Where To Download LiDAR Data

Downloading LiDAR data is pretty straightforward and surprisingly free, well almost free, hard drives do cost money and you might need a new one to try and hold a lot of data like I try to do. Your typical LiDAR data that you can download will be Shapefile (.shp), Geodatabase (.gdb) and Digital Elevation Model (.tif), these are already processed files that you can just open and view right away. There is also LiDAR Point Cloud (.laz), but it has to be processed to easily view it, you could technically open it as is, but it looks way better processed. There are other file types that LiDAR can be stored in, but I’ve only dealt with these so far.

Not every state has a dedicated website for GIS data or even has LiDAR data at all, but North Carolina (NC OneMap) and South Carolina (SCDNR) both have websites that provide all kinds of GIS and LiDAR data that you can download. USGS provides GIS data for pretty much all of the United States and is main place I download LiDAR data from. Links for NC OneMap, SCDNR and USGS.

Down below I will guide you to where you need to go to download LiDAR data. I’ll start with USGS as I primarily use the data from there the most.

Elevation Products and Elevation Source Data are the main two for LiDAR data
1 meter DEM data covers a larger area than the next two, but I rarely ever use it
DEM Source is the main data that I use, and LiDAR Point Cloud is the raw LiDAR data that must be processed

As I stated above, I rarely ever use 1 meter DEM data, but I also rarely use LiDAR Point Cloud data as it takes too long to process, plus DEM Source is very close in detail to it. The process to download any of the three is the same, so I’ll only be showing the process with DEM Source.

Make sure to have the DEM Source box checked and then zoom to where you want data for and then click Search Products
Or better yet you can click Extent and drag a box over the area you want data for and then click Search Products
When you click the Search Products button, you’ll then be transferred over to the Products tab where you can choose which map tiles you wanna download
Once you’ve found the map tile that you wanna download, click Download Link. Optionally you can click the shopping cart and add the map tile to the Cart tab, which allows bulk downloading
You’ll need a download manager to use this feature, which USGS provides under uGet Instructions, if you already have a download manager you can just click the TXT or CSV pages to download
I would recommend not mixing different states data together as it can cause alignment problems

I mostly use USGS for LiDAR data, but I started out with SCDNR’s LiDAR data and still use it quite often as they’re data comes in packages that cover whole counties.

Click on LiDAR Status Table or scroll down to LiDAR Status by County
Find a county that you want data for and click the green circle button to the left of it
County DEM, County Contours and County Breaklines are the main data that you will want

Copy the ftp links into your file explorer on your computer to be taken to the LiDAR files. Technically each County has the same links, so you only need these links to download data “ftp://ftpdata.dnr.sc.gov/gisdata/elev/DEM/”, “ftp://ftpdata.dnr.sc.gov/gisdata/elev/contours/” and “ftp://ftpdata.dnr.sc.gov/gisdata/elev/breaklines/”. SCDNR changes how they manage data occasionally, so if the links don’t work go to their website.

SCDNR has more GIS data, but you will need an account with them to access it.

NC OneMap is the easiest of the three to download LiDAR data from and is also one of the best places to view and download property parcel information for the state, plus all kinds of other GIS data.

Scroll down to Direct Data Downloads to find the LiDAR data
There’s only one version to choose for Elevation (DEM), but there are two for Contours and you will want the File Geodatabase

And there you have it, you now know where and how to download LiDAR data. USGS files don’t need it, but NC OneMap and SCDNR files are compressed into a zip file and will need to be unzipped to use them, I use 7-Zip. Mac users get to skip this step as their files automatically get unzipped when saving them.

The next steps for you is to either process the LiDAR Point Cloud data that you downloaded, or open and view the data you downloaded. Links for Processing LiDAR Point Cloud Data and Opening And Viewing Data.