A review of the asprs guidelines for the reporting of horizontal and vertical accuracies in lidar data

The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Lidar Committee (ASPRS LC) has developed guidelines titled "ASPRS Lidar Guidelines - Vertical Accuracy Reporting for Lidar Data V1.0 " that provide recommendations on measuring and reporting the vertical accuracy of datasets acquired by means of airborne laser scanning (ALS). The ASPRS LC has also been working on developing a similar document related to the horizontal accuracies associated with lidar data. High Resolution Terrain Information (HRTI), or elevation models containing both high spatial resolution and high accuracies, is often utilized beyond its traditional role in generating Digital Elevation Models (DEM) for applications such as precise geopositioning with rigorous error propagation. ALS is an ideal HRTI source due to its dense post spacing and very accurate elevations. However, in order to use these datasets in non-traditional applications and obtain reliable results, standards are required for file format and error reporting. With minor modifications, the ASPRS guidelines may provide a suitable framework for such specifications. This paper provides an overview of the ASPRS lidar guidelines and makes several recommendations to the ASPRS LC related to the guidelines. The recommendations focus on the implications of adopting the guidelines for non-traditional applications such as the precise geopositioning scenarios. The guideline overview provides a positive review of the ASRPS efforts, but also provides suggestions that if implemented would allow them to be even more universal. Specifically, these recommendations would help assure the utility of lidar data for the widest range of lidar-derived HRTI users possible.