The M8.8 Maule Chile earthquake and subsequent tsunami resulted in significant damage to infrastructure along the Chilean coast. In a recent field reconnaissance effort, we collected a substantial amount of ground-based LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data at various sites to capture effects of the earthquake and tsunami such as ground rupture, liquefaction and lateral spreading, structural damage, and scouring. This data provides post-disaster survey data at unprecedented resolutions (cm-level) and accuracies (mm to cm-level), allowing for fine details to be observed and precisely measured. This paper evaluates the importance of LIDAR for both structural and geotechnical analysis in a post-earthquake and tsunami framework. These LIDAR datasets are essentially virtual worlds that allow scientists to study and explore the site without being physically present. Because field visits are often short and rushed in nature, important observations can be easily missed. However, detailed imagery and critical geometric information are preserved digitally in the LIDAR data. These scans are useful to measure postearthquake conditions, such as the nature, location, frequency and extent of damage,magnitude of residual deflections, and areas of highly localized damage.