Single photon lidar light detection and ranging (SPL LiDAR) is an active remote sensing technology for:
- mapping vegetation aspects including cover, density and height
- representing the earth's terrain and elevation contours
We acquired SPL data on an airborne acquisition platform under leaf-on conditions to support Forest Resources Inventory (FRI) development.
FRI provides:
- information to support resource management planning and land use decisions within Ontario’s Managed Zone
- information on tree species, density, heights, ages and distribution
The SPL data point density ranges from a min of 25pts/m. Each point represents heights of objects such as:
- ground level terrain points
- heights of vegetation
- buildings
The lidar was classified according to the Ontario lidar classifications. Low, medium and tall vegetation are classed as 3, 4, 5 and 12 classes.
The FRI SPL products include the following digital elevation models:
- digital terrain model
- canopy height model
- digital surface model
- intensity model (signal width to return ratio)
- forest inventory raster metrics
- forest inventory attributes
- predicted streams
- hydro break lines
- block control points
Lidar fMVA data supports developing detailed 3D analysis of:
- forest inventory
- terrain
- hydrology
- infrastructure
- transportation
- other mapping applications
We made significant investments in Single Photon LiDAR data, now available on the Open Data Catalogue. Derivatives are available for streaming or through download.
The map reflects areas with LiDAR data available for download. Zoom in to see data tiles and download options. Select individual tiles to download the data.
You can download:
- classified point cloud data can also be downloaded via .laz format
- derivatives in a compressed .tiff format
- Forest Resource Inventory leaf-on LiDAR Tile Index. Download | Shapefile | File Geodatabase | GeoPackage
Web raster services
You can access the data through our web raster services. For more information and tutorials, read the Ontario Web Raster Services User Guide.
If you have questions about how to use the Web raster services, email Land Information Ontario (LIO) at lio@ontario.ca.
Note: Internal users replace "https://ws.” with “https://intra.ws."
