WG - Lidar - Bathymetry - Public

Hi All:  Excellent and thought-provoking discussion at yesterday's inaugural  virtual meeting.  Wearing my "academic/ASPRS and former state agency" hats there are three items that came to mind. Just a few thoughts for discussion/consideration.  Thanks ... Al

• First and foremost, the non-expert community looks to the ASPRS for guidance and I think that the suggestion of compiling a document regarding topobathy sensors and best-use applications is a great idea.  With that, though, I think that we (the ASPRS) need to be very careful and not sound like an endorsement for any particular manufacturer or sensor as we know that these are subject to very frequent change.  This may be tricky, but I think that if we can confine the "chart/table" to applications with suggested instrument specifications, that could go a long way.  
• And that brings me to my second suggestion regarding the larger, non-technical/end-user community,  especially those who will be using the topobathy data for decision/regulation making purposes, they need to establish some level of comfort among themselves and their constituants associated with the "accuracy" of the topobathy lidar.  Remember it took the better part of 10-years for the engineering community to become comfortable with topographic lidar.   They really don't care about the technicalities of TPU, VPU and the like, but rather need to have that same level of comfort that they get from a signed/sealed acoustic survey.  While they know that there is a difference when the survey report says that the SBES has a +/- 50cm accuracy vs +/- 150 cm accuracy, just want to know it with some level of comfort (=confidence) and they do not care about bar soundings, etc.
• Finally and admittedly, the agencies that have worked for are only responsible for shallow water (0 - 10m), and the end-users do not understand the difficulties/complexities associated with independent accuracy assessments in deeper water.  Xan's suggestion of an educational document (I recommend something more along the lines of a StoryMap) would go a long way to help them understand.  Again, we need to consider that the audience we need to educate is non-technical and graphs, charts, and particularly maps and diagrams (without mathematical formulas) will go along way to help them. 

Hi All:  Excellent and thought-provoking discussion at yesterday's inaugural  virtual meeting.  Wearing my "academic/ASPRS and former state agency" hats there are three items that came to mind. Just a few thoughts for discussion/consideration.  Thanks ... Al

• First and foremost, the non-expert community looks to the ASPRS for guidance and I think that the suggestion of compiling a document regarding topobathy sensors and best-use applications is a great idea.  With that, though, I think that we (the ASPRS) need to be very careful and not sound like an endorsement for any particular manufacturer or sensor as we know that these are subject to very frequent change.  This may be tricky, but I think that if we can confine the "chart/table" to applications with suggested instrument specifications, that could go a long way.  
• And that brings me to my second suggestion regarding the larger, non-technical/end-user community,  especially those who will be using the topobathy data for decision/regulation making purposes, they need to establish some level of comfort among themselves and their constituants associated with the "accuracy" of the topobathy lidar.  Remember it took the better part of 10-years for the engineering community to become comfortable with topographic lidar.   They really don't care about the technicalities of TPU, VPU and the like, but rather need to have that same level of comfort that they get from a signed/sealed acoustic survey.  While they know that there is a difference when the survey report says that the SBES has a +/- 50cm accuracy vs +/- 150 cm accuracy, just want to know it with some level of comfort (=confidence) and they do not care about bar soundings, etc.
• Finally and admittedly, the agencies that have worked for are only responsible for shallow water (0 - 10m), and the end-users do not understand the difficulties/complexities associated with independent accuracy assessments in deeper water.  Xan's suggestion of an educational document (I recommend something more along the lines of a StoryMap) would go a long way to help them understand.  Again, we need to consider that the audience we need to educate is non-technical and graphs, charts, and particularly maps and diagrams (without mathematical formulas) will go along way to help them.