What is LiDAR Technology

Lidar has become an established method for collecting very dense and accurate elevation data across landscapes, shallow-water areas, and project sites. This active remote sensing technique is similar to radar but uses laser light pulses instead of radio waves. Lidar is typically “flown” or collected from planes where it can rapidly collect points over large areas (Figure 2-1). Lidar is also collected from ground-based stationary and mobile platforms. These collection techniques are popular within the surveying and engineering communities because they are capable of producing extremely high accuracies and point densities, thus permitting the development of precise, realistic, three-dimensional representations of railroads, roadways, bridges, buildings, breakwaters, and other shoreline structures.