[Liblas-devel] New win32 installer

[Howard Butler]

On Nov 4, 2008, at 12:57 PM, Martin Vales wrote:

> Hi:
>
>
> We have discussed (together with Frank Warmerdam) some ideas about  
> extracting CRS/projections part from libgeotiff as a tiny separate  
> library. Conclusion was that it's not a good idea.
>
>
> Perhaps i am a little silly asking this<362.gif>, but why liblas  
> need CRSs/projections????. Many companies have their own projection  
> libraries and perhaps they want use it.
>
> For example if i want change the CRS of my las file i am going to  
> use my favorite library to transform de file. If i want add CRS  
> information i have a library for that (sharpmap, mapwindow, etc).

libLAS *describes* CRS information with libgeotiff, it doesn't  
transform.  To project the data, you must use your favorite geospatial  
projection library.  The problem with libgeotiff is that it is binary  
and not simple to describe.  This is why we use proj4, which is simple  
text and libgeotiff can translate.  There is no WKT translation in  
libgeotiff, and for that you would need something like GDAL or CS- 
Map.  So, WKT support would mean bringing in another large dependency  
(with a compatible license, at least), and we chose not to require  
this for 1.0.  I would like a GetWKT method to be available for a  
later version if GDAL is available, but even that would only be a  
convenience.