Enable full features in the python version of the lidar package

[MIsmlAhmed]

• lidar version: 0.6.1
• Python version: 3.8
• Operating System: Windows x64- Conda

Description

Dear Qiusheng,
First of all, I would like to thank you for your amazing efforts in proposing this package. It is very useful for delineating land depressions from DEMs.

I can only run the python version of the package as I do not have access to ArcGIS Pro. The ArcGIS Pro toolbox has more features than the python version of the package. I can only get the depressions, their properties (depth, volume, etc.), and their cascading order using python scripts. I am very interested in getting the flow directions, depressions catchment, and more importantly the ability to simulate inundation over the different depressions. I can see that these features are available in the ArcGIS toolbox and I was not able to find python scripts (in lidar-master/lidar) to run these functions. I can also see these functions as scripts under the toolbox (in lidar-master/lidar/toolbox/scripts), but converting them to run outside ArcGIS might be problematic for me.

So, my request, can you please add these functions (especially the inundation mapping) to the lidar-master/lidar so that I and others can run them outside ArcGIS.
I would also appreciate if you can share with me a conceptual workflow or the methodology behind how the inundation mapping works because I could not find it in any of the related publications listed on the repo page.

Thank you so much

[giswqs]

@MIsmlAhmed Sorry for the late response. This one slipped my mind. You are correct that not all the tools in the ArcGIS toolbox are available in the lidar Python package. Unfortunately, I have not been able to implement the catchment, flowpath, and inundation functions outside ArcGIS as I could not find the counterpart catchment algorithm outside ArcGIS. The inundation tool is just a proof of concept. I don't have any publications or writeups for this yet. I will keep an eye on this package and implement it when feasible.