[GRASS-dev] [GRASS GIS] #2732: Read lidar data as vector points using PDAL

[GRASS GIS]

#2732: Read lidar data as vector points using PDAL
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 Reporter:  wenzeslaus                           |      Owner:  grass-dev@…
     Type:  enhancement                          |     Status:  new
 Priority:  major                                |  Milestone:  7.1.0
Component:  Vector                               |    Version:  svn-trunk
 Keywords:  lidar, las, laz, v.in.lidar,         |        CPU:  Unspecified
  v.in.pointcloud, v.in.pdal                     |
 Platform:  Unspecified                          |
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 [http://www.pdal.io/ PDAL] is a point cloud processing and format
 transformation library and supersedes [http://www.liblas.org/ libLAS]
 (currently used in `r.in.lidar` and `v.in.lidar`) in many ways. Currently
 the most important difference is support for LAS 1.4. It also seems that
 we will have to replace libLAS by PDAL at some point.

 I'm attaching a patch which is adding a module `v.in.pointcloud`. It is
 based on `v.in.lidar` and the difference is that it is using PDAL C++ API
 for reading LAS (so it can read LAS 1.4 except for waveform). LAZ is
 supported in the same way as with libLAS. When PDAL is compiled with LAZ,
 then `v.in.pointcloud` supports LAZ.

 Serious issues with the patch:
 * the compilation check in configure has just dummy code, I don't know how
 to make it compile C++

 Potential improvements to patch:
 * support for all PDAL supported (internally and by plugins) formats
 (should be easy to add), hence the name `v.in.pointcloud`
 * documentation is just copied from `v.in.lidar`
 * add test (test data are needed for that as well as for documentation)

 Adding PDAL processing into the import or as separate module is clearly a
 possibility as well but this is out of scope of this particular patch.

 General issues with PDAL for GRASS GIS:
 * implemented in C++ and lacks C API (this is fixable)
 * depends on C++11 (not a big issue when building modules)
 * depends on Boost (hopefully will be removed in the future)
 * potential limits on number of points as by default everything is
 [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/pdal/2015-September/000672.html in
 memory and limited to 2^32 - 1 points] but there are
 [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/pdal/2015-September/000682.html ways
 around it]

 I need help with making the compilation check in configure compile C++,
 otherwise I think it can go trunk.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/2732>
GRASS GIS <https://grass.osgeo.org>