The U.S. Geological Survey - National Geospatial Program (NGP) has drafted Guidelines and Base Specifications for lidar data, with the primary intent to create consistency for lidar collections, particularly those undertaken in support of the National Elevation Dataset (NED). The specification places emphasis on the handling of source lidar point cloud data rather than the derived bare-earth DEM product. This was done to ensure the complete source data remains intact and viable to support a wide variety of non-DEM science and mapping applications.

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