HERO E&C has launched the Texas LiDAR DEM Download Map, a free map that finds the published lidar elevation data for a Texas site and links each file straight to the Texas Geographic Information Office (TxGIO, formerly TNRIS). It runs in a web browser at heroenc.com/lidar-map, with no account and no fee, alongside the other HERO E&C Free tools.
What it shows
Enter a Texas address or coordinates, click the map, or upload or draw a site boundary of up to 100,000 acres. The map lists every TxGIO lidar collection that covers the site, with the newest digital elevation model (DEM) at the top, and outlines the TxGIO download tiles on the map. Each collection shows its acquisition date, resolution, and coordinate system as TxGIO lists them, the counties it covers, and links to its supplemental report and to breaklines, building footprints, and tile index files where TxGIO publishes them.
Open a collection to see its files tile by tile: the DEM, the point cloud, and other files, each with its file name and size. Every link downloads the zip from TxGIO’s own server; the files never pass through HERO E&C.
A record of what you downloaded
Lidar for one project can mean a dozen zips from three collections flown years apart. Each file link you open goes into a download record on the page: the tile, the collection, its date, resolution, and coordinate system, the file name and size, and the time you opened it. The record lives in that browser tab and nothing is saved; “Download record (CSV)” keeps it with the project files.
The map also writes the whole result as files, made in your browser:
- File list (CSV) — every file of every tile at the site, with its collection, date, size, and TxGIO link.
- DEM links (TXT) — one link per line, grouped by collection, for a browser download manager or Windows PowerShell; the PowerShell command is in the file’s header lines.
- Tile index (Shapefile or GeoJSON) — the tile outlines with their collections and files (and, in the Shapefile, the site point or boundary), to load in GIS next to the DEMs.
What we checked in the files
Before launch, we downloaded DEM zips for the same San Antonio tile from two collections and opened them. Three things are worth knowing before the data goes into a model:
- A tile is several pieces. One quarter-quad zip held 16 GeoTIFFs (Bexar & Travis Counties 2021) or 4 ERDAS IMG files (Bexar County 2010) to mosaic in GIS, each with an .xml metadata file that gives the flight dates, datum, units, and tested vertical accuracy.
- Use the coordinate system stored in the file. The zips held no .prj file; the coordinate system is inside each GeoTIFF or IMG, and GIS reads it from there. It can differ from the TxGIO listing: the 2021 GeoTIFFs carry EPSG 6588, NAD83(2011) Texas South Central in US survey feet, with NAVD88 (Geoid18) heights in US survey feet, while the collection lists EPSG 2277 and 2278.
- Resolution and units vary. The listed resolution is often the lidar point spacing; the 2021 collection lists 28cm/50cm, and its DEM cells are 2 ft. On the same tile, the 2010 DEM is in meters (UTM zone 14N, NAVD88 meters) with 1 m cells.
Who it is for
The map is built for drainage and floodplain engineers, hydrologists, and city, county, and river authority staff who need terrain for a hydraulic model, a watershed delineation, or a drainage study, and want to know which lidar covers the site, how old it is, and exactly which files went into the model. The newest collection is not always the right one; the map puts the choices side by side.
What it is not
Published lidar is not a survey. A DEM can miss channels, culverts, recent grading, and structures, and collections differ in date, point density, accuracy, datum, and units. The map does not compute anything from the elevations. Read the .xml metadata in each zip and the collection’s report before using the data in a model, and check it against a field survey before design or construction. If TxGIO does not respond, the map says so; that does not mean there is no lidar.
Data and technology
The collection catalog, the download tiles, and the file lists come from the TxGIO DataHub and its download-area map service, asked directly from the visitor’s browser; each collection’s license is shown with it as TxGIO lists it. Downloads are plain links to TxGIO. HERO E&C does not receive or store searches, files, or downloads. The map is built with the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript.
Try it on your next project
HERO E&C is a San Antonio civil and water resources engineering firm founded in 2025 and led by Dr. Seoyoung Kim, Ph.D., P.E., CFM. When a project needs terrain built into a hydrologic or hydraulic model, a drainage study, or floodplain work, HERO E&C can help.