
LiDAR scans are finding hidden Roman roads and cutting crime - rbanffy
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/lidar-mapping-environment-agency-2020-flood-defence-waste-dumping
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saosebastiao
I really wish this technology could find its way into the hands of Ruth Shady
in Peru. She was the discoverer of the Norte Chico civilization, the earliest
known civilization in south america, and one of a select few civilizations
worldwide that could be called a cradle of civilization (a civilization that
emerged without outside influence).

And despite the significance of the discovery, there is almost no funding for
continued research, and making basic discoveries of where artifacts might be
located is still a major bottleneck.

~~~
chx
There is so much land to scan. The vast majority of the Pontic-Caspian steppe
for example. There is a lot of history to be found in burial grounds but it's
a real lot of sparsely populated land and so noone has the slightest idea
where to start.

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vondur
Oops, Vespasian wasn't Emperor in 43AD, that would have been Claudius.
Vespasian was most likely present for the Roman invasion of Britain. He would
become Emperor in AD 69.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Cerialis was appointed by Vespasian and fought the Brigantes, so it's more
likely the year 43 was wrong and should have been ~71. Vespasian invaded
Britannia in 43, probably confused the two.

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alannala
Has anyone seen any nice examples of work done with the open LiDAR data?

~~~
hanoz
I downloaded all the 1m dsm composite data from the Environment Agency and
Natural Resources Wales and used C#, System.Drawing.Graphics and hefty server
from AWS EC2 to render 2 million png files, which I then moved onto a Scaleway
C1 bare-metal ARM server, to produce this slippy lidar map of England and
Wales:
[https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map](https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map)

~~~
clort
Incredible and you can even see ripples on the sea. I was wondering (as I live
by the coast) what the deal was with the sea but I see that because they did
multiple passes over the area, the tide is at different heights.

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mentos
Anyone know where I could license/purchase hi-res LIDAR scans for use in game
development?

~~~
swebs
The UK scans are public domain.

[https://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey/index.jsp](https://environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey/index.jsp)

~~~
edent
Just to clarify - they're not Public Domain. They are released under the Open
Government Licence - which is compatible with Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
and Open Data Commons Attribution License.

[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-
licen...](http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-
licence/version/3/)

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source99
Anyone know about LIDAR hardware i can purchase that is great for high
resolution at low range. I'm looking for 1-3mm accuracy at a range from 0.1m
up to 2m. 2D or 3D. IP67 rated.

~~~
John_KZ
LIDARs are awfully expensive for personal use. Look for other 3D scanning
methods, and if you still think it's required, rent one.

~~~
source99
This isn’t for personal use.

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dsfyu404ed
"the power to deploy these technologies at scale will only be deployed to
fight serious crime"

[proceeds to use dragnet to crack down on people dumping stuff in the woods]

~~~
maxerickson
What's the downside to pervasively prosecuting illegal dumping?

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John_KZ
It opens the doors for going after even smaller crimes. Imagine if all CCTVs
in London where online and they used them to purge all the homeless out of the
city or jail them. Does that sound like a great idea to you? The law is often
flawed and "micromanaging" people can be destructive for society.

~~~
maxerickson
So no considering the crime when deciding how to direct resources? Only pursue
investigations of some murders?

(murder is the extreme example, but that's the argument you've just made, that
devoting resources to prosecuting some particular crime is a slippery slope to
abusing the homeless)

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Lind5
Mapping is important application for LiDAR technology. There's going to be a
lot of growth in that space [https://semiengineering.com/lidar-goes-back-to-
the-future/](https://semiengineering.com/lidar-goes-back-to-the-future/)

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kozikow
Is there any repository of lidar data for US? Especially coastal states like
Florida, Texas and California?

~~~
llccbb
US lidar still remains fragmented across many different portals.

USGS's 3DEEP data for the National Map covers lots of federal and private
land. Open Topography holds lots of research data funded by various federal
organizations (NSF, NOAA, others) amongst other stuff. State-level Departments
of Natural Resources very commonly host survey data.

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amelius
I have a question about self-driving cars (SDCs).

Some time ago it was mentioned that SDCs can't use deep-learning because it is
not sufficiently reliable, and that instead techniques like LiDAR should be
used to recognize objects.

However, this made me wonder: how does the car recognize road-signs and
traffic lights?

~~~
fredley
I think you're confusing things. Deep Learning is a method of machine
learning. LiDAR is a tool that collects depth data. Using Deep Learning on
flat image data to try and detect depth is unreliable, hence SDCs use LiDAR to
detect depth. They _also_ use image data from the visible spectrum and beyond
to read road signs. etc.

~~~
amelius
Ok, but what if the deep learning software of the SDC confuses a "no entry"
sign with a 100mph sign?

Or is DL classification at 100% accuracy?

~~~
fredley
I don't think 100mph signs exist, for a start. But the speed limits for
sections of road are already known anywhere that a SDC is going to be used.
It's an offline database, no sign-reading on the fly required.

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peter303
Self driving cars have lowered some LIDAR costs a factor of 20, with a promise
of far more. I wonder if this can translate over into archeology and geology.
Imsaw one project at SIGGRAPH using a cheap LIDAR.

~~~
notahacker
If you're surveying on a national scale, then the costs of chartering flights
(or driving around with drones) is going to keep costs high in the near future
even if the surveying equipment itself plummets in cost

~~~
John_KZ
Eventually we'll get drones to do this job. But first LIDAR needs to get small
and cheap enough and large drones must be developed to be reliable enough to
fly over populated areas.

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fredley
For those unaware, all scientific press releases in the UK _must_ express
areas in football pitches, and volumes in double-decker buses.

~~~
mrec
I disagree. IMHO "area the size of Wales" is more commonly used. For everyday
magnitudes the nanoWales [1] may be more convenient.

[1] [https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-
conv...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-
converter.html)

~~~
digi_owl
And this is why people should not take El Reg too seriously.

Or as one incarnation of Joker put it, "why so serious?".

