[Liblas-devel] LAS File Header Editor

[Mateusz Loskot]

Martin Rodriguez wrote:
> Hi:
> 
> I am working in a lidar editor viewer. I am working in my free time for
> this. I can do it with VALA/C/C+/GTK/GTLTKEXT/LIBLAS.

Sounds interesting.

> I am a gnome religious guy.

OK

> I am thinking in build the VALA bindings to liblas (it´s easy) but I don´t
> know. These days I am helping in opengl bindings of VALA with samples.
> 
> I would do this tool with gtkmm because liblas is in pure c++, but I have
> many problems with gtkglextmm library.
> 
> I don´t know when I can finished this tool.
> 
> Las2las tool-> Console tools for me are killing.

Talk to GIS power users on Discuss and collect their requirements and 
demands.

> I love windows and buttons!!!!!

My observation is that most power users in GIS and not only, need to be 
able to execute processing chains from command line, with scripting 
involved, in batches, etc. Customization of processing chains is very 
limited with GUI. For me, ideal solution is GUI with ability to run from 
command line, see GRASS for example.

Just to give a proof, see this thread in which Qi Chen is announcing his 
GUI application for LIDAR data processing and Martin Flood is asking an 
obvious question: "is TIFFS scriptable via a command line?"

http://lidarbb.cr.usgs.gov/index.php?s=&showtopic=3116&p=5163

This is what most people working with TB of data want: command line tool.

Building usable GUI software is really time consuming and final solution 
is usually more limited than scriptable and CLI utilities. So, IMHO, 
it's hardly feasible to get done by single developer in her free time.

Nowadays, GIS power users are not supposed anymore to know how to point 
& click  with mouse. They are required to know basics of programming in 
scripting languages (Shell, Perl, Python and Avenue in ArcGIS, not to 
mention C#/VB.NET), so they can speed up their processes.

Anyway, discussion about GUI vs CLI may easily lead to a flame war, what 
I'd like to avoid here. libLAS provides library + command line tools. 
However, anyone is free to use libLAS and develop any application she 
lines. We would love to see libLAS widely used! I just can't agree that 
libLAS command line tools is a wrong way to go.

Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net
Charter Member of OSGeo, http://osgeo.org