Summary:

Airborne laser scanning is modern and dynamically growing technology. It is perfect method for fast acquisition of digital data about terrain surface and its covering. Point cloud registered by airborne scanner has high enough accuracy to use it for many tasks for example: volume measurements of ground masses or excavated rock material in open‐pit mining. The objective of work was to measure volume of excavated deposits in open‐pit mining in Krapkowice. Along to popular AutoCAD software, freeware programs - GOM Inspect V8 and MeshLab were used for work with point cloud. The cloud was cleaned from unnecessary elements and polygonised to obtain 3D mesh model of terrain. The volume was measured based on solid fitted between terrain model and plane which was adopted as surface of mine before excavation started. Final effect met initial assumptions and confirmed that airborne laser scanning is very useful in this type of work. ALS technology will certainly be developed in the future and replace some of the traditional methods of measurement.