How to Download Lots of Lidar from the Digital Coast

Via LASTOOLS: Kirk Waters, physical scientist at NOAA, describes in his latest blog entry how to efficiently download lots of compressed LiDAR data in LAZ format from NOAA's Digital Coast servers:

http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/geozone/how-to-download-lots-of-lidar-on-digital-coast

He also conjectures that more LiDAR software will be able to input and output the LAZ format soon. After FME, TopoDOT, GlobalMapper, RiProcess, QT Modeler / QT Reader, ... (see http://laszip.org for a complete list of LAZ-enabled software and LAZ download sites).

The Coastal Services Center, home of the Digital Coast, is one cool place. I visited there in the 1990s while at NOAA-Beaufort and working with the C-CAP program.