North West Geomatics has developed a DSM generation tool for Leica ADS line-scanner data in close cooperation
with Leica Geosystems. This tool has been deployed internally in production to gauge its usability and has just been
released as the main new feature of the Leica XPro 5.0 software, the XPro DSM Extractor. The quality of extracted
point clouds has fulfilled and, in many cases, exceeded the initial expectations. However, the SGM algorithm also
delivers a very dense point cloud, the size of which surpasses any LiDAR collected data by far.
This paper outlines the challenges of managing and processing elevation data with very high resolutions. Although
the main focus is on developing new strategies on how to cope with the vast amount of data, the options and
limitations of currently available commercial software packages for such data sets are discussed as well. Lastly, an
outlook on the advantages of using high resolution elevation data in the context of ortho-image production is given.
KEYWORDS: Pushbroom, Point Cloud, High Resolution, Simplification, Production