lidalign python package

Welcome to the lidalign documentation! This package provides tools for aligning scanning lidar in offshore applications and calibrate scanner head offsets!

Visualisation of a SSC scans by a scanning lidar at a TP of an offshore test site. (Photo: Paul Meyer)

You will find some usage examples, the analysis of the validation campaign performed at Heligoland and the API Documentation of the package. If you would like to contribute, please use the Github repository to create issues and requests. The repository will live by contributions and feedback from the community!

Application examples:

• Hard Target Mapping (HTM) for elevation offset determination
• Example for Sea Surface Calibration (SSC) and Sea Surface Leveling (SSL)
• Lidar North Alignment by Hard Target Mapping

SSC validation campaign at Heligoland [Meyer et al. 2026]

• Validation Campaign at Heligoland
  • Test Setup Heligoland
  • Corner Scan Test
  • SSC Scan Test
  • SSC Numerical Sensitivity
  • SSC Importance of accurate elevation

Package API:

• lidalign package
  • Submodules
  • lidalign.SSC module
  • lidalign.hard_target_elevation_mapping module
  • lidalign.io module
  • lidalign.north_alignment module
  • lidalign.utils module
  • Module contents

References

If the scripts are used, please cite the following:

Paul Julian Meyer, Andreas Rott, Janna K. Seifert, Jörge Schneemann: Software, lidalign python package V2.0, 2026

The associated dataset for the publication can be found here:

Meyer, P. J., Rott, A., & Schneemann, J. (2026). Scanning Wind lidar measurement data as supplement to “Experimental validation of the Sea Surface Calibration for scanning lidar static elevation offset determination” (1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18698332

For the general work, please cite:

Paul Julian Meyer, Andreas Rott, Jörge Schneemann, Lukas Pauscher, Kira Gramitzky, Martin Kühn: Experimental validation of the Sea Surface Calibration for scanning lidar static elevation offset determination, Torque 2026 (in preparation)

and

Rott, A., Schneemann, J., Theuer, F., Trujillo Quintero, J. J., and Kühn, M.: Alignment of scanning lidars in offshore wind farms, Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 283–297, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-283-2022, 2022.

Preliminary Work by Rott et al. 2022

The lidalign package is heavily based on the work by Rott et al. 2022:

Rott, A., Schneemann, J., Theuer, F., Trujillo Quintero, J. J., and Kühn, M.: Alignment of scanning lidars in offshore wind farms, Wind Energ. Sci., 7, 283–297, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-7-283-2022, 2022.

Andreas Rott, Jörge Schneemann, & Frauke Theuer. (2021). AndreasRott/Alignment_of_scanning_lidars_in_offshore_wind_farms: Version1.0 (Release1.0.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5654919

The deprecated code of Rott et al. 2022 is available in the LegacyRott folder of the repository and can be seen here:

Legacy code of Rott et al. 2022:

• Hard Targeting for scanning Lidar North allignment
• Sea Surface leveling (SSL)

Acknowledgements

The lidalign development was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) – project ID 434502799 – SFB 1463 and the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy on the basis of a decision by the German Bundestag (WindRamp II, grant no. 03EE3101A).