[tomtom]

Just noticed there is an online mapping tool showing the UK lidar map (Lidar is laser altimitery that gives a very accurate z or elevation value and can also see through trees - if filtered right). It’s an elevation point every metre... not 100% coverage but..

https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map

[Hoseyb]

Hard to feel your way around,  however, the slate quarries look cool!

[dunnyg]

shouls be able to intigrate with satellite imagery. auto boulder detection.

[Will Hunt]

I had a play with free LIDAR a while ago but applied a slope function instead of just presenting it as a DEM. For bouldering, the absolute height difference that you're looking for is quite small, what you're really after is a rapid height change (i.e. vertical stuff). On a DEM it's quite hard to spot interesting stuff without first having a clue that it's there. For instance, have a look on that online tool at a big trad height place like Earl Seat (https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map?ref=SE0703158440). I think it's more useful for truthing things that you've spotted on an OS map to check that it's actually viable before schlepping out there.

I'll try and upload some pictures to illustrate what I mean later.

[dunnyg]

I love LiDAR. Proper good. I think the BGS were going to LiDAR the whole of the UK, but I could be wrong. I wonder if this is freely downloadable?

[tomtom]

I love LiDAR. Proper good. I think the BGS were going to LiDAR the whole of the UK, but I could be wrong. I wonder if this is freely downloadable?

I’ve forgotten - but this is the first time I’ve seen it in a displayable web format.

[SA Chris]

I need to use it at some point for confirming value of all the "outcrops" that appear on OS round here, most of which turn out to be a couple of square feet of lichenous granite poking through the heather.

[Will Hunt]

Explanation of what this all is is obviously not aimed at you, TomTom!


This is Long Crag on Barden Fell viewed using a simple DEM. Great for bouldering but doesn't look like much. There's something like a 1m tile resolution in the data.




This is a possible crag on Grassington Moor that I never actually visited. I reckon it looks like there's something there. This looks better partly because the area had a 25cm tile resolution - which the EA normally only used for flooding schemes (it might be that they had to build a run-off model of this moorland to work out the size of flood defences somewhere downstream).




This is what happens when you ask the GIS to show the slope, as opposed to the elevation. The height of each cell in the grid is compared against the height of it's neighbouring cells. Big height differences are coloured lighter, so steep areas show up.
The angled T shape is a pair of walls. You can see the river network quite clearly. The fainter, straight lines that run across the moor are drainage ditches called grips which were historically used to drain the land and turn blanket bog into viable grazing land (with mixed success). These are often the width of a shovel/mini-digger bucket and full of water and surrounded by dense heather or tussocky grass, so picking them up in the data is really impressive. Crags would appear on a map like this as a thin white line following the lip of the crag.

[dunnyg]

If you put hill shading on rather than slope map is that good for crag spotting? I don't have the same DEM but might be worth a punt

[tomtom]

The online map is hillshaded (best for spotting crags I suspect - it picks up all the main ones hidden in the trees at Helsby)

[dunnyg]

Oh yeah ( I do some DEM work so should know this...). Brain has gone to mush already.

[Stewart]

Just noticed there is an online mapping tool showing the UK lidar map (Lidar is laser altimitery that gives a very accurate z or elevation value and can also see through trees - if filtered right). It’s an elevation point every metre... not 100% coverage but..

https://houseprices.io/lab/lidar/map

Any links to this UK lidar map? I can only see an England and Wales one 

[Will Hunt]

I think the data comes from the Environment Agency (they are a public body so have to make the data available under EIR). Scotland is under the EPA who may not have collected LIDAR data or not made it available in the same way.

[tomtom]

Have a look at SEPA’s website. They’re usually more progressive than the EA. It’s free from the EA website but not for commercial use etc...

[andy_e]

Just double-checked, and this is a DSM - a Digital Surface Model, as opposed to a DTM - a Digitial Terrain Model. That means the trees are still on it/ Check out this image of Wharfedale, near the cliff. The DSM above still has the trees of Riffa Wood and the Castley Viaduct on it. The (slope-angle shaded and subtle hillshade overlay) DTM below doesn't. Also, no idea what projection the houseprices.io system uses, but it's not OSGB 36 like below!

[GazM]

I've found this for Scotland: https://remotesensingdata.gov.scot/collections
But am yet to explore it so no idea if it's any use.