The vertices and connectivity will be written to a ShapeFile-format set of files, by default. The TIN will provide the vertices and connectivity we need for printing the top of our physical object. In this example, we will create a terrain surface model in the form of a Triangulated Irregular Network, or TIN. In order to create the initial surface model, we will use the Process Data option in ENVI LiDAR.

But we will a third dimension in a future step. The surface itself is not sufficient for 3-D printing, either, because a surface has no physical depth. In this example, we will first create a polygonal mesh that represents a surface. Point clouds cannot be printed directly because points do not occupy a physical volume. Initially, this will include points returned from objects such as trees, rocks, hikers and marmots. When the projection is applied, the point data will be displayed in the ENVI LiDAR UI. The original data in this area is approximately 1500 by 400 meters on the ground, with an altitude range of 500 meters. Unless you own a printer with an impressively large volume, we will be scaling and re-centering the units in the end, from meters to the scale of a few centimeters. In reality, for our purposes of printing the data, the coordinate system is not particularly important. I know that this data set was collected in WGS84 in UTM zone 13 N coordinates. You will be prompted initially for a coordinate system for the point cloud data because the map projection metadata is not carried with the point cloud in this format. Run ENVI 5.4 and select the downloaded '.laz' file as your input. In this example, I've selected data set number 8, which shows fairly significant variations in elevation.Д¬licking the 'download' button for a data set will prompt you with a dialog box to choose the format of the output data.Д®NVI LiDAR can read compressed data as well as uncompressed data file formats, so I've selected the 'LAZ Product' (compressed LiDAR) option to speed the transfer.Дownload the resulting file to your local computer. Check the inventory of available data in this region of interest.ДЇor each data set, the footprint icon will highlight the ground projection of the associated data in the image display. In order to generate a printed surface, we will start with the point cloud data associated with a LiDAR collection. Clicking the 'Data Sets' button will bring you to the next page from which you can choose from among many data sources. In this example, I have manually drawn a bounding box shown in red. The initial goal is to determine which data sets are available for an area around the summit of Mt. Once online, navigate with the map display to the location of interest. LiDAR data for a section of the mountain is available to the public through the US Geological Survey's EarthExplorer online portal. Below is a Google Earth view of the region, for perspective. Princeton, a 14,196-foot peak that flanks the west side of the Arkansas River Valley near the town of Buena Vista, Colorado.

The subject of this study is a section of picturesque Mt. This blog will cover one technique, using ENVI LiDARВ along with some custom IDL code, to convert publicly-available LiDAR data into a 3-D printed object, a scale model. Land-use or military planners, architects, and civil engineers will sometimes rely on scale models of their environment to better understand features of the terrain and the ramifications of their decisions. For some of us, it's significantly easier to understand an object in 3-dimensional space if we're holding it in our hands, versus viewing it on a screen or even in a virtual reality environment.

Space mountain 3d model printed