The high resolution terrain data in CloudRF is constantly being updated, driven by user demand and the abundance of available public LIDAR data from organisations like the USGS for the United States.
Supported data
Terrain data can be from a wide variety of sources in a range of resolutions and projections. Data in the following raster / point cloud formats is supported:
- LAS / LAZ
- ASCII / Esri Grid
- GeoTIFF (GTIFF)
- .xyz
Target format
All data will be converted to ASCII Grid in WGS84 projection. This process can be either quick or slow depending on how much downloading and processing is required.
Making your request
If you would like high resolution data for your area please help us help you by finding some data first. This is usually from a local geographic website, university or public institution. Using a search engine with ‘Estonia LIDAR’ for example is a quick way to find public data. Once you have found a link, email support@cloudrf.com with the details. Data should be licensed for commercial use but if you’re not sure we will check the licence. If you can download it directly without a login this is normally a good indicator it is public licensed data – which quite a lot is including LIDAR datasets from the UK Environment agency and US geological survey.
Pricing
Given the range of data and processing required, each task is priced differently, and some are free of charge. The factors which influence cost are:
- Required resolution – 1m requires more work than 10m
- Area / data size – A city is less work than a country
- Population density – An urban area will carry a discount since there is more likely to be people using it.
Priority will be given to CloudRF customers with active commercial plans. We get requests from prospective users but will always prioritise CloudRF users over them.
Priority will also be given to users who save us time by researching available data or even better hosting it themselves in an online repository ready for us to download.
Example one – City LIDAR, Free of charge
A user shares a link to public LIDAR data for a major US city. The request is non-urgent and the data is uploaded free of charge 2 weeks later because it is for a major city and can be used by other users.
Example two – Private rural data for research project, £200 GBP
A user shares a link to private LIDAR data they have under license which must be kept private so only they can use it. The request is required for a fixed start date and the data is uploaded a week later.