Draw your site on the map. Download CAD-ready terrain built from public USGS lidar — surfaces, point clouds, elevation models, and print-ready contour maps.
Check coverage for your areaAll data from the USGS 3D Elevation Program — collection dates and accuracy reported on every order.
How it works
No procurement, no sales call, no subscription.
Sketch your site or import a KML. A free report shows what lidar covers it — when it was flown and how accurate it is.
Choose your coordinate system, vertical datum, and file formats. Survey-grade localization if you need it.
We clip, reproject, and format in the cloud. Download links in minutes.
Where teams use it
From first sketch to ML pipeline — the same federal lidar, packaged for how you work.
Check grades, drainage, and earthwork before committing to a site — no field work needed.
Price and plan survey work knowing what the ground actually looks like.
A ground TIN in Civil 3D on day one; reconcile against field control as the project matures.
Clean, documented point clouds and rasters for terrain models and geospatial ML.
Watershed delineation, cut/fill screening, and stormwater studies from high-resolution ground surfaces.
Canopy, erosion, and habitat studies with the full classified point cloud — every return, not just ground.
What you get
Every file is clipped to your area and reprojected to your coordinate system and vertical datum.
The full lidar point cloud — every return with its original classification (ground, vegetation, buildings), reprojected to your coordinate system and vertical datum.
Use it in: Civil 3D (via ReCap), ArcGIS Pro, QGIS, Global Mapper, CloudCompare, PDAL, or ML pipelines.
A triangulated ground surface built from ground-classified returns at your chosen resolution, with the coordinate system embedded (GEODATA) so CAD knows where it sits in the world.
Use it in: Civil 3D or AutoCAD — opens as 3D faces ready to convert to a TIN surface object.
Plain-text East, North, Up ground points (.enu) — the lowest-friction interchange format there is.
Use it in: anything — spreadsheets, Surfer, HEC-RAS, custom scripts, legacy packages.
A georeferenced elevation raster interpolated from ground returns.
Use it in: QGIS, ArcGIS Pro, Rhino/Grasshopper, game engines, and raster ML workflows.
A print-ready contour map of your site: 1 ft minor and labeled 5 ft major contours over a lightened USGS aerial backdrop, with a title block for your project.
Use it in: anything that opens a PDF — no GIS or CAD software required. Print it, mark it up, drop it in a proposal.
Bring it into your software
The coordinate system travels inside every file, so imports land in the right place the first time.
Why ToposNow
Any EPSG horizontal system, explicit vertical datums via geoid grids, and survey-grade localization: combined or grid × elevation scale factors and true-north rotation about your base point.
Every site gets a free PDF report: which USGS work units cover it, collection dates, quality levels, stated accuracy, and the caveats — including what this data is not.
Priced by area and deliverable. No subscription, no minimum, no sales call. The availability report is free every time.
FAQ
All point-cloud data comes from the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) — publicly funded airborne lidar collected under the USGS Lidar Base Specification. ToposNow indexes every published 3DEP work unit (2,269 and growing), reports its collection dates and accuracy, and processes it into project-ready formats on demand.
It depends on the collection covering your site. Modern 3DEP quality levels specify 10 cm RMSEz vertical accuracy (QL1/QL2) on open terrain; older collections may be 20 cm. Your free availability report states the quality level, accuracy, point density, and collection dates for every source over your exact area before you buy.
No. ToposNow deliverables are derived from published USGS lidar and are not a land survey, are not sealed by a licensed surveyor, and must not replace boundary or construction surveys. They are ideal for planning, scoping, design development, and analysis — and every deliverable says so plainly.
Two paths. Fastest: order the DXF ground TIN, open it in Civil 3D, and create a surface from the 3D faces — the coordinate system is embedded in the file. Full cloud: index the LAS/LAZ in ReCap, attach the RCP in Civil 3D, and build a surface from ground-classified points.
Any EPSG-registered system — searchable by common name (e.g. “Texas North Central”) or code. Vertical datums transform through published geoid grids, and you can apply survey localizations: a combined scale factor (or grid × elevation factors) and a true-north rotation about a base point.
Classified LAS/LAZ point clouds, Civil 3D-ready DXF ground TIN surfaces, ENU (East, North, Up) ASCII points, GeoTIFF DEMs, and print-ready PDF contour maps (1 ft minor / 5 ft major contours over an aerial backdrop). Formats are chosen per order, and every file carries your ordered coordinate system.
Processing runs automatically in the cloud after checkout. Typical orders are ready in minutes; very large areas take longer. You get download links on your account page and by email.
Yes. Classified point clouds and DEM rasters from a consistent, documented federal source make strong training and evaluation data for terrain classification, feature extraction, change detection, and hydrology models. Data is public-domain USGS; our processing adds consistent reprojection and packaging.
For most of the US you already can: USGS 3DEP lidar covers about 94% of the country and is free. The DIY route is to download tiles from the USGS LidarExplorer and build contours in QGIS — expect a few hours the first time. ToposNow automates that pipeline: draw your parcel and get a print-ready 1 ft contour map PDF in minutes for about the price of lunch. Either way, the result is informational — for permits or construction you still need a licensed surveyor.
For early-stage design, usually yes: modern 3DEP collections state 10 cm (about 4 inches) RMSEz vertical accuracy on open terrain, which comfortably supports feasibility grading, drainage studies, and earthwork estimates. Accuracy degrades under dense canopy and the data reflects conditions on its flight date, so verify the collection date for your site (the free report shows it). Construction documents still require a field topo survey.
Two paths. Point cloud: index the LAS/LAZ in Autodesk ReCap to create an RCP, attach it in Civil 3D, and build a surface from ground-classified points. Faster: order the DXF ground TIN — it opens with the coordinate system embedded and converts straight to a TIN surface object. The classic mistake in the manual route is the vertical datum: NAVD88 heights need a geoid-grid transform, not raw ellipsoid heights.
The pixels and points are the same public-domain USGS data — we do not resell the data itself. What you pay for is the processing: clipping to your exact boundary, merging tiles, reprojecting to your coordinate system and vertical datum, and formatting into CAD-ready deliverables in minutes. If you have GIS skills and time, the DIY route costs nothing; if you bill by the hour, the math usually favors automation.
Draw your area and get the availability report — sources, collection dates, accuracy — before you spend anything.
ToposNow deliverables are derived from public USGS data. They are informational products — not a land survey — and do not replace work by a licensed surveyor.