the County has also shared its data with requesting universities, townships, and
private land owners.
“It was a three-year process working with Clark County to save for lidar and complete
the project,” Nienow said. “It was very satisfying to see the County go from no lidar
to implementation of the data across many departments in three years.”
“It was a great project,” Weyer said in summary. “As part of the project, we had (Ayres
staff ) come out and do some on-site training attended by five or six departments
from the County, and it was very well received. It was a very good training. All around,
I was very happy with the results.”
More detail, more derivative datasets
Fred Iausly, senior GIS analyst with the Dane County Land Information Office,
said 3DEP funding was critical to allow the County to move forward with a
significantly more detailed terrain project than what its first round of lidar
acquisition yielded in 2009.
“When we received delivery of the contour data, there were some new smoothing
methods that Ayres applied that preserved the accuracy but also gave a more
pleasing cartographic product, and that was great,” Iausly said of the County’s 2017
project. “There were also some other derivative products that we hadn’t really had
an opportunity to acquire in the past, like tree canopy.”
Before the prospect of 3DEP participation, the County was looking at completing
its next project at a lower quality – likely just some base products. But with 3DEP
funding, they were able to get a much higher quality spacing of their point cloud
and “intensity readings and classifications that we would never have been able to
afford,” Iausly said.
Knowing the benefits being realized by counties, Ayres’ Derringer said the company
plans to continue “chasing down these federal dollars for the counties.”
“We know how important the money has been for them, so we’ll try to work with
the program, keep track of the program, and be educated on the program to ensure
that we’re able to use those dollars for the state of Wisconsin as long as they’re
available,” Derringer said.
www.AyresAssociates.com
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