[Live-demo] libLAS application

[Howard Butler]

> ** What is its name?


libLAS

> ** What is the home page URL?


http://liblas.org

> ** Which OSI approved Open Source Licence is used?

Standard 3-clause BSD

> ** What does the application do and how does it add value to the GeoSpatial stack of software?

libLAS is a library for reading and writing LiDAR data in the ASPRS LAS format.  It also includes some utilities for doing some light manipulation and processing of LAS data, though it is not intended as a LiDAR exploitation library.  

> ** What language is it written in?

C++, with C and Python APIs.

> * Stability is very important to us on OSGeo-Live. If a new user finds a bug in one application, it will tarnish the reputation of all other OSGeo-Live applications as well. Do you have a bug free, stable release, which has been rolled out to production in a number of locations? Please discuss the level of testing that your project has gone through, the size of the community that uses the application, and how long the project has had mature code.

libLAS has a unit test suite that can be run as part of installation, and while the code coverage isn't 100%, it still does an ok job.  libLAS was first released in 2007, and there have been more than 15 maintenance and new-feature releases since that time.  libLAS' mailing list is about 120 members large, and libLAS is used in a number of open source and commercial applications to provide ASPRS LAS support.

> * OSGeo-Live is targeted at applications that people can use rather than libraries. Does the application have a user interface (possibly a command line interface) that a user can interact with?

libLAS contains a number of command-line utilities that users can take advantage of to manipulate LAS data.  These tools do everything from data reprojection, summarization, filtering, and data merging.

> * We give preference to OSGeo Incubated Projects, or Projects which are presented at [http://foss4g.org FOSS4G] conferences. If your project is involved in OSGeo Incubation, or has been selected to be presented at FOSS4G, then please mention it.

libLAS has not incubated, and it is doubtful it will ever be a large enough project to do so.  libLAS is very much analogous to shapelib in the sense that it is focused almost exclusively on a single format, and it only has one or two software developers who work on it.

> * With around 50 applications installed on OSGeo-Live, us core packagers do not have the time to liaise with every single project email list for each OSGeo-Live release. So we require a volunteer (or two) to take responsibility for liaising between OSGeo-Live and the project's communities. This volunteer will be responsible for ensuring the install scripts and English documentation are updated by someone for each OSGeo-Live release. Also test that the installed application and Quickstart documentation works as expected on release candidate releases of OSGeo-Live. Who will act as the project's liaison person.

Howard Butler <hobu.inc at gmail.com>

> :Can you please discuss how your application will be installed.

libLAS installation is CMake-based, and it is expected that its installation will require a custom script.  Brian Hamlin has already done some preliminary work in this area.

> * OSGeo-Live is memory and disk constrained. Can the application run in 512 Meg of RAM?

Generally, yes.

> * How much disk space will be required to install the application and a suitable example application?

Less than 30mb, but I don't know for sure.

> * We aim to reduce disk space by having all applications make use of a common dataset. We encourage applications to make use of the example datasets already installed:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Add_Project#Example_Datasets If another dataset would be more appropriate, please discuss here. Is it appropriate, to remove existing demo datasets which may already be included in the standard release

A large number of LiDAR sample datasets without constraints can be obtained from http://liblas.org/samples/  It may be sufficient to just link to these, which can be quite large, than including them on the DVD.  

> * We include Windows and Mac installers for some applications. Would you be wishing to include Windows and/or Mac installers?

No.

Howard