GVLiDAR: an interactive web-based visualization framework to support geospatial measures on lidar data

ABSTRACT

In recent years lidar technology has experienced a noticeable increase in its relevance and usage in a number of scientific fields. Therefore, software capable of handling lidar data becomes a key point in those fields. In this article, we present GPU-based viewer lidar (GVLiDAR), a novel web framework for visualization and geospatial measurement of lidar data point sets. The design of the framework is focused on achieving three key objectives: performance in terms of real-time interaction, functionality, and online availability for the lidar datasets. All lidar files are pre-processed and stored in a lossless data structure, which minimizes transfer requirements and offers an on-demand lidar data web framework.

Acknowledgements

The lidar datasets used in this article belong to Lidar-PNOA data repository (Instituto Geográfico Nacional 2016). Provided by ©Instituto Geográfico Nacional de España. PG&E Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP): San Simeon, CA Central Coast dataset (OpenTopography 2015). This material is based on lidar point cloud data distribution and processing services provided by the OpenTopography Facility with support from the National Science Foundation under NSF award numbers 1226353 and 1225810.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research has been supported by Galician Government (Xunta de Galicia) under the Consolidation Programme of Competitive Reference Groups, co-founded by FEDER funds of the EU [Ref. GRC2013 /055]; under the Consolidation Programme of Competitive Research Units, co-founded by FEDER funds of the EU [Ref. R2014/049]; and by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain and FEDER funds of the EU [project TIN2013-42148-P and TIN2016-75845-P].