LiDAR Applications
The opportunity to apply the FLI-MAP 400 LiDAR technology to an archaeological landscape was presented to the Discovery Programme through the Heritage Council funding two surveys: Newtown Jerpoint abandoned medieval settlement in Co. Kilkenny and Dún Ailinne prehistoric hillfort in Co. Kildare. Both sites consisted of multiple earthwork features and in the case of Dún Ailinne much of the important features are beneath vegetation cover. Two different resolutions were implemented for each survey (Newtown Jerpoint 50 pts/m², Dún Ailinne 15-30 pts/m²) to establish the required resolution to successfully record subtle topographic features.
These two ventures proved that this technology was highly suitable for the 3-dimensional recording of archaeological monuments and their landscape context. Following further support from the Heritage Council the Hill of Tara archaeological complex in Co. Meath was chosen as the next site to apply this technology. The final DSM and DTM produced spectacular results.
Having developed the modelling techniques for the modelling of high resolution Fli-Map data these have now been applied to some existing fixed-wing LiDAR datasets, including the Brú na Bóinne landscape. Again spectacular results have been achieved, albeit at the lower resolution associated with this LiDAR data.