I am in the process of putting together the next LiDAR News eNewsletter which will include an article from Dave Ward on the benefits of combining LiDAR and IFSAR to create more cost effective wide area digital terrain models. For those who are not familiar with IFSAR, which includes me, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar is being used to develop digital terrain models for entire countries.
Dave works for one of the leading IFSAR companies, Intermap Technologies. Their proprietary technology allows them to create DTMs with a half meter vertical accuracy at a much loser cost than LiDAR. What Dave points out is that it does not have to be either/or. You can use IFSAR for the wide, less developed areas and LiDAR when you need more detail. Its a powerful combination.
The details will be available in the eNewsletter next week.