Award-winning software for efficient LiDAR processing (with LASzip)
Tools to process LiDAR data files. The data files has the ASPRS LAS format (version 1.0-1.4) or the losslessly compressed, but otherwise identical twin, the LAZ format. See the table below to see what tools and converters are provided.
LAStools consist of different parts:
- LASlib, the low level processing API.
- LASzip, the compressing/decompressing API. Both parts are for free and open source.
- LAStools toolset. Additional tools, based on LASlib and LASzip to process LiDAR data. Some of the tools are also free to use. Some of them are licensed.
All code is written in ultra-light-weight, very efficient and superfast C++.
LAStools are a collection of highly-efficient, scriptable tools with multi-core batching that process LAS, compressed LAZ, Terrasolid BIN, ESRI Shapefiles (SHP), ASCII and others.
las2lasextracts last returns, clips, subsamples, translates, etc ...las2txtturns LAS into human-readable and easy-to-parse ASCIIlasindexcreates a spatial index LAX file for fast spatial querieslasinfoprints out a quick overview of the contents of a LAS filelasmergemerges several LAS or LAZ files into a single LAS or LAZ filelasprecisionanalyses the actual precision of the LIDAR pointslaszippowerful, lossless LiDAR compressor that turns large LAS files into much smaller LAZ files that are only 7 - 20 percent of the original file sizetxt2lasconverts LIDAR data from ASCII text to binary LAS formatlascopcindexcreate a copc indexed copc.laz file
las2demrasters (via a TIN) into elevation/slope/intensity/rgb DEMslas2isoextracts, optionally simplified, elevation contourslas2shpturns binary LAS into ESRI's Shapefile formatlas2tintriangulates the points of a LAS file into a TINlasboundaryextracts a boundary polygon that encloses the pointslascanopycomputes many raster and plot metrics for forestry applicationslasclassifyfinds buildings and the vegetation above the groundlasclipclips points against building footprints / swath boundarieslascolorcolors the LAS points based on ortho imagery in TIF formatlascontrolquality checks elevations for a list of control pointslascopycopies ttributes using the GPS-time stamp and the return numberlasdatumtransforms rom one horizontal datum to anotherlasdistanceclassifies,flags, or removes points based on distance from polygonal segmentslasduplicateremoves duplicate points (with identical x and y, z optional)lasgridgrids onto min/max/avg/std elevation, intensity, or counter rasterslasgroundextracts the bare-earth by classifying all ground pointslasground_newan improved version of lasground for complex terrainslasheightcomputes for each point its height above the groundlasnoiseflags r removes noise points in LAS/LAZ/BIN/ASCII fileslasoptimizeoptimizes ata for better compression and spatial coherencylasoveragefinds he "overage" of a airborne collect that get covered by multiple flightlinelasoverlapchecks overlap & vertical/horizontal alignment of flight lineslasplanesfinds planar patches in terrestrial, mobile, (airborne?) scanslasprecisionreads IDAR data in the LAS format and computes statistics about precision "advertised" in the headerlasprobeprobes he elevation of a LIDAR for a given x and y locationlaspublishdo D visualization of LiDAR data in a web browser using the WebGL Potreelasreturnreports eometric return statistics and repairs 'number of returns' field based on GPS timeslassortsorts points by gps_time, point_source, or into spatial proximitylassplitsplits points of LAS file(s) into flightlines or other criterialasthinthins lowest / highest / random LAS points via a gridlastiletiles huge amounts of LAS points into square tileslastoolis an old GUI for multiple LAStools (now each tool has its own GUI)lastrackclassifies LiDAR point based on distance from a trajectorylasvalidatedetermine f LAS files are conform to the ASPRS LAS specificationslasvdatumtransforms iDAR from ellipsoidal to orthometric elevations using a gridlasviewvisualizes a LAS file with a simple OpenGL viewerlasvoxelcomputes voxelization of pointse572lasextracts the points from the E57 format and stores them as LAS/LAZ filesshp2lasturns an ESRI's Shapefile into binary LAS
blast2demrasters like las2dem but with streaming TINs for billions of points.blast2isocontours like las2iso but with streaming TINs for billions of points.
All documentation is provided as a readme markdown files (*.md) in the ".\bin" directory.
All binaries can be downloaded at https://rapidlasso.de/downloads/
Just download the files to a directory. There is no installation needed. Just run the tools from commandline or use a client software to access the tools.
This command will do a ground classification of the "lake.laz" file and writes the
result into the file "out.laz".
las2ground64 -i lake.laz -o out.laz
It is common to use the commands in a batch script to process huge amount of data.
laslook is a graphical frontend and workbench for LAStools. The software contains the full documentation of LAStools and is free to use. See https://rapidlasso.de/laslook/ for details.
The QGIS plugin is available within the QGIS plugin manager.
The windows binary download contains the ArcGIS toolbox in .\LAStools\ArcGIS_toolbox.
To build own binaries out of this sources it is recommended to use cmake.
cmake .
cmake --build .
For windows there is also a MSVC solution file (*.sln) and project files in the repository. This provides a simple "Release" build configuration.
A few example DOS batch scripts can be found in the .\LAStools\example_batch_scripts directory.
- download page: https://rapidlasso.de/downloads/
- company page: https://rapidlasso.de
- user group: http://groups.google.com/group/lastools
Please read the LICENSE.txt file for information on the legal use and licensing
of LAStools. We appreciate any feedback.
(c) 2007-2023 info@rapidlasso.de - https://rapidlasso.de