BridgET - Maldives Summer School

BridgET is an EU project funded by the 2021-2027 ERASMUS+ Key Action 2 programme “KA220-HED Cooperation partnership in Higher Education”. The project aims at addressing a growing demand for highly skilled professionals in the coastal and marine geosciences sector, who can be innovative in the analysis, interpretation and representation of geological and environmental data in 3D. It has been designed to develop innovative and inclusive teaching methods to upgrade key skills and scientific expertise in the field of 3D geological mapping for reliable integration of onshore and offshore multi-scale geospatial datasets. Main goals of BridgET were accomplished with dedicated summer schools for postgraduate students of the six patner universitities, delivered by leading experts from different European universities and companies.

The Maldives Summer School took place in Magoodhoo (Maldives) at the MaRHE Center, from November 18th to 27th, 2024. Twenty-three students from the six partner universities attended the program. One of the highlights of the activities was data collection on the Magoodhoo shore, focusing on the emerged portion of the port area, the nearby nearshore environment, and the deeper offshore section of the lagoon. The integration of these multi-sensor datasets aims to create a seamless model. 

This datasets consist of 3 ZIP folders:

Magoodhoo UAV UNIMIB.zip: the dataset includes a high-resolution Digital Surface Model (DSM) and its corresponding Point Cloud (PC), covering a section of the nearshore area along the Magoodhoo coast, close to the harbour area, along with a high-resolution Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and its corresponding PC of a portion of the nearby coral reef. The data were collected using a DJI Mavic3 drone, owned by the University of Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB).The collected data were processed using Agisoft Metashape software to generate the DSM, DTM and PCs. The DSM of the nearshore investigated area, with a 4 cm resolution, is provided as an ASCII file (Magoodhoo_UAV_DSM_nearshore_4cm.asc), along with its georeferencing file (Magoodhoo_UAV_DSM_nearshore_4cm.prj). The PC is available as a compressed LAZ file (Magoodhoo_UAV_nearshore_PC.laz). The zoomed DTM of the coral reef, with a 3 cm resolution, is provided as an ASCII file (Magoodhoo_UAV_DTM_zoom_3cm.asc), along with its georeferencing file (Magoodhoo_UAV_DTM_zoom_3cm.prj). The PC is available as a compressed LAZ file (Magoodhoo_UAV_zoom_PC.laz).

Magoodhoo LiDAR Orthodrone.zip: the dataset includes a high-resolution PC of Magoodhoo harbour and its surrounding area. The data were collected using a RIEGL miniVUX-1UAV LiDAR mounted on a DJI M300 RTK drone, owned by Orthodrone GmbH. The collected data were processed using RIEGL RiPROCESS and CloudCompare software to generate the PC. The PC is available as a compressed LAZ file (2025-03-18_BridgET_OD_Magoodhoo_LiDAR_tranfsSfM_EPSG_32743.laz). The dataset is available for scientific and teaching purposes under a creative coomons licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED).

Magoodhoo MBES UNIMIB.zip: the dataset includes a high-resolution Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and the corresponding PC of the Magoodhoo offshore surveyed area. The data were collected using an R2Sonic 2022 Multibeam Echosounder (MBES), owned by the University of Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB). The collected data were processed using QPS Qimera software to generate both the DTM and PC. The DTM, with a 1 m resolution, is provided as an ASCII file (Magoodho_MBES_DTM_1m.asc) along with its georeferencing file (Magoodhoo_MBES_DTM_1m.prj). The PC is available as a text file (Magoodhoo_MBES_PC.txt).