[caipre]

    > Lidar data is collected by low-, slow-flying aircraft with equipment
    > that shoots millions of laser points to the ground. ... It is
    > possible to strip buildings and vegetation from the images, so that
    > only the ground is shown. In the Willamette River poster, the shades
    > of white and blue show elevations. The purest white color is the
    > baseline, (the zero point, at the lowest point near Independence on
    > the upper part of the image). The darkest blue is 50 feet (or higher)
    > than the baseline.

Very cool, and really a beautiful image. Contour lines on a topographic map show the same data, but mapping the elevation to a color range and clipping out elevations outside the river's effects really make this unlike anything I've seen before.

Edit: The original submission (see dang's post) references a similar set of maps[0] for the Mississippi River, which are equally beautiful and even more impressive.

[0]: http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?fisk

[NelsonMinar]

Here's another view I made of the Fisk map a few years ago. It's Google Maps style. http://somebits.com/fiskmap

This LIDAR map of the Willamette is really beautiful. Electric blue is an odd color for a data visualization, but it sure is striking.