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   LAStools 6 May 2012 Software Suite
Keywords: filtering, clipping, reprojecting, compression, classification, DSM, DTM, TIN, contours, bare-earth
License: Other

Description: LAStools are a collection of highly-efficient, batch scriptable, multi-core command line tools for processing LiDAR that is built upon LASlib (with LASzip).
  • lasground.exe extracts the bare-earth by classifying all ground points
  • lasoverlap.exe checks overlap & vertical/horizontal alignment of flight lines
  • lascontrol.exe quality checks elevations for a list of control points
  • lasclassify.exe find buildings and the trees above the ground
  • lasgrid.exe rasters very large LAS files into elevation or intensity grids
  • lasboundary.exe extracts a boundary polygon that encloses the points
  • lasheight.exe computes for each point its height above the ground
  • lasclip.exe clips points against building footprints / swath boundaries
  • lastile.exe tiles huge amounts of LAS points into square tiles
  • laszip.exe compresses the LAS files in a completely lossless manner
  • lasinfo.exe prints out a quick overview of the contents of a LAS FILE
  • lasindex.exe creates a spatial index LAX file for fast spatial queries
  • txt2las.exe converts LIDAR data from ASCII text to binary LAS format
  • las2txt.exe turns LAS into human-readable and easy-to-parse ASCII
  • lasmerge.exe merges several LAS files into one
  • lassplit.exe splits points of one (or many) LAS files into flight lines
  • lassort.exe sorts points by gps_time, point_source, or into spatial proximity
  • las2las.exe extracts last returns, clips, subsamples, translate

  • 2   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