OpenTopography Tool Registry

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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.

Appearance of a tool in the OpenTopography Tool Registry does not imply endorsement, recommendation, or support, by the NSF OpenTopography Facility and is meant simply as a service to our users. OpenTopography does not guarantee the completeness or accessibility of specific content and links contributed by users. If you have been directly involved with the development of a registered tool and are not the original contributor of the tool to the registry, please email info@opentopography.org to supply updates or modifications to its entry.
Tool Name Date   Tool Type Rating
1   xyzRotatorDH 30 Nov 2010 Point Cloud Analysis
Keywords: rotation, translation, georeferencing, point cloud
License: GNU General Public License

Description: A MATLAB script that takes an unreferenced 3-column xyz dataset (e.g., a TLS point cloud) and places it in a Cartesian global coordinate system (e.g., UTM) given at least one known global point (e.g. from a hand-held GPS unit).

2   xyzRotatorDH_Linux 30 Nov 2010 Point Cloud Analysis
Keywords: rotation, translation, georeferencing, point cloud
License: GNU General Public License

Description: A Linux (Korn) shell script that takes an unreferenced 3-column xyz dataset (e.g., a TLS point cloud) and places it in a Cartesian global coordinate system (e.g., UTM) given at least one known global point (e.g. from a hand-held GPS unit).

3   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

4   ToPCAT = Topographic Analysis Toolkit 4 Sep 2014 Point Cloud Analysis
Keywords: TLS, SFM, point cloud statistics, point cloud decimation
License: GNU General Public License

Description: Topographic Point Cloud Analysis Toolkit (ToPCAT) is a software package developed by Brasington et al. (2012) used to decimate (or thin) a point cloud and calculate meaningful statistics for grid defined areas. The process of decimation can reduce computation time and produce meaningful summary outputs (e.g. zMin for modeling bare earth elevations; and detrended standard deviation for modelling surface roughness).

5   Lidar360 5 Jul 2018 Visualization, Point Cloud Analysis, DEM generation, DEM Analysis, Data Management / Handling, Software Suite
Keywords: Point Cloud Processing, Terrain Classification, ALS Forestry, TLS Forestry, Lidar Power line Survey
License: Commercial License

Description: Lidar360 is a comprehensive point cloud post-processing software suite developed by GreenValley International Inc (GVI). It offers a huge collection of tools and functions, from basic point cloud management tools like outlier removal, normalization, projection, and extraction, to advanced algorithms for industry-specific applications, e.g. Terrain, ALS/TLS Forestry, and Powerline Survey. The Lidar360 suite consists of 5 modules (as of June 2018):
1. Framework -- contains a number of core toolsets to effectively visualize and interact with lidar point cloud including display modes, statistics, data management, classification tools, vector editing and strip adjustment;
2. Terrain -- a suite of GIS tools for calculating slope, roughness, aspect & contours from surface models. Additionally, it contains tools for repairing surface models, i.e., spikes, holes and extraneous values;
3 & 4. ALS/TLS Forestry -- The ALS Forestry functions allow users to calculate essential forest metrics including elevation, intensity, canopy cover, LAI etc., and provides regression models and segmentation algorithms such as CHM Segmentation & Point Cloud Segmentation. The TLS Forestry tools are specifically designed to work with terrestrial lidar data. It offers a wealth of tools including Gaussian Mixture Model Classification and TLS Point Cloud segmentation, enabling the users to better classify ground, leaf and trunk points and segment individual trees from TLS point cloud data; and,
5. Power