LAStools: converting, filtering, viewing, gridding, and compressing LIDAR data

now with "lastool.exe" - a simple GUI for LAStools

LAStoolson

abstract:
We provide an easy-to-use, ultra-light-weight, very efficient C++ programming API called LASlib (with LASzip) that implements reading and writing of LIDAR points from and to the ASPRS LAS format (version 1.0-1.3) as well as its --- losslessly compressed, but otherwise identical twin --- the LAZ format (see below). All source code (LGPL) is included.

Built upon LASlib (with LASzip) are LAStools - a collection of highly-efficient, scriptable tools with multi-core batching that process LAS, compressed LAZ, Terrasolid BIN, ESRI Shapefiles, and ASCII. The program lastile.exe creates a tiling of LAS/LAZ files, lassort.exe z-orders them, and lasclip.exe clips away points falling into polygonal shapes (e.g. building footprints). The tool txt2las.exe converts LIDAR from standard ASCII to LAS/LAZ. The corresponding las2txt.exe turns LAS/LAZ into human-readable and easy-to-parse text. The tool lasinfo.exe prints out an overview of the contents of a LAS/LAZ file, las2shp.exe turns LAS/LAZ into ESRI's Shapefile format, shp2las.exe turns an ESRI's Shapefile into LAS/LAZ, lasmerge.exe can merge several LAS/LAZ files into one, las2las.exe filters, transforms, subsamples, clips, ..., lasthin.exe implements a simple point thinning algorithm, las2tin.exe triangulates the points of a LAS/LAZ file into a TIN, las2dem.exe rasterizes them into a DEM, las2iso.exe extracts, optionally simplified, elevation contours, and lasboundary.exe computes a boundary polygon (i.e. a concave or disjoint hull of the points). The little OpenGL viewer lasview.exe visualizes the contents of a LAS/LAZ file and can also compute a TIN.

Our powerful, lossless LIDAR compressor laszip.exe turns large LAS files into much smaller LAZ files that are only 7 - 20 percent of the original file size: compare this file before (53 MB) and after (5.1 MB) compression. All LAStools read, process, and write the compressed format directly without having to first decompress the file. Our easy-to-use, ultra-light-weight, very efficient C++ programming API called LASlib (with LASzip) (LGPL source code) makes it easy to add read/write support of compressed LAZ files to your software.

LAStools - efficient tools for LIDAR processing - Visit this group

Email:

download: (updated on May 25th, 2012)

example LIDAR data (sample files) in LAS format:

related publications:

related downloads:

If you work with LIDAR you may also be interested in Visualizing LIDAR in Google Earth. There you find tools that would be called lasDEM.exe and lasTIN.exe and lasContour.exe if they were listed here. They turn GIGANTIC amounts of LIDAR points into DEMs, TINs, or Contours. If you are interested in stream processing of terrain data let us know! Source code, programming APIs, and help for building your own stream processing modules is available on request.