[Liblas-devel] Re: lasmerge in liblas

[Mateusz Loskot]

On Jun 27, 2008, at 7:37 PM, Gennady Khokhorin wrote:

> Hello, Mateusz.
> Have couple questions kind of about library design.
>
> Did receive you liblas Beta 1 announce from one of my college:
> http://lidarbb.cr.usgs.gov/index.php?showtopic=3700&pid=4622&st=0&#entry4622

Hi Gennady,

I'm glad to hear.


> It is a great news that las is finally linked to GDAL. I'm using a lot
> of GDAL vector, raster functionality building stand-along apps.


Yes, libLAS can link to GDAL but it's optional functionality.
So, those who are not interested in using GDAL and OGR features are  
not required to link
against GDAL binaries.

>  So, as far as liblas is part of GDAL what the purpose of lasmerge
> routine?

Looks like a small misunderstanding.
libLAS is not a part of GDAL, but a standalone library + set of  
utilities.
libLAS can use GDAL as a client, means you can link libLAS against GDAL
binaries to be able to use some of GDAL features, but this is optional.

> Should it be part of GDAL syntax like "ogr2ogr -append.." ?

According to the above, I'd answer: no, it shouldn't.
lasmerge is a tool specialized in processing ASPRS LAS data.
For merging LAS files, it is not necessary to involve translation  
between LAS data
model and GDAL data model. IMHO, it would be unnecessary overhead.

> In the past I did create driver for las (ASPRS), bin (TerraScan), cmp
> (Optech), xyz (text) lidar data formats with multiple operations:
> logical (merge, split), spatial
> (shift, reproject, VLR georeference), extract data (by time, by  
> prizm).

Sounds very interesting.

> I'm wonder what are team's plans to extend liblas to create such
> features? Or it will be up to GDAL?
>


As I can tell, we are going to complement current functionality of the  
libLAS library and utilities
with new features like the operations you're listing above, if not  
implemented yet.
The libLAS is a standalone project, not a part of GDAL, so its roadmap  
is up to us.

If you would be willing to contribute some features or share  
implementation of the features listed above,
as an improvement to the current state of libLAS, you're strongly  
welcome.

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




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