Processing Coastal Lidar Time Series

In this chapter, we analyze time series of lidar data point clouds to assess the point density, gaps in coverage, spatial extent and accuracy. Based on this analysis and a given application we select appropriate resolution and interpolation method for computation of raster-based digital elevation model (DEM). We explain computation of DEMs by per raster-cell averaging, two types of splines. Assessment of systematic error using geodetic benchmarks or other ground truth point data and correction of any shifted DEMs is the final step in creating a consistent DEM time series.