MORE THAN A TRILLION POINTS ON-LINE: POINT CLOUD LESSONS FROM OPENTOPOGRAPHY (Invited Presentation)

Point clouds are a fundamental three-dimensional observable for Earth and environmental science, engineering, and education. Sampling the Earth’s surface, its vegetation cover, and the built environment at sub-meter length scales, these data (and their changes in time) provide a powerful geometric measure of Earth processes. They are gathered with laser and photogrammetric approaches from ground, air, and space-based systems. Point clouds and their 2.5D derivatives (digital terrain and surface models) address a number of Earth science education standards. These include both disciplinary topics associated with Earth surface and interior processes, as well as broader ones such as Earth as a system, natural hazards, and technological literacy in the areas of high performance computing, geodesy, and vectors. With appropriate and preferably lightweight and free software, visual exploration (and even tactile using 3D printing) helps link ideas and address standards. One important resource for free access to high resolution point cloud data is the National Science Foundation-funded OpenTopography Facility (www.opentopography.org). This portal provides online access to over one trillion points (213,000 square kilometers) of high-resolution topographic data gathered by various groups for numerous applications, processing tools to generate derivative products and visualizations of the data, and educational products and tools. Following a "teach the teacher" approach, the OpenTopography team leads several short courses each year with substantial related tutorial content on line. The easy and open access to point clouds and their derivatives enabled by OpenTopography has also driven the development of laboratory exercises by instructors, and unanticipated non expert community use. The latter application includes 3D printing of iconic landscapes, custom mapping for orienteering, incorporation of realistic topography in video games and CGI for films, and general hobbyist exploration. The future will see a ubiquity of point clouds from both planned mapping as well as haphazard efforts (UAS, autonomous navigation, internet photo collections, etc.) and facility with these data will further advance understanding for Earth and environmental science.