Application of Airborne Laser Scanning in Higway Engineering Projects in Brazil

Laser Altimetry, more referred in the commercial sector as LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) mapping, is establishing as a common operational tool in the fields of mapping, remote sensing and fotogrametry. LIDAR can to generate quickly dense and accurate digital terrain model. For applications that need digital terrain models with high density and accuracy, as in projects of highway engineering, LIDAR offers only technical capacities, it reduces costs of field operations, and reduces the time of postprocessing work if compared to traditional survey methods. Recently it was accomplished in Brazil one of the first surveying for application in projects of implantation of highways using that new technology. This survey was made in a corridor with approximately 22 Km by 0,75 Km in a rural area. Also in that project, a mosaic was generated obtained from ortophotos with the purpose of facilitating the extraction of terrain characteristics. The present paper tells the application of LIDAR data obtained in that project and of ortophotos mosaic in a pioneering project of engineering higway in Brazil. In the made study, it was chosen a stretch with approximately 1,8 Km by 0,75 Km to investigate the applications of products to lidar as DEM and DTM and ortophotos mosaic for a highway project. The direct influence area was evaluated from the highway to be implanted, considering the environmental aspects directly affected for the implantation of the work.