[Liblas-devel] Re: [GRASS-user] LiDAR LAS import

[Hamish]

[fyi, --H]


Markus Metz wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> GRASS 7 has a new module v.in.lidar for importing LiDAR LAS files
> (*.las or *.laz). The LAS file format is commonly used for storing
> LiDAR point clouds, but is unfortunately not supported by OGR.
> v.in.lidar uses the libLAS library [0] and is only compiled if the
> libLAS library is present.
>
> I chose to use the library instead of writing a custom LAS reading
> interface because the current LAS library version 1.6.1 is stable,
> supports LAS file versions 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, each of
> which can store LiDAR points in up to 5 different point formats. The
> user and the interface do not need to know the file version and point
> format of a given file, all that is conveniently handled by the libLAS
> library in the background. The library has Large File Support (LFS)
> and is well tested on different platforms, also with different
> endian-ness. This functionality is not that easy to replicate.
>
> You will need to get the libLAS library and configure GRASS 7 with
> --with-liblas in order to have the module available. Please test!
>
> Markus M
>
> [0] http://www.liblas.org


neat! any time trials to say how much faster it is than piping
las2txt | v.in.ascii
?


fyi I have plans (but more ideas than time I'm afraid) to also add a
stream= option to r.in.xyz with the possible options of ascii, las, mbio.
There'll probably be another option added to select signal strength, etc.
but I might overload the z= column parameter to accept strings for that(?).

(MBIO is for MB-System's multibeam sonar input library, Bob Covill already
has this integrated in a custom fork)


cheers,
Hamish


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