The first World Lidar Day, a collaborative effort by public agencies and private industry representatives, will be celebrated each year on February 12, coinciding with Geo Week, one of the world’s largest geospatial conferences.

The day aims to raise awareness about the value of lidar, a remote sensing technology that uses the rebound time of light pulses to determine the distance to an object’s surface and its shape.

Lidar data are collected via air, land, and sea vessels to model the elevation of the natural and built environment.