Creating Digital Height Model with Drone and Point Cloud Data

In this 3-page activity, provided by the Unmanned Aircraft System operations Technician Education Program (UASTEP), students work with point cloud data gathered by drones and processed with photogrammetry techniques. In addition, students explore point cloud data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey's conventional airborne LiDAR senors. During this activity students will learn to use the ArcGIS Pro software package to analyze drone-based data and airborne LiDAR data in order to create a digital height model and approximate building heights. A PDF activity and GIS data files are included. 

Below is a list of the files contained within the .zip attachment. The size of each file is included in parenthesis.

Data (13 files, 615.2 MB)

• (CA_San_Diego_2014_000388.las 266.5 MB)
• (CA_San_Diego_2014_000388.lasx 241 KB)
• (PalomarBldg.CPG 5 B)
• (PalomarBldg.dbf 931 B)
• (PalomarBldg.prj 425 B)
• (PalomarBldg.sbn 228 
• (PalomarBldg.sbx 132 B)
• (PalomarBldg.shp 2 KB)
• (PalomarBldg.shp.xml 6 KB)
• (PalomarBldg.shx 172 B)
• (PointCloud.las 348.3 MB)
• (PointCloud.lasx 172 KB)