High-resolution topography is a powerful tool for studying the Earth's surface, vegetation, and urban landscapes, with broad scientific, engineering, and educational-based applications. Over the past decade, there has been dramatic growth in the acquisition of these data for scientific, environmental, engineering and planning purposes. In the US, the U.S. Geological Society is undertaking the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) to map the entire lower 48 with lidar by 2023. The richness of these topography datasets make them extremely valuable beyond the application that drove their acquisition and thus are of interest to a large and varied user community. A cyberinfrastructure platform that enables users to efficiently discover, access and process these massive volumes of data increases the impact of investments in collection of the data and catalyzes scientific discovery as well as informs critical decisions that are made across our Nation every day that depend on elevation data, ranging from immediate safety of life, property, and environment to long term planning for infrastructure projects. Join us to hear about the motivations, technology, and data assets behind the National Science Foundation funded OpenTopography platform, which aims to democratize access to high resolution topographic data. OpenTopography’s innovation is in co-locating massive volumes of topographic data with processing tools that enable users with varied expertise and application domains to quickly and easily access and process data, to enable innovation and decision making.

1. Increasing the Impact of High
Resolution Topography Data
with OpenTopography
Viswanath Nandigam
SDSC Technology Forum
June 17, 2021
OpenTopography is supported by the National Science Foundation under Award Numbers 1948997, 1948994 & 1948857

2. High Resolution Topography
High-resolution topography offers powerful new insights in numerous
Earth science fields, including process geomorphology and hydrology.
Applications in civil engineering, urban planning, hazard mitigation, etc.

3. HRT Collection Platforms
Meters to centimeters spatial sampling
Source: Johnson et al., Geosphere, 2014
D. Space Based

4. Canopy Height (ft)

5. Kilauea Volcano Datasets in OpenTopography
Comparison between the 2009 (5.01 pts/m2point cloud) Triangulated
Irregular Network (TIN) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) (1 m resolution)
and recently released early July, 2018 aerial lidar (18.13 pts/m2) TIN
DEM (0.5 m resolution), colored by elevation and each draped over their
respective hillshades, at Halemaʻumaʻu Crater at Kilauea's summit with
aerial imagery background. Graphic updated July 30, 2018.
Topographic profile, from west to east, through the center of
the Halemaʻumaʻu Crater comparing the 2009 data (light gray)
and July, 2018 data (dark gray) illustrates the magnitude of
subsidence in 2018. Graphic updated July 30, 2018
Kilauea Volcano, HI July 2018 Acquisition
doi.org/10.5069/G9M32SV1
Hawaii Big Island Lidar Survey
doi.org/10.5069/G9DZ067X

6. OpenTopography
Democratize online access to high-resolution topography
- Lidar, photogrammetry, satellite
- Tiered access to data – from raw point cloud to easy to use derived
products. Co-location of data & processing tools.
www.opentopography.org

7. OpenTopography
Founded in 2009. Supported by US National Science Foundation
(EAR GEO/GLD Award No. 1948997, 1948994 & 1948857)
Community focused collaboration between
cyberinfrastructure & domain experts

8. OpenTopography Data Services
Topography data products and access mechanisms for a diverse user community
Range of available data products:
- Easy to access products for browsing and education.
- Browse images, Google Earth, 3D visualization
- Majority of users want a standard gridded product.
- GIS products (e.g. DTM, DSM, etc.)
- “raw” point cloud data for modeling or analysis
Multiple Access Pathways
- Web Portal interfaces, APIs and OGC web services,
Bulk Downloads/Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs (COGs)

9. OpenTopography Core Services
Raster Data
Subsetting
PC Data Filtering &
Subsetting
Vertical Differencing
3D Visualization
Canopy Height Model
Topographic
Hillshades
Digital Elevation Models
TIN / Local Gridding
TOPOGRAPHY
DATA
3D Differencing
Hydrology Tools (TauDEM)

10. OpenTopography Architecture

11. OpenTopography Portal Interfaces
AOI selection on Map

12. OpenTopography Portal Interfaces
Job Customizations
- Output formats
- Customizable
parameters in
algorithms

13. OpenTopography Portal Interfaces

14. API / Bulk Access
Programmatic Access to Cloud
Optimized GeoTIFF (COG)

15. Data Discovery and Federation
OGC CSW catalog Schema.org

16. OpenTopography Community DataSpace
- Nature Recommended Data Repository
- FSP Acceptable Digital Repositories for USGS
Scientific Publications and Data

17. Analytics

18. Data Usage Insights
What can we learn from –
180 K + custom PC jobs
7.32 trillion lidar returns processed
390 K + raster jobs
~145,362 unique portals users running jobs
204 K + unique API users and 2+ million API jobs.

19. Access Patterns
Scientific Data have different access patterns
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NAPA Watershed, CA
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2011 - 2013 Indiana Statewide Lidar

20. Access Patterns
Indiana Usage
Pre-computed superset products
Recommendation systems
Storage based on data value

21. Impact – Research
477 peer-reviewed publications
65 M.S. & PhD theses
13 book sections & 33 reports

22. Impact – Education
Education and Training /
Workforce Development
- Online Resources

23. Impact - Data Providers
Value proposition to data providers/collectors:
OpenTopography helps high resolution topography data
collectors increase utilization and impact of their investments
in data by providing an efficient and easy to use platform for
data distribution.

24. OpenTopography Partnerships

25. 2011-2013 Indiana Statewide Lidar Collection
• Supported by Indiana Agencies
• >39,941 point cloud run by 5,393+ users
• Diverse use beyond academia
• State / City Government
• Engineering/Surveying
• Agricultural
• Water Management
• Geospatial Consultants
• Energy Utilities

26. 2011-2013 Indiana Statewide Lidar Collection
Honestly (OpenTopography) made the difference between success and failure of
the use of the data because it made it so readily available, and really broke
down the barriers to having the normal mom and pop engineering firms and
surveyors get access to the data in a form they can use.
-Phill Worrel, IGIC

27. New Zealand National Lidar Program
39 lidar point cloud datasets in OpenTopography
covering 53,462.4 sq km.

28. Data Provider Dashboards

29. Impact – Novel Uses

30. USGS 3DEP
“The goal of 3DEP is to complete
acquisition of nationwide lidar (IfSAR in
AK) by 2023 to provide the first-ever
national baseline of consistent high-
resolution topographic elevation data –
both bare earth and 3D point clouds –
collected in a timeframe of less than a
decade.”
3D Elevation Program FY21 Partnerships as of June 8, 2021

31. USGS 3DEP in OpenTopography
Goals:
Leverage 3DEP in the cloud to
offer OT users seamless
access.
- Easy discovery & derivative
products
- OT current functionality =
3DEP value added service
- Increase impact of
investment in data
LAZ
Requestor Pays Bucket AWS Public Dataset

32. USGS 3DEP in OpenTopography
1,562 USGS 3DEP datasets currently available
29.70 Trillion lidar returns covering 5,696,175 km2

33. Future Work
Big Data Computations
Change Detection
Hydrology Analysis
Vertical Difference (m)
-1 1

34. Thank you!
info@opentopography.org
@OpenTopography
vnandigam@ucsd.edu
Zero to a trillion: Advancing Earth surface process studies
with open access to high-resolution topography.
Remote Sensing of Geomorphology
Crosby CJ, J. Arrowsmith R, Nandigam V.
https://opentopography.org/publications
OpenTopography is supported by the National Science Foundation
under Award Numbers 1948997, 1948994 & 1948857
White River, IN
Credit: Indiana
Geological Survey / State
of Indiana