#  LiDAR Data 

 



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### How Do We Use LiDAR Data?

   ![top-down view of a point cloud from an herbivore exclosure experiment in Kruger National Park, South Africa](/sites/g/files/omnuum6851/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/davieslab/files/screen_shot_2023-01-10_at_11.35.13_am.png?itok=gPqjVoKu) 

 

*A top-down view of a point cloud from an herbivore exclosure experiment in Kruger National Park, South Africa, colored by height (red=taller, dark blue = shorter). Fencing excludes megafauna from the northern portion of the site (top of image). The vegetation inside the fence, where megafauna have been excluded, has a completely different structure than outside, with much taller trees and much thicker vegetation.*

From a LiDAR point cloud, we can measure and classify myriad aspects of an ecosystem - from mapping the widths and heights of thousands of trees to outlining the intricate topography of a river bed. By mapping the detailed structure of a landscape, we can expose how animals and plants actually alter the environment they live in at large scales. Exclosure experiments provide a great example of this, when ecologists set up fencing around areas to select for specific assemblages of animals (for example, keeping megafauna like elephants out).

**Technical Details**

The primary sensor in the HALO is a Riegl VUX-1LR Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensor. Being the long range (LR) version of the VUX-1, this sensor can collect high resolution data at altitudes up to 530 m and horizontal scanning distances up to 1,350 m. The spinning sensor design allows for an unrestricted field of view approximating 360 degrees and a rotational speed of up to 200 rotations per second. These factors, in addition to the pulse repetition rate of up to 820 KHz, enable the sensor to be flown by any number of aircraft types at various altitudes and speeds while collecting more than 750,000 measurements per second. The result of the sensor performance is three-dimensional data at resolutions that allow highly detailed analysis of fine-scaled landscapes features across large spatial extents.