Aerial Imagery, Returned LiDAR Intensity, First and Last Return Pulses

Greetings,

First and foremost, I would like to thank those running this website who have made the data publicly available. Finding publicly available high resolution LiDAR data overlapping towns and cities is challenging in the least. I have a couple of data set questions. For any of the data sets, did the LiDAR sensors have the capability to record both the first and last return pulses and the returned intensity? If yes, is this also available? Are aerial images or multispectral images available for any of the data sets in addition to the LiDAR data? I know I can google earth the locations and get aerial imagery that way, but I was wondering if on the order of 15cm pixel resolution aerial imagery was available.

I saw the contact information for various people associated with the data sets on the website, I just figured I would double check to see if any of the above was available somewhere on the website that I might have overlooked.

Glad to hear that you are finding OpenTopography helpful.

I have a couple of data set questions. For any of the data sets, did the LiDAR sensors have the capability to record both the first and last return pulses and the returned intensity? If yes, is this also available?

All datasets available via OpenTopo are multiple return. You can choose to download (and produce DEMs for) bare earth points, vegetation returns, structure returns, or all returns. We have retained all attributes for the datasets that we host, so if you choose to download the point cloud data, you will find attribution for classification as well as return number. Intensity is an attribute for the B4 dataset as well as all GeoEarthScope data. On the Metadata & Files page of OpenTopo there are links to metadata documents that describe the attributes of the various datasets

Are aerial images or multispectral images available for any of the data sets in addition to the LiDAR data? I know I can google earth the locations and get aerial imagery that way, but I was wondering if on the order of 15cm pixel resolution aerial imagery was available.

The only dataset for which imagery was acquired at the same time as the LIDAR was B4. I've never seen these data, but they do exist. I'm told they were not acquired with a true photogrammetric camera so may be tough to work with. MASTER multispectral imagery has been flown for faults in southern California - more info on those data are in this abstract: http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/abstract_95708.htm