Data Management Plan

Product: These lidar data are processed Classified LAS 1.4 files, formatted to 4610 individual 1000 m x 1000 m tiles; used to create intensity images, 3D breaklines, and hydro-flattened DEMs as necessary. Geographic Extent: 3 counties in Wisconsin, covering approximately 1622 total square miles.

Dataset Description: The Wisconsin 3 County 2018 QL2 LiDAR project called for the planning, acquisition, processing, and derivative products of lidar data to be collected at a nominal pulse spacing (NPS) of 0.71 meters. Project specifications are based on the U.S. Geological Survey National Geospatial Program Base LiDAR Specification, Version 1.3. The data were developed based on a horizontal projection/datum of NAD 1983 2011 UTM Zone 16N, Meter and vertical datum of NAVD88 GEOID12B, Meter. LiDAR data were delivered as processed Classified LAS 1.4 files formatted to 4610 individual 1000 m x 1000 m tiles, as tiled intensity imagery, and as tiled bare earth DEMs; all tiled to the same 1000 m x 1000 m schema. Continuous breaklines were produced in Esri file geodatabase format.

Ground Conditions: LiDAR was collected in spring 2018, while no snow was on the ground and rivers were at or below normal levels. In order to post process the LiDAR data to meet task order specifications and meet ASPRS vertical accuracy guidelines, Quantum Spatial, Inc. utilized a total of 37 ground control points that were used to calibrate the LiDAR to known ground locations established throughout the project area. An additional 125 independent accuracy checkpoints, 69 in Bare Earth and Urban landcovers (69 NVA points), 56 in Tall Weeds categories (56 VVA points), were used to assess the vertical accuracy of the data. These checkpoints were not used to calibrate or post process the data.

The NOAA Office for Coastal Management (OCM) downloaded the laz files from this USGS site

ftp://rockyftp.cr.usgs.gov/vdelivery/Datasets/Staged/Elevation/LPC/Projects/ and processed the data to the Data Access Viewer (DAV) and to https.

USGS_LPC_WI_FEMAHQ_2018_LAS_2019

USGS_LPC_WI_FEMAHQ_TL_2018_LAS_2019

Hydro breaklines are also available. These data are available for download at the link provided in the URL section of this metadata record. Please note that these products have not been reviewed by the NOAA Office for Coastal Management (OCM) and any conclusions drawn from the analysis of this information are not the responsibility of NOAA or OCM.

Process Steps:

• 2018-01-01 00:00:00 - Raw Data and Boresight Processing: The boresight for each lift was done individually as the solution may change slightly from lift to lift. The following steps describe the Raw Data Processing and Boresight process: 1) Technicians processed the raw data to LAS format flight lines using the final GPS/IMU solution. This LAS data set was used as source data for boresight. 2) Technicians first used Quantum Spatial, Inc. proprietary and commercial software to calculate initial boresight adjustment angles based on sample areas selected in the lift. These areas cover calibration flight lines collected in the lift, cross tie, and production flight lines. These areas are well distributed in the lift coverage and cover multiple terrain types that are necessary for boresight angle calculation. The technicians then analyzed the results and made any necessary additional adjustment until it was acceptable for the selected areas. 3) Once the boresight angle calculation was completed for the selected areas, the adjusted settings were applied to all of the flight lines of the lift and checked for consistency. The technicians utilized commercial and proprietary software packages to analyze how well flight line overlaps matched for the entire lift and adjusted as necessary until the results met the project specifications. 4) Once all lifts were completed with individual boresight adjustment, the technicians checked and corrected the vertical misalignment of all flight lines and also the matching between data and ground truth. The relative accuracy was less than or equal to 7 cm RMSEz within individual swaths and less than or equal to 10 cm RMSEz or within swath overlap (between adjacent swaths). 5) The technicians ran a final vertical accuracy check of the boresighted flight lines against the surveyed checkpoints after the z correction to ensure the requirement of NVA = 19.6 cm 95% Confidence Level (Required Accuracy) was met.
• 2018-01-01 00:00:00 - LAS Point Classification: The point classification was performed as described below. The bare earth surface was manually reviewed to ensure correct classification on the Class 2 (Ground) points. After the bare-earth surface was finalized, it was then used to generate all hydro-breaklines through heads-up digitization. All ground (ASPRS Class 2) LiDAR data inside of the Lake Pond and Double Line Drain hydro-flattened breaklines were then classified to Water (ASPRS Class 9) using TerraScan macro functionality. A buffer of 1 meter was also used around each hydro-flattened feature to classify these ground (ASPRS Class 2) points to Ignored ground (ASPRS Class 20). All Lake Pond Island and Double Line Drain Island features were checked to ensure that the ground (ASPRS Class 2) points were reclassified to the correct classification after the automated classification was completed. All overlap data was processed through automated functionality provided by TerraScan to classify the overlapping flight line data to approved classes by USGS. The overlap data was classified using standard LAS overlap bit. These classes were created through automated processes only and were not verified for classification accuracy. Due to software limitations within TerraScan, these classes were used to trip the withheld bit within various software packages. These processes were reviewed and accepted by USGS through numerous conference calls and pilot study areas. All data were manually reviewed and any remaining artifacts removed using functionality provided by TerraScan and TerraModeler. Global Mapper was used as a final check of the bare earth dataset. GeoCue was then used to create the deliverable industry-standard LAS files for both the All Point Cloud Data and the Bare Earth. Quantum Spatial, Inc. proprietary software was used to perform final statistical analysis of the classes in the LAS files, on a per tile level to verify final classification metrics and full LAS header information.
• 2020-02-10 00:00:00 - The NOAA Office for Coastal Management (OCM) downloaded: 1. 198 laz files from ftp://rockyftp.cr.usgs.gov/vdelivery/Datasets/Staged/Elevation/LPC/Projects/USGS_LPC_WI_FEMAHQ_TL_2018_LAS_2019 2. 4412 laz files from ftp://rockyftp.cr.usgs.gov/vdelivery/Datasets/Staged/Elevation/LPC/Projects/USGS_LPC_WI_FEMAHQ_2018_LAS_2019 The 4610 files contained elevation and intensity measurements for the WI 3 County project area. The data were in UTM Zone 16 NAD83 2011, meters coordinates and NAVD88 (Geoid12B) elevations in meters. The data were classified as: 1 - Unclassified, 2 - Ground, 7 - Noise, 9 - Water, 17 - Bridge Decks, 18 - High Noise, 20 - Ignored Ground. The NOAA Office for Coastal Management processed all classifications of points to the Digital Coast Data Access Viewer (DAV). Classes available on the DAV are: 1, 2, 7, 9, 17, 18, 20. OCM performed the following processing on the data for Digital Coast storage and provisioning purposes 1. An internal OCM script was run to check the number of points by classification and by flight ID and the gps and intensity ranges. 2. Internal OCM scripts were run on the laz files to convert from orthometric (NAVD88) elevations to ellipsoid elevations using the Geoid12B model, to convert from UTM Zone 16 NAD 1983 2011, meters coordinates to geographic coordinates, to assign the geokeys, to sort the data by gps time and zip the data to database and to http.

Data is available online for bulk and custom downloads.

Data is backed up to tape and to cloud storage.