LVIS Data Structure (LDS) Version 1.04 Description

OIB data 2009-2015 stored at NSIDC

Byte Order:

  • All data items are Big Endian unless otherwise noted.

Reference Frame:

  • International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF 2000 / WGS-84 Ellipsoid).

General Notes:

  • A release is comprised of two or more file types sharing a common origin. All files within the release have equal record numbers, and correspond to one another laser shot for shot. (i.e. record 1000 in the .h5 file will be the same laser shot as record 1000 in the .txt file for a given data set)

Level 1b Geolocated LVIS Waveform (HDF format) :

Item Byte Size Format Units Item Description
LFID 4 unsigned longword integer LVIS file identification
shotnumber 4 unsigned longword integer laser shot assigned during collection
azimuth 4 single precision floating point degrees azimuth angle of laser beam
incidentangle 4 single precision floating point degrees off-nadir incident angle of laser beam
range 4 single precision floating point meters distance from the instrument to the ground
time 8 double precision floating point seconds UTC decimal seconds of the day
lon0 8 double precision floating point degrees longitude of the highest sample of the waveform (degrees east)
lat0 8 double precision floating point degrees latitude of the highest sample of the waveform (degrees north)
z0 4 single precision floating point meters elevation of the highest sample of the waveform
lon527 8 double precision floating point degrees longitude of the lowest sample of the waveform (degrees east)
lat527 8 double precision floating point degrees latitude of the lowest sample of the waveform (degrees north)
z527 4 single precision floating point meters elevation of the lowest sample of the waveform
sigmean 4 single precision floating point counts signal mean noise level, calculated in-flight
txwave 240 unsigned integer vector length 120 counts transmitted waveform (120 samples long)
rxwave 1056 unsigned integer vector length 528 counts returned waveform (528 samples long)
TOTAL 1368 bytes per record


Level 2 Geolocated Surface Elevation and Height Product (ASCII Text format)

Item Item Description
lvis_lfid LVIS File Identification
shotnumber Laser shot number assigned during collection
time UTC decimal seconds of the day
longitude_centroid Longitude of the centroid of the waveform (Degrees East)
latitude_centroid Latitude of the centroid of the waveform (Degrees North)
elevation_centroid Mean Elevation of the centroid of signal within the waveform (m)
longitude_low Longitude of the center of the lowest detected mode in the waveform (Degrees East)
latitude_low Latitude of the center of the lowest detected mode in the waveform (Degrees North)
elevation_low Elevation of the center of the lowest detected mode in the waveform (m)
longitude_high Longitude of the center of the highest detected mode in the waveform (Degrees East)
latitude_high Latitude of the center of the highest detected mode in the waveform (Degrees North)
elevation_high Elevation of the center of the highest detected mode in the waveform (m)

Use the following python script to view Level 1B and Level 2 data products in the LDS v1.0 format. You will need to install the numpy python package in order for this script to work.

read_legacy_lvis.py