LizardTech software architect and occasional Zoom blogger Mike Rosen and I put together an article for GeoWorld about LiDAR data — why LiDAR is so big (both in file size and in popularity), the havoc that its size has caused in efforts to harness its impressive imaging power, and the various ways the geospatial industry has attempted to bring this leviathan to its knees.

The thing about LiDAR. Hot off the press.

Among other things, Mike is lead developer on our LiDAR Compressor project, so his insight into the challenges that LiDAR presents the industry with is keen, and since he’s been with LizardTech since MrSID was very young, there are ways, he notes, in which this is a familiar story.

The article is called “The Inaccessible Plenty: Trying to Tame LiDAR’s Largeness.” Read it here.

And if whopping LiDAR point clouds are your cup of tea (or your cross to bear, or even a horror that you just can’t pull your eyes away from), GeoWorld’s editor, Todd Danielson, will be joining us Thursday, January 24, for a webinar with our own geo-jockey, Robert Parker*, to hear the good news and follow up in a practical way on the lessons learned in the article.

We won’t run out of virtual chairs, so sign up and then drop in to pick up some LiDAR Compressor best practices. Webinar details are here.

*Actually, Robert is our sales engineer, but his renown as a calm, reassuring webinista who can put you at ease with LizardTech’s powerful suite of geospatial software products through the simple medium of a shared desktop has led him to consider a second career as a high-tech spiritual guru.

Android users, it’s your turn. Following swiftly on the heels of the sophomore release of LizardTech GeoViewer for iOS comes the first release of GeoViewer for Android. Made for devices with version 2.3.3 or later of the Android operating system, LizardTech GeoViewer for Android does everything its iOS counterpart does with the exception of pulling in layers from WMS servers. Fiddling with WMS layers is a huge responsibility, kids, and we want to make sure you can use the basics responsibly before we turn you loose. After all, this is an application that you can use on phones and tablets anywhere — on crowded buses, in corporate boardrooms or even standing in the ticketholders’ queue to see The Hobbit.

Can you handle this? GeoViewer for Android on the Nexus 4.

Meanwhile, you can open MrSID and JPEG 2000 images and pan around and zoom in and out to your heart’s content, select which bands you want to view from a multispectral image, and add vector layers (Esri Shapefiles and KML files) to get more out of your imagery. If you need to calculate distances, you can measure between two points — including your own location if your device’s GPS is turned on — or measure the distance along a path of waypoints.

A walk along Seattle’s waterfront. Hmmm, turns out to be one and a quarter miles that will be much more enjoyable when the Alaskan Way Viaduct is finally removed.

GeoViewer enables you to see any location’s geocoordinates by touching the spot on the image. You can also view layer properties, including the coordinate reference system (CRS) the image is in, the layer’s geo bounding box and its dimensions, colorspace, datatype and resolution. Search locations by geographic coordinates in WGS84 (Lat/Long) or the image’s native CRS. And if you still feel like fiddling, you can change the colors of your layer lines.

GeoViewer viewed on a tablet. Layers (individual images) of the map are listed, and a green dot indicates layers that are visible.

Enjoy! Go get lost, find yourself again, find your friends and compare walking distance to the Sushi bar they prefer versus your favorite barbecue joint. If you don’t break anything, we’ll hook you up with WMS in a future release.

Download LizardTech GeoViewer for Android free at the Google Play Store.