Shoals 400 lidar data

Today I got my first glimpse of lidar data processing using Shoals NT, the Shoals 400 Hz Post-Flight Processing System. It took me a little time to muddle through everything and I am still not entirely sure what all the different functions do (even with a slightly out-of-date manual), but I am starting to get the hang of it. I am definitely itching to start really digging into this data.

Here is a screen shot of some Lake Tahoe data displayed in the software. You can see the overview area in the top left window and the zoomed in area in the box on the right. In both windows, lidar returns with a depth confidence of less than 50 are returned as no data (white). The rest of the returns are color-coded by depth. Land returns are brown. By clicking on individual soundings in the zoom window I can view more detailed information, including the full waveform.

(click on the image for a larger version)