Dataset. The Actuale Hoogtekaart Nederland (AHN) is a so-called point-cloud, consisting of 3D points measured using LIDAR technology. LIDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging - a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges to the Earth, in the case of AHN taken from an airplane. We got 2TB of point cloud data for you to analyze.

You may find the following Spark package useful: https://github.com/IGNF/spark-iqmulus though it works only with Spark 1.6.2 (which you would have to install yourself, as the preinstalled version now is 2.1.1)

C2: Flooding Analysis. We would like you to summarize the Dutch terrain into areas of equal height at a relatively coarse-grained granularity, also detecting a topology of dike systems in this. Subsequently, we would like you to run flooding models that simulate the flooding effects a subset of these dikes being breached.

Summary. The 3D point cloud data was aggregated into a coarse grained ground level map layers in a two-step refinement process. This allows for an interactive flooding map, disregarding dikes.

Dikes were also detected automatically, and compared with official dike polygon data obtained from the government. The dike detection procedure is still imperfect though.

Data Curiosity: ****
Paper Writing: ****
Technical difficulties mastered: ****
Visualization coolness: ****