US Geological Service RFI: Cloud-Optimized Point Cloud Format (COPC) Consulting

Notice ID: DOIGFBO240071

USGS has a need for technical support and training of staff on processing 3DEP lidar point clouds in a cloud infrastructure using open-source formats and software. A strategic goal of 3DEP is to enable easier use of our lidar data, which includes the transition to a new cloud-optimized point cloud format (COPC) for visualization, processing and analyses utilizing open-source formats and software- a requirement of the Geospatial Data Act.  The National Geospatial Program (NGP) would like to contract Hobu, Inc to perform geospatial services, including training, for better enabling 3DEP data in an open-source environment.

Hobu, Inc are the creators and primary support organization for the following technologies which NGP already uses:

• PDAL — Point Data Abstraction Library
• COPC — Cloud Optimized Point Cloud
• Entwine — Entwine
• io — WebGL point cloud rendering
• EPT Tools — EPT tools
• libLAS — ASPRS LAS read/write

Deliverables

• Assist/advise NGTOC with potential reprovision/reorganization of our data, including conversion to more systematic file organization (via COPC and optimal tiling or discrete global grids)
• Construction of an open source las2copc utility that creates a one-to-one translation of LAS/LAZ tiles into COPC data. The utility should support :
  • simple options for definition of the COPC point data organizational structure (I.e. octree),
  • allowing users to add arbitrary extended variable length records (EVLRs) for metadata and other records
  • forwarding all relevant header and VLR settings that do not typically get copied over when converting file formats, and
  • validation/verification of output.
  • The las2copc utility will be published on a publicly available site such as Github.
• Construction of an open source copc2las utility that allows users to quickly slice and extract portions of a COPC file based on a user-provided boundary and user-defined spatial resolution. The extracted data will include all header settings and VLRs to support geospatial analyses of the extracted data. The copc2las utility will be published on a publicly available site such as Github.
• Demonstration of “infrastructure as code” deployment, using Terraform or AWS CloudFormation configuration, for simple processing of spatio-temporal asset catalog (STAC) or COPC point cloud assets, in order to enable easier operational deployment by NGTOC.
• Support for submitting COPC to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to establish a community standard for this lidar point cloud format, and managing and completing the OGC review process. This work will ensure that 3DEP meets the Geospatial Data Act requirements that geospatial data is published and served in open-source data formats.
• Provide technical assistance to NGTOC upon request to deploy the copc2las utility and STAC processing within the NGTOC operations workflow.
• Work with NGTOC to develop a 3DEP draft STAC specification or best practice defining tile size and metadata to include in the STAC record.

Read more here.

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