These files contain topographic and bathymetric lidar data collected by the Compact Hydrographic Airborne Rapid Total
Survey (CHARTS) system along the west coast of Michigan from Berrien County to Leelanau County, along the Lake Michigan
coastline from 28 July - 16 Sept 2008. Lidar intensity data was also collected.
CHARTS integrates topographic and bathymetric lidar sensors, a digital camera and a hyperspectral scanner on a
single remote sensing platform for use in coastal mapping and charting activities. Data coverage generally extends along the
coastline from the waterline inland 500 meters (topography) and offshore 1,000 meters or to laser extinction (bathymetry).
The topographic lidar sensor has a pulse repetition rate of 9 kHz at 1064 nm (near-infrared wavelength). The bathymetric lidar
sensor has a pulse repetition rate of 1 kHz at 532 nm (green wavelength). Native lidar data is not generally in a format accessible
to most Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Specialized in-house and commercial software packages are used to process the native
lidar data into 3-dimensional positions that can be imported into GIS software for visualization and further analysis. Horizontal
positions, provided in decimal degrees of latitude and longitude, are referenced to the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83).
Vertical positions are referenced to the NAD83 ellipsoid and provided in meters.
Original contact information:
Contact Org: JALBTCX
Title: Data Production Manager
Phone: 228-252-1111
Email: shoals-info@sam.usace.army.mil
This data set is an LAZ (compressed LAS) format file containing LIDAR point cloud data.