The OpenTopography Tool Registry provides a community populated clearinghouse of software, utilities, and tools oriented towards high-resolution topography data (e.g. collected with lidar technology) handling, processing, and analysis. Tools registered below range from source code to full-featured software applications. We welcome contributions to the registry via the Contribute a Tool page.

	Tool Name	Date	Tool Type	Rating
1	SPD Software Library (SPDLib)	24 May 2012	Software Suite
Keywords: SPD, SPDLib, LiDAR, TLS, ALS, Full, waveform, Discrete, return, points License: GNU General Public License Description: SPDLib is a set of open source software tools for processing laser scanning data (i.e., LiDAR), including both discrete return and waveform data captured from airborne and terrestrial platforms. The aim of the software is provide you, the user, with the tools you need to process these data. The software has grown from research carried out at Aberystwyth University and Queensland University concerning the processing of LiDAR data for vegetation analysis and has continued to grow. One of the key features which differentiates this software from other LiDAR software is the ability to process and store full waveform datasets alongside traditional discrete return data
2	Whitebox Geospatial Analysis Tools	27 May 2014	Software Suite
Keywords: GIS, LAS file reader, interpolation, geospatial analysis License: GNU General Public License Description: Whitebox GAT is a full-blown GIS with extensive analysis capabilities for handling LiDAR data, including specialized interpolation algorithms for LAS data, removal of off-terrain objects, and plenty of tools for processing DEMs, e.g. hydrological tools, geomorphometry, etc. Here is a description for handling LiDAR: http://whiteboxgeospatial.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/working-with-lidar-data-in-whitebox-gat/
3	FUSION	4 Aug 2015	Visualization, Point Cloud Analysis, DEM generation, DEM Analysis, Software Suite
Keywords: LIDAR, visualization, processing License: Free to use/Unspecified Description: The FUSION/LDV analysis and visualization system consists of two main programs, FUSION and LDV (LIDAR data viewer), and a collection of task-specific command line programs. The primary interface, provided by FUSION, consists of a graphical display window and a control window. The FUSION display presents all project data using a 2D display typical of geographic information systems. It supports a variety of data types and formats including shapefiles, images, digital terrain models, canopy surface models, and LIDAR return data. LDV provides the 3D visualization environment for the examination and measurement of spatially-explicit data subsets. Command line programs provide specific analysis and data processing capabilities designed to make FUSION suitable for processing large LIDAR acquisitions. Command line utilities and processing programs, called the FUSION LIDAR Toolkit or FUSION-LTK, provide extensive processing capabilities including bare-earth point filtering, surface fitting, data conversion, and quality assessment for large LIDAR acquisitions. These programs are designed to run from a command prompt or using batch programs. FUSION runs on all current versions of Windows and has been successfully used on LINUX systems using WINE. The FUSION/LDV visualization system is GUI based. The command line tools require the use of batch files to be most effective.
4	CHaMP Topo Processing Toolbar	4 Sep 2014	DEM generation
Keywords: total station surveys, topographic License: GNU General Public License Description: The CHaMP Topo Processing Toolbar exists to take raw data from CHaMP ground-based topographic surveys and run these through steps of 1) survey data evaluation, 2) generating topographic surfaces, 3) DEM derived products and metrics (including, detrending, derivation of cross sections, profiles, thalwegs, bankfull, etc.), 4) QA/QC. Although the overall workflow of the tool is focused on CHaMP topographic data, many of the individual commands and steps will be more generically useful to some.
5	River Bathymetry Toolkit (RBT)	18 Mar 2011	Software Suite
Keywords: LiDAR, bathymetry, river, raster, detrending, water, RBT License: Free to use/Unspecified Description: The (RBT) is available for free and is under active development. Tools exist for cutting cross sections and longitudinal profiles into high resolution DEMs to extract hydrologic parameters such as wetted area, bankfull width, hydraulic radius, gradient and sinuosity. It is possible to save the cross section properties as a ShapeFile and then add them to a map. Using an automated detrending algorithm we are able to remove the overall valley slope. Tools are being created that use the detrended raster to investigate flooding outside a main channel at any prescribed discharge or flow stage.
6	fleurdelas	21 Nov 2014	Visualization, Point Cloud Analysis, Data Management / Handling
Keywords: las, idl, envi, waveform, point License: GNU General Public License Description: The fleurdelas class is an IDL/ENVI implementation of a LAS file reader/writer. The class object can read, write and manipulate points and/or full waveforms contained in the binary LAS file format. It can handle any LAS 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 with point format from 0 to 10. This class object therefore is very well suited to access the point structure information or the waveform information for further process. It can also filter the point cloud and generate new LAS file. However, if you need to manipulate; the Variable Length Records or the Coordinates System we will recommend you to use LAStools as it is more adapted for this purpose.
7	MCC-LIDAR GUI	23 May 2017	Data Management / Handling
Keywords: Classification, Ground License: Commercial License Description: This is a GUI version of the MCC LIDAR ground classification tool. It has been compiled for 64-bit editions of Windows and has successfully classified LAS files with over 83 million points successfully. This version includes all the necessary binaries and DLL files. The original MCC LIDAR homepage (non-gui) can be found here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mcclidar/ The installer is 880KB in size. Installed binaries are 2.29MB in size.