The DEM from LAS toolset offers a new Arc Hydro functionality for creating a partially hydro-conditioned DEM from a LiDAR point cloud. The workflow was developed by David E. James (see his Google Scholar page here).
Users can find the in-depth description of the workflow, with two use cases, in the DEM from LAS Workflow and Tools document. At a high level, the tools execute the following:
- Build a terrain dataset from LAS data, with the option to include break lines and/or polygons.
- Create a DEM raster from the terrain dataset where 1-cell sinks are filled and the user has the option to create an integer version of the output DEM.