CelticFieldsObtainLaserdata

How do you get sufficiently detailed laser data online? Generally, they are offered via geoportals or directly by the responsible surveying offices. First we have to distinguish what exactly we want: Screening seamless relief graphics larger areas in sufficiently high resolution, downloading DGMs (Digital Ground Model), also called DTMs (Digital Terrain Model) in the form of xyz point clouds or raster formats – or both. The following tables provide an (incomplete) overview of data sources in the parts of Europe of interest here. An useful list about downloadable laser data can be found at https://planlaufterrain.com/LiDAR-Data-and-FAQ/

Germany, federal state (many changes since 2024!)	Seemless view into relief grafics of at least 2 m resolution	Download of point clouds / raster data
Schleswig-Holstein	Impossible	Data can be freely downloaded in xyz format separated by square kilometer tiles
Lower Saxony	Impossible	Data can be freely downloaded in geotiff format separated by square kilometer tiles
Town of Hamburg	Impossible	Data can be freely downloaded in xyz format separated by square kilometer tiles
Town of Bremen	Impossible	Like Hamburg (free)
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania	IPossible in sufficient quality, but high resolution	Data can be freely downloaded in xyz or geotiff format separated by square kilometer tiles
North Rhine-Westphalia	Possible in good quality	Data can be freely downloaded in xyz format separated by square kilometer tiles
Hesse	No longer possible to view data via geology or soil viewer due to con-version to unusable layer level display	1-m raster data are freely downloadable as geotiffs separated by municipalities, which can lead to long loading times and possibly capacity problems for large cities
Brandenburg	Possible in very low contrast quality but high resolution	Data can be freely and easily downloaded in xyz or geotiff format separated by zipped two square kilometer tiles
Town of Berlin	Possible in very bad quality but high resolution	Like Brandenburg (free)
Saxony-Anhalt	Impossible	2-m raster data are freely downloadable as geotiffs, also in very large tiles
Saxony	Possible in excellent quality	1-m raster data are freely downloadable as XYZ data
Thuringia	Possible only in insufficient resolution (5 m grid)	1-m raster data can be freely and easily downloaded in zipped xyz format separated by square kilometer tiles
Saarland	Impossible	On request at the Landesamt für Vermessung, Geoinformation und Landentwicklung, for a fee of 80.-€/sqkm, truncated square kilometer tiles will be charged in full! (It is currently the last federal state to charge these completely excessive costs.)
Rhineland-Palatinate	Possible in sufficient quality and high resolution via Geologieviewer RLP (copyright marks superimposed)	Data can be downloaded free of charge in Geotiff format, separated by square kilometre tiles, municipalities, associations of municipalities or districts
Baden-Württemberg	Possible in good resolution, but insufficient contrast	Data can be freely and easily downloaded in xyz format separated by zipped two square kilometer tiles.Unfortunatey, only two tiles cna be downloaded simultaneously.
Bavaria	Possible in rather low-contrast quality, but high resolution (copyright marks superimposed)	Online via geodaten.bayern.de in 1-sqkm geotiff tiles, free since the beginning of 2023, download best by county (Landkreis), requires a somewhat tricky procedure and a browser extension, e.g. DownThemAll.

European countries north of the Alps	Seemless view into relief grafics of at least 2 m resolution	Download of point clouds / raster data
Denmark	Possible in nearly insufficient quality	0.8-m data freely downloadable in 1-qkm tiles
Sweden	Impossible (?)	Should be possible for free, but I did not succeed yet. Apparently, high-resolution data for areas outside the mountain forests are fee-based.
United Kingdom	Does not seem possible (anymore)	Data freely downloadable in large tiles
Irland	Possible, slow, so far only small parts of the country	Data apparently freely downloadable
Belgium: Flanders	Impossible	1-m-Data freely downloadable in large tiles
Belgium: Wallonia	Impossible	Data freely downloadable
Netherlands	Possible with insufficient quality	1-m-Data freely downloadable in large tiles
Luxembourg	Possible with very high contrast	Data freely downloadable in tiny 0.25 sqkm tiles, only as LAZ files, from which a DTM must first be calculated, extremely cumbersome for larger areas!
Estonia	Not possible, but it is easy to download a 5m grid for the whole country (too rough for the search!)	Data freely downloadable
Latvia	Impossible	Data freely downloadable in 1-qkm tiles as LAS point clouds (the flood of data pushes my laptop to its limits!).
Lithuania	Impossible	Data download was not successful, apparently high-resolution data is only available around the larger cities.
Poland	Possible with good quality	1 m raster data or xyz point clouds conveniently and freely downloadable in large tiles
Switzerland	Possible with very good quality	Data freely downloadable
Austria	Impossible	Data freely downloadable (only parts of the country, different depending on the federal state)
Czech Republic	Possible, contrast moderate to good, but data quality poor in forests, especially in uplands	Data quality in forests poor, especially in mountainous areas. On request at the responsible authority, for a fee of approx. 6.50 €/sqkm; truncated 5-sqkm tiles are fully charged! Since payment is only possible in the local currency, high exchange and transfer costs arise.
Slovakia	Possible, contrast moderate, data not complete so far, only mostly mountains, resolution good	Only insufficient 5 m grid downloadable as DGM. Free higher resolution DGMs must be laboriously loaded and converted via small tiled LAS/LAZ files.

It is deplorable how inconsistent the ways of accessing data and the ways of presenting it are – across the EU, but also within Germany. It is remarkable that many German states did not (and do not like Saarland) feel bound by the EU directives that publicly collected data should be available free of charge. The data were offered so overpriced that they can only be used by those institutions that can use the data free of charge, usually the archaeological heritage management and possibly the universities. The climax is that these federal states, with one exception, some time ago cancelled the much cheaper 2-m grid, which is completely sufficient for archaeological purposes, from their offer without giving any reasons. This high-price policy, the yield of which probably does not even finance the employees involved, had regrettably put a stop to extensive data use on the part of independent research for a long time. More...