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Is there any freely available pointcloud data?

I'm especially interested in dense clouds of small areas(5m to 100m radius) but anything else would be fine too.

I've found that these pages have very nice and easy to access point cloud data.

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I decided to merge other answers with mine and organize them into a tabular format. I think it is easier to read and manage for future visitors:

enter image description here

The table can be accessed from the following link in csv format:

View in tabular form: Free LiDar DataSources

Download (csv): Free LiDar DataSources

Please submit pull request if you intended to add to this list.

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West Virginia View has some first/last files here: http://www.wvview.org/data/lidar/Gilmer/las/

This takes you through a USGS viewer, which links out to other sites (which may not have the design/interface):
http://opentopo.sdsc.edu/gridsphere/gridsphere?cid=datasets

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For our book "Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach" we have published a large North Carolina dataset. It contains the raw Lidar data as separated files which you can grab at http://www.grassbook.org/ncexternal/ (Lidar multi-return data).

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Ohio has LAS State wide datasets located here. The web page has a map extract select tool to download various extents/sets of data.

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Following the link you can find a good list of useful websites: http://gisgeography.com/top-6-free-lidar-data-sources/. All of them offer free access to lidar data in various formats (eg. *.laz or *.las).

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  • This appears to be specific to the US.
    – Aaron ♦
    Feb 4, 2016 at 13:16
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Generate your own with a Kinect. It will provide a pointcloud with cm-scale precision for areas up to 5 m^2, and has a maximum range and FOV of about 15 m, although it is not very precise at that range. Just collect your data in the morning/evening when the sun is low, or at night.

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Autodesk's 123D Create application can generate point clouds from photos.

Just take photos of something from a few angles and then hit 'go'. I am not affiliated at all. I like it a lot, though. Very nice software.

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    Very nice app. I also tried VisualSFM which may not produce nice polygon meshes but offers a lot more control.
    – Markus
    May 1, 2014 at 7:57
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Being Swiss I can recommend you a site from Switzerland: Due to political reasons, GIS data is kept by state governments on a regional level and is (unfortunately) stored differently in all states. The state of Zurich offers freely available raw high-res LAZ data here: https://maps.zh.ch/

Simply type "lidar" where it says "Karten" on the left hand panel. Select a tile and download data.

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https://github.com/PDAL/data/ has a extensive sample library of somewhat interesting data, though its primary purpose is for providing examples of variability in LAS data.

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MD DNR has some sample LIDAR datasets available on this page, although it's already been separated out into first- and last-returns.

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Well I have written tutorial about all the free sources of LIDAR data. You can mostly find free data from usa. But my article have data from Europe, south america and few countries from Africa. But did not find any data from ASIA. For my article go to http://grindgis.com/data/free-lidar-data-download. And for the USA you can directly go to WIKIPEDIA website and choose the desire state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lidar_Dataset_(United_States)

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LiDAR data in LAS format for some small areas in Europe acquired by NERC-ARF (previously NERC ARSF) are available to download from: http://browse.ceda.ac.uk/browse/neodc/arsf. Registration is required prior to downloading and FTP access is available.

Data are acquired for specific research projects, rather than as part of regional / national mapping initiatives, so coverage is very limited. Some projects have LAS 1.3 files with digitised waveforms which might be of interest (as there are relatively few free sources of full-waveform data). Hyperspectral data flown at the same time are also available to download.

If you want truly raw data (as in the files which come straight off the instrument, with no processing applied) these are also available to download from the link above. Note, these data aren't intended for general use as they can often only be opened with the manufacturer's software.

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For Slovenia free raw (zlas) files. You have to download each sheet manually. Data cloud is 1mx1m and one sheet is 1km2. OTR file has already classified point cloud for ground.

http://gis.arso.gov.si/evode/profile.aspx?id=atlas_voda_Lidar@Arso

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    Why did you all go with ZLAS and not LAZ?
    – jwx
    Feb 10, 2016 at 18:30
  • I really dont know since it is national project in hands of state environment agency. Most probably because smaller files to download. It is easy to decompress them with this tool arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=787794cdbd384261bc9bf99a860a374f I know that with free access to data we should have open format lidar data, but it is what it is.
    – Jost Hobic
    Feb 11, 2016 at 8:26
  • you get a higher compression ratio with ZLAS opposed to LAZ? Also, the tools for LAZ are free and public....Just saying.
    – jwx
    Feb 15, 2016 at 18:13
  • Now there is also option to download LAZ files :)
    – Jost Hobic
    Nov 11, 2018 at 10:39

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