Most recommended/best LIDAR techniques for massive scale terrain?

BolognaGenocide

I've been digging around looking at various approaches to massive scale terrain, but I keep hitting hitches with trying to find and implement LIDAR data, which I keep reading is being used more frequently.  Anyone know of any other threads, tutorials, or videos that detail effective approaches?

Scruples

Is it becoming more popular? I don't know about that as there's no support in either pix4d or agisoft (the two most popular solutions atm). Digital elevation maps, satellite data is easier to find than LiDAR afaik, is only used by the mines nearby me and only recently, compare with drone gps photomapping and satellite data, used by everyone. As for dem maps https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

Concerning for accuracy, using a phantom 3, I've measued a 2x4 on the ground from a 110 meters and the dimensions were exact.

BolognaGenocide

Ah okay, I may be looking for the wrong stuff.  I'm probably thinking of DEM data, not LIDAR.  I've grabbed some stuff from your link, but when trying to load it into World Machine, I tend to get crummy results.  Basically, very ridged and unnatural looking stuff.  I suspected it was banding from an 8 bit targa, but when I've tried to implement 16 bit stuff I still get the ridging. 

Scruples

Some of it is quite crummy, there's a better nasa site for browsing these somewhere email based, I can't find it for the life of me though.