laser scanning

Laser scanning is also referred to as LIDAR (light detection and ranging). It is a technology that fires a laser beam at the ground from an instrument in an aircraft to measure distance to the ground. Using GPS/INS at the same time determines the position and altitude of the aircraft. From both datasets a very accurate digital elevation model (DEM) with high point densities can be derived. This laser-DEM can also be filtered and used for a variety of GIS-applications like flood plane modeling, determining the height of power lines, water management such as hydrological and drainage studies and for 3D city models.