Digital Terrain Mapping of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Using Digital Orthophotography and Airborne LIDAR

Author: Raul Campos-Marquetti
Organization: EnerQuest Systems, LLC

7500 Jefferson ST. NE
Suite 101
Albuquerque, NM 87109
USA

Phone: 505 828-2700
Fax: 505 828-9200
rcampos@enerquest.com

EnerQuest Systems, LLC, in conjunction with Bohannon Huston, Inc., and Tetra Tech NUS, Inc., is currently performing a large-scale digital terrain mapping project of Bernalillo County, New Mexico. This project is being conducted for a consortium of federal, State, County, and municipal agencies that include the U.S. Corps of Engineers, Bernalillo County, the New Mexico State Highway Department, City of Albuquerque, Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, and AMAFCA. Digital mapping products include the delivery of over 1,000 one-foot gsd color digital orthophotos and 1,010 square miles of one-foot and two-foot contour data. All contours are being derived from one-meter and three-meter gsd photometrically enhanced airborne LIDAR data flown by Aerotec and EnerQuest Systems, LLC. Project data will be used by the various agencies for flood control, irrigation, planimetry, terrain mapping, and planning purposes.

Approximately two terabytes of LIDAR and aerial photographic data were collected for this project. EnerQuest Systems, LLC, has developed new techniques that allow for faster, more cost-effective methods of processing and production of digital surface and orthophotographic products. This was accomplished using GIS, CAD, photogrammetric, image processing, and remote sensing techniques. Newly applied technologies include the integrated use of airborne GPS and IMU technology, digital color scanning, fast Fourier filtering techniques used in the removal of vegetation and buildings from LIDAR data, and color balancing of digital orthophotography (removal of solar and camera radiometric shading effects). Esri software played a crucial role in project and data management, LIDAR processing and editing, the building of three-dimensional terrain models, and the QA/QC process.

The software used in this project includes ArcView GIS (including the ArcView Spatial Analyst and ArcView 3D Analyst extensions), Workstation ArcInfo for Windows NT, ERDAS IMAGINE, Intergraph Softcopy, Bentley MicroStation, and proprietary software developed by EnerQuest personnel. EnerQuest will present examples of all digital products including LIDAR data, digital orthophotos, three-dimensional terrain models, and a three-dimensional fly-by movie of the Rio Grande Valley area.