#lidar

[victusinveritas]

LIDAR impressions of ancient Indigenous sites in the Americas.

[segmentedleg]

File:Starfire Optical Range - sodium laser.jpg

[blackbirdcreek]

My favorite thing to do when I'm depressed is pore over LiDAR scans of the marshes around my fishing village and try to figure out the who, what, and when of the old structures I'm finding in the marshes. Like pretty sure I found a fort, could be a civil war era fort, could be colonial era. There was allegedly a manor build on a section of the river that was straightened, which you can see in the second photo. Plenty of Lenape earthworks which are already known and being protected. Really having fun looking at the location of the old English village that is now submerged off of the beach. I keep finding hunks of marble and ceramics washing up lately. Some of them were unearthed after the river was dredged a couple summers ago. Anyway, our maritime museum was recently donated an 18th century map of the english town that was previously unknown so now I can compare a real contemporary map of the era with the LiDAR maps I now have access to! >:D

[mindblowingscience]

Cluster of Ancient Lost Cities in The Amazon Is The Largest Ever Found

Researchers have detected a cluster of lost 2,500-year-old cities at the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon rainforest.

Researchers have detected a cluster of lost 2,500-year-old cities at the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon rainforest. This amazing discovery, the oldest and largest of its kind in the region, includes a vast system of farmland and roads, revealing that Ecuador's Upano Valley was densely populated from about 500 BCE to between 300 and 600 CE.

Continue Reading.

[inspofromancientworld]

The Science of Discovering the Past: Geophysical Archaeology

By Glab310 - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113524155

While much of archaeology involves unearthing artifacts, knowing where to find those sites requires research at the surface, as does mapping the site. Geophysical surveys help archaeologists know where to focus their efforts and help them avoid fruitless digs where no artifacts or remaining structures lie below the surface as well as avoiding the destruction of sites that are culturally sensitive, such as cemeteries.

By see above - http://www.archaeophysics.com/3030/index.htmlTransferred from en.wikipedia by SreeBot, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17210746

There are many methods used to map below the surface, some of which can be done with little training while others meld multiple methods for a more complete map of what's under the surface. Those techniques that are more specialized were adapted from those used to explore for minerals. Mineral surveys seek to know what is deep beneath the surface and archaeological sites are relatively near the surface. These surveys also are focused on larger structures that would take a long time to unearth.

Source: https://sha.org/the-montpelier-minelab-experiment/2012/03/

Various methods of performing geophysical surveys and reveal different information. Metal detectors can be used to find caches of metal, but they don't give detailed information of what is below the surface. They can be used to discover new places to focus studies on. They work by inducing eddy currents, or a looping current between the detector and the metal in the ground, which causes a change in how the current flows in the machine, resulting in a signal being reported to the user, either through sound or visual output. Many locations have regulations or laws that dictate how metal detectors can be used and the ownership of those items found.

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109641426

A more precise form of the this falls into two types: Electrical resistance meters and electromagnetic conductivity. Electrical resistance meters work by inserting probes into the soil through which electrical currents are passed and the resistance of the ground around them is detected, revealing the structures beneath as things like stone have different resistance than the soil around them. Electromagnetic conductivity is similar to metal detection in that a magnetic field is created by an electric field of a known frequency while detectors pick up the change. These detectors and currents are stronger than those of metal detectors with a related increase in size of the detector.

By Archaeo-Physics LLC - http://www.archaeophysics.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36404337

Ground-penetrating radar uses electromagnetic pulses to detect what is under the surface in a way similar to how radar works in other applications. The pulses are reflected off items under the surface and recorded by the detector. It's possible to discover how things are layered beneath the surface because of the differences in reflections.

By Cargyrak - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48685015

Lidar is an optical technique that uses light, usually lasers, to map the land. It has the ability to penetrate foliage, such as forest canopies, and allows features beneath the surface to be distinguished. This also allows features that are too large to be distinguished from the ground to be mapped. Lidar has the additional benefit of being easily integrated into Geographical Information Systems, integrated computer hardware and software systems that are used to analyze and visualize geographic data.

[noosphe-re]

Researchers have designed a single-photon time-of-flight LiDAR system that can produce high-resolution 3D images of objects and faces that are some distance away. The top images show 3D printed pillars imaged from 45 m away in broad daylight. The lower images depict a recognizable human face from a person 325 m away. Credit: Aongus McCarthy, Heriot-Watt University (Single-photon LiDAR delivers detailed 3D images at distances up to 1 kilometer, Phys.org, February 6, 2025)

[sunbleachedshea]

This semi took forever to scan in. Emergency Dr Pepper in the cargo pocket.

[aiweirdness]

My dad’s phone has a 3D LiDAR Scanner. His cat is wondering why he’s laughing so hard

[video description: 3D render of a cat sleeping on the back of a couch. The cat shape is inaccurate, and the cat’s image is smeared across a flat rounded shape.]