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<p>Hi Martin,</p>
<p>From your description, and also from having discussed these
issues with you in the past, I feel that you have been providing
exceptional value to the greater OSGeo community through your
involvement in the OGC and the use of your OSGeo membership slot.</p>
<p>Thank you for all your hard work.</p>
<p>Warm regards, Cameron<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 13/7/18 11:19 pm, Martin Isenburg
wrote:<br>
</div>
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<div dir="ltr">Hello,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I have used my OGC membership slot to (remote-)
attend a number of meetings of the Point Cloud
Domain Working Group, with the most recent being
the one in Ft. Collins. The main reason that I
have this slot was to be able to participate in
discussions to assure that the <span
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">compression
of </span>point cloud data does not lead to a
fragmentation into open <span
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">formats<span> </span></span>(aka
LAZ) and proprietary clones (aka zLAS).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The repeated "stigmatization" of the <span
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">proprietary
<span
style="text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">compressed </span>point
cloud by ESRI seems to have been successful. For
example, the federal guideline of the Canadian
government for LiDAR acquisitions that was
published in 2017 forbids delivery in a non-open
format and <span
style="text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">explicitly<span> </span></span>names
LAS and LAZ as the desired uncompressed and
compressed point cloud deliverables:</span></div>
<div><span
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline"><a
href="http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/rncan-nrcan/M113-1-117-eng.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2017/rncan-nrcan/M113-1-117-eng.pdf</a></span></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Furthermore the USGS has recently announced to
move their entire LiDAR holdings by September 2018
to the compressed LAZ format and use this for all
future LiDAR distributions:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a
href="http://www.usgs.gov/news/3d-elevation-program-distributing-lidar-data-laz-format"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.usgs.gov/news/3d-elevation-program-distributing-lidar-data-laz-format</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In the meantime (and so far without big
announcements) the native extension of LASzip to
the newer point types of LAS 1.4 has been
completed, was crowd-tested and integrated into a
number of software packages.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The other big <span
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">development<span> in
terms of the <span
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">ASPRS<span> </span></span>
</span></span>LAS <span
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">point
cloud format </span>was that over the course of
2017 the OGC has voted, approved, and in March
2018 published the <span
style="font-size:small;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);float:none;display:inline">ASPRS<span> </span></span><span
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline"><span> </span></span>LAS
1.4 specification (without compression) as an OGC
Community Standard.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a
href="https://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/17-030r1"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/17-030r1</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>There were also some big changes within the LAS
Working Group (LWG) of the <span
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">ASRPS<span> </span></span>
that continues to maintain the (uncompressed) LAS
format. The group is now chaired by Evon Silvia
who - with a lot of help from Howard Butler -
implemented a completely new way of continuing
forward. The specification document that used to
be a back-and-forth-emailed "Master Word document"
is now maintained on github where anyone can keep
track of the changes that are being made and
follow the on-going discussions:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://github.com/ASPRSorg/LAS"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://github.com/ASPRSorg/LAS</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I plan to use my OGC slot to continue attending
the meetings and update the Point Cloud Domain
Working Group on the new features available in
LASzip for LAS 1.4 such as selective decompression
(only decompress those point attributes that are
of interest) and variable chunking (vary the
number of points that are compressed and
decompressed as one independent "chunk" for better
alignment with other needs like spatial search
structure). I am happy that my OGC slot was
extended for another year.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Regards,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Martin</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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<br>
</div>
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<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier
Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
M +61 (0) 419 142 254</pre>
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