Tunnel LiDAR - What to do with it and How?

[Sara Kephart]

Working for a small engineering firm, we have acquired some LiDAR data and now we don't know what to do with it. 3 tunnels of LiDAR that look very cool, but now what's my next step? Can I georeference drawings and photographs that were taken? Make profile views? Extract only tunnel points? There was no classification done by the provider.
Sorry for the vague questions but I'm lost - if anyone has done tunnels or mining LiDAR projects please give me some ideas/guidance on how to proceed, I'd very much appreciate it! I have ArcGIS with 3D Analyst and LAStools. GIS and CAD experience but this is my first view of LiDAR.

Thanks,
Sara

[Newcomb, Doug]

I suppose it depends on what you want to do with the data. Do you want visualization or analysis?  I ran across the Therion  software for cave mapping, https://therion.speleo.sk/ .  

You could also import the point data into a 3D Voxel model from the LAZ file using GRASS , https://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/raster3dintro.html7.2 ,  using the r3.in.lidar command. You could then use the other 3d voxel commands for analysis, https://grass.osgeo.org/grass72/manuals/raster3d.html

Are the Lidar points georeferenced to a standard projection or in a custom X,Y,Z coordinate system?

Not sure if this would work, but if you have overlapping geotagged photos, you might be able to use them as input data to opendronemap, https://opendronemap.github.io/odm/  to make a mesh surface with the photos draped.  Not sure if this would work, since this method is usually used for downward facing photos.

Doug

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Doug Newcomb

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The opinions I express are my own and are not representative of the official policy of the U.S.Fish and Wildlife Service or Dept. of the Interior.   Life is too short for undocumented, proprietary data formats. 

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[Sara Kephart]

Hi Doug,

Thank you for the reply and suggestions! The Therion software is a good find, we are also doing a (seperate) coal mine project in the future and this could come in handy.

You hit on a great question - I know the data is in US feet, but is it state plane? Custom coordinate system? This has implications for how I proceed, I'll have to go back to provider and ask more questions to determine if I have a valid model or not.

Thanks,

Sara

On Thursday, February 2, 2017 at 7:18:28 AM UTC-7, Newcomb, Doug wrote:

I suppose it depends on what you want to do with the data. Do you want visualization or analysis?  I ran across the Therion  software for cave mapping, https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Ftherion.speleo.sk%2F&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNH0GRZ2me2QKzASLdmPLF6uZD0XEg .