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Lidar mapping

20ftup

20ftup

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2017
Messages
430
Maybe I’m late to the game but I just discovered lidar mapping and it’s detail in topography is incredible. Way more detailed than regular topo maps or any other kind of map I used for that matter.


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I guess it uses laser to graph the topography it’s incredibly detail I google my state and lidar mapping and it took me a couple of links before I got what I want but might be different for everyone based on your state I’ll try and post a link for pa hunters


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Lidar mapping if I remember correctly uses laser pulse images like sonar under water. It is incredibly detailed.
 
Agreed. I have found terrain features that I hunt now that were not visible with normal Topo. Great for finding hidden benches in hill country.


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Iowabucksnbass said:
Agreed. I have found terrain features that I hunt now that were not visible with normal Topo. Great for finding hidden benches in hill country.


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I haven’t scouted any area after using it. I’m heading out this weekend to do so. I agree you can see a lot more hidden terrain features that you simply can’t see with regular topo map.


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The state of Iowa has LiDar imagery readily available...when studying an area I almost exclusively use aerials and LiDar. It makes small features more visible IMO.
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I just heard about this the other day on a podcast but so far I haven't been able to find any for KY


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GBlevins92 said:
I just heard about this the other day on a podcast but so far I haven't been able to find any for KY


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I had the same problem it took a couple different website and then multiple different links within the websites but i finally found one for pa. I’m really impressed with it it’s going to be hard to cyber scout with any other maps. Now time to put the boots on the ground.


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Are you finding free sites or are you all having to pay for the LIDAR down loads.
 
The midst coverage isn’t there for the areas I hunt. Sweet tech though.


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Yes, I am really interested in lidar and I have looked and looked for maps of the areas I hunt but have been unable to find any images. The big state maps say my area has been mapped - I just can’t find the images. Frustrating but I guess I need to keep looking...


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save yourself some time. do a search on hunting beast.com user "Autumn Ninja" he did a write up on how to use topo maps to find deer. Than search on topos , lidar and bench. This will give you so much information your head will be spinning for days. Than put boots on the ground.

Overall the information is out there from these veterans to help you out. Have fun reading.
 
wmahunterfl said:
save yourself some time. do a search on hunting beast.com user "Autumn Ninja" he did a write up on how to use topo maps to find deer. Than search on topos , lidar and bench. This will give you so much information your head will be spinning for days. Than put boots on the ground.

Overall the information is out there from these veterans to help you out. Have fun reading.
Click to expand...

Lots of good info


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When it comes to lidar data contours what you need to find is the 1 ft or 2 ft contour file it will either be a geodatabase file (gdb) or shape file shp. For the county and state you are hunting.

The shp file can be open in Google earth but it is slow. GDB file not - you would have to use something like arcgis exploer to open it.
Some gdb file are huge like gigabytes so you will need drive space.
I also use arcgis explorer ( free app) can open gdb file and shp data) there is a small learning curve to figure it out.

If you know a civil engineer they can probably point you in the right direction or offer them a few bucks and have the data formatted in kmz blocks which can be imported into Google earth. This saves a lot of time and effort and is much easier.
Just ask them if they can format the area you need into kmz elevation contour blocks with (1 or 2 ft contours) . I payed to have this done after chasing the data I wanted and they bordered the private land and provided just the information I needed in blocks. It was like around 30 - 40 per management area which I thought was fair.

These are all free computer apps
Caltopo is a good tool for shading the areas where potential bedding can be found. can import gpx and kmz points -
you can shade different elevations with different colors you can also stack (layer maps ) satellelite + false color + mapbuilder (roads) + topo adjust the transparency so you can see the variations
Hillmap is a also a good tool you can save files in gpx. import in GE or garmin gps.
gmap4 I started with this saw it on HB it is ok but I like the other 3. -
Google earth opens an extensive list of file formats but I normally just use gpx, shp and kmz and can save to either one.

If you did not know a kmz file is a zipped kml file. So all you have to do is name.kmz change to name.zip and extract the kml file.

enjoy.
 
I really like Lidar maps for cyber scouting hill country and getting a really good feel for the lay of the land. Topos don’t always do that especially if you don’t have a lot of experience reading them. When using Lidar maps and tops together you can really learn to read topos much better.


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