Many of today's projects completed via traditional photographic means suffer from vegetation obscuring the earth's surface. With LiDAR, wherever filtered daylight reaches the ground, we can generally expect solid return signals. This eliminates the hash marks (or worse yet, inaccuracies) found on most maps where substantial vegetation is found. LiDAR is also proven in timber volume mapping.  This is when the tree type is input against the laser's detected tree heights for automatic volume estimations of large areas.

To help you figure out exactly what your project requires here are some brief descriptions of the deliverables you can request:

• The Intensity value is a grayscale reflectance value of the laser from the surface and when viewed gives the appearance of a low resolution black and white image.  It is included as an additional column of data in all but the grid files.
  
  

• Bare Earth Ground points file is all of the last pulse points after features (vegetation, buildings, etc.) have been extracted using automated extraction software.  Format is E (Easting) N (Northing) Z (Elevation) I (Intensity). 
  
  

• Extracted features are the last pulse points that have been extracted from the ground surface.  They include all vegetation, buildings and other artifacts in the same layer.  Format is E (Easting) N (Northing) Z (Elevation) I (Intensity).
  
  

• Contours are CAD .dxf or .dwg files of contours generally created from the regularly-spaced gridded Bare Earth Ground Points. 
  
  
  

• All Points are the unclassified last or first pulse LiDAR point cloud containing both ground and    features on one layer.  Format is E (Easting) N (Northing) Z (Elevation) I (Intensity).

• Our ALTM sensors are dual return sensors.  The 1st Pulse gives a return from the first surface hit and the last pulse gives a return from the last surface hit, where there are objects obstructing the ground (buildings, trees, etc.).  1st Pulse data is especially useful for canopy modeling and powerline mapping.  Format is E (Easting) N (Northing) Z (Elevation) I (Intensity). 

• Model Keypoints are files derived from the Bare Earth Ground points and are essentially an ‘intelligent’ data decimation.  The algorithm works by thinning out the data more in areas of little relief but keeping more points where there are breaks or changing terrain.  Less information is lost than when using a regularly-spaced grid while still creating more manageable file sizes.  Format is E (Easting) N (Northing) Z (Elevation) I (Intensity).

• Grid Points are a file of regularly-spaced points representing the Bare Earth Ground surface.  Contours derived from gridded ground points will be aesthetically smoother than those derived from the bare earth ground points.  Increasing the grid size improves the aesthetics of the contours but compromises their accuracy.  Format is E (Easting) N (Northing) Z (Elevation) I (Intensity).