It was standing room only when over one hundred registrants attended AAM’s recent workshop at MapAsia 2007 in Kuala Lumpur.

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is a broadacre mapping tool which has been widely adopted throughout Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America. This workshop posed the question: “What contribution can LiDAR make in Asia?

The Asian region offers a challenging landscape with the usual key variables: weather, vegetation, financing, aviation support, security concerns and engineering software acceptance.

Asia’s economic growth will require significant amounts of spatial data acquisition to support infrastructure development and land-use management. The workshop considered the proposition: Can the LiDAR business and technical models employed elsewhere simply be transported to the Asian region?

This workshop initiated a process for addressing the benefits and limitations of using LiDAR in Asia. A number of recent case studies highlighted the benefits and problems of using LiDAR in Asia. Central to this discussion was the recent LiDAR survey over Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley, which offered a variety of landuse characteristics and acquisition impediments typical of experiences encountered throughout the Asian region.

Click here to read the full workshop paper.


         
Left: David Jonas presenting at MapAsia
Right: Delegates at AAM's LiDAR workshop