Creating DEMs from LIDAR multipoints

[ScottLouque]

I have LIDAR multipoints and would like to group them into tiles and then make DEMs out of the tiles. All my multipoints are stored in a GDB format. Can anybody put me on the right path on how to accomplish this? This is my first time fooling with LIDAR data and I want to learn about elevation data.

Thanks,

[ArthurCrawford]

Hi Scott,

I would suggest using the Topo To Raster tool instead.   The interpolation procedure has been designed to take advantage of the types of input data commonly available and the known characteristics of elevation surfaces. This method uses an iterative finite difference interpolation technique.  

Topo To Raster Tool Help:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/index.html#/Topo_to_Raster/009z0000006s000000/

Description of Topo To Raster:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/index.html#/How_Topo_to_Raster_works/009z0000007m00000...

When I do this operation, I like to set it up in model builder with the polygon tiles going through an iterator feature selection.    It selects the points based of a buffer of the tile to get points outside your tile (say 100m) and then inputs them to the Topo To Raster Tool and use a Clip Raster with the polygon tile on the output to get it back to the original tile size.    This step is important as your DEM tiles will not match each otherwise.  

On converting to USGS DEM format, it's does not look like we support that.  

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/index.html#//009t0000000q000000

Thanks,

Arthur Crawford

[ScottLouque]

Will give it a try! Thanks Author

[GordonSumerling]

Scott,

take a look at the lidar white paper from Esri. It predates the las data set but covers your questions about multipoints to terrain.

http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/lidar-analysis-forestry-10.pdf‌

hope this helps

Gordon

[IanMurray]

Gordon, this topic got remade after the transfer to GeoNET, and was answered on this thread

Would like to get rasters into a USGS .dem file.‌

Thanks for the extra info though!

[SteveSnow]

Hi Scott,

I hope this helps.

try page 13 below multipoint to terrain

check out this lab our team made to address multipoint in 10.2

A quick how to we made on working with Lidar in ArcGIS

http://www.esri.com/~/media/files/pdfs/library/workshops/arcgis102-lidar-workshop.pdf

Good luck,

Steve

[ScottLouque]

Thanks so much for the info guys! Since I've started working with the multipoints which we accquired from a vendor, I've figured out how to bring them into a feature class and convert them to a raster dataset, then bring the raster images into global mapper and export them out to a DEM file. Which is what I was trying to figure out when I started this thread. But I've also learned how to create las files in Global Mapper and create a terrain dataset from the multipoints.

Thanks for all the help!

[SteveSnow]

Good luck scott, sounds like a lot of work.

[JohannesBierer]

Has someone tested this tool?

LASzip | rapidlasso GmbH‌

Should be quite fast?

[IanMurray]

I've used LASTOOLs quite a bit and they can be very useful.

[JamesWeakland]

The Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys used LASzip successfully in an interactive map called LiDAR Datasets of Alaska.