildan Firdaus

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Mar 13, 2017, 4:17:20 AM3/13/17
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Hi Martin,

This is really interesting. I want to see the data.
May I know th decryption key to access the file/folder on the mega (secret download link) ?
Thank you.






--
Best Regards,


Wildan Firdaus
Staff at Center for Topographic Mapping and Toponym
Geospatial Information Agency (BIG)
JL. Jakarta-Bogor Km.46 Cibinong 16911
Indonesia

Martin Isenburg

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Mar 13, 2017, 4:24:21 AM3/13/17
to LAStools - efficient command line tools for LIDAR processing
Hello,

happy to hear from a rogue Indonesian scientist. Here is the secret decryption key:

!HTX8uRGCh8dwt3JRTNByYau42qhQJ01sOn3QXbe1TKM

Regards,

Martin @rapidlasso

David (Dave) Tewksbury

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Mar 13, 2017, 9:02:22 AM3/13/17
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Martin,

If I decompress pentagon files with LAS.zip and bring them into ArcMap via an LAS Dataset, there is no horizontal or vertical coordinate systems associated with the data.

Is there a way to access this metadata via LASTools?

Thanks,

Dave
Dave Tewksbury
GIS & Tech support
Dept of Geosciences
Hamilton College
Clinton, NY 13323
USA

Martin Isenburg

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Mar 13, 2017, 9:10:00 AM3/13/17
to LAStools - efficient command line tools for LIDAR processing
Hello Dave,

the latest version 170313 of LAStools (uploaded two hours ago) is able to read the OGC WKT projection of the 'pentagon.laz' file. You can download it here:


Here is the set of fixes and updates in this release
12 March 2017 -- LASlib: new filters '-drop_every_nth' '-drop_number_of_returns' '-keep_number_of_returns'
11 March 2017 -- lassort: option to first sort by '-scanner_channel' and then by '-return_number' 
11 March 2017 -- lassort: option to first sort by '-point_source' and then by '-scanner_channel'
10 March 2017 -- LAStools: also read more generic LCC, TM, and AEAC projections from OGC WKT strings 
10 March 2017 -- lasboundary: add download links via '-base_url http://lidar.com/data' to KML output
9 March 2017 -- lassort: fixed serious bug only happening for new LAS 1.4 point types 6 through 10
8 March 2017 -- LASlib: new transform '-copy_user_data_into_scanner_channel' fixes bad LAS 1.4 files
6 March 2017 -- LASlib: new transform '-copy_NIR_into_intensity' for point types 8 and 10
And see the entire change log here.


Regards,

Martin @rapidlasso

David (Dave) Tewksbury

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Mar 13, 2017, 9:19:39 AM3/13/17
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Thanks,

worked great.

Dave

Martin Isenburg

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Jun 23, 2017, 10:19:20 AM6/23/17
to LAStools - efficient command line tools for LIDAR processing, The LAS room - a friendly place to discuss specifications of the LAS format
Hello,

in the meantime the Pentagon LiDAR was also turned into a 3D Web visualization portal based on Markus Schuetz' Potree software using a single laspublish command line call so that you can now also inspect it online (see attached image for example measurements).


This is the command-line that created the above portal:

mkdir pentagon
laspublish -i pentagon.laz ^
               -elevation ^
               -title "Classified LiDAR" ^
               -description "Classified LiDAR of the Pentagon" ^
               -odir pentagon -o classified.html -olaz ^
               -overwrite


The resulting folder 'pentagon' with all its contents must then simply be copied into your Webspace as the 3D interactions and else do not really work well locally but will once its online and served via an Apache.

Regards,

Martin @rapidlasso
pentagon_classified_lidar_potree.jpg
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