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.

Date	Tool Name	Tool Type	Keywords	Rating
30 Mar 2011	VRMesh Survey: LiDAR Point Cloud Classification Tool Description: Vrmesh Survey is an intelligent solution for automatic point cloud classification and bare-earth extraction. It automatically and accurately classifies LIDAR point clouds into ground, vegetation, building, and others. More than 90% identification jobs will be done in a one-click process. Manual adjustments can be easily performed in a cross section view. It also provides comprehensive functionalities to generate accurate triangle meshes.	Software Suite	lidar, bare earth, point cloud, classification	(0 rating)
3 Apr 2011	SAGA GIS Description: SAGA GIS is a FOSS which is, besides common GIS tasks, specialized on digital terrain analysis. The software provides a lot of analysis tools which you will not find in any other software package, e.g. for morphometric or hydrologic analysis. SAGA supports various raster and vector (including LAS and SAGA point clouds) formats, DEM generation, analysis and visualization (e.g. 3D point cloud viewer, bare earth extraction). One of SAGA's main objectives is to provide scientists an easy to use API to implement own algorithms (C++) but it is also used in commercial environments. SAGA provides a GUI and can be scripted in various ways (e.g. batch/bash, python). SAGA runs on Windows, Linux and FreeBSD, both 32 and 64bit. The software is licensed under the GPL (GUI, most of the modules) and the LGPL (API).	Software Suite	GIS, Terrain Analysis, Visualization, Raster, Vector, Pointcloud, LAS	(1 rating)
9 Nov 2011	FME Description: FME empowers users at leading organizations worldwide to transform spatial data so that they can use and share it wherever, whenever, and however its needed. FMEs unmatched capabilities and support for 250+ spatial and non-spatial formats enable you to quickly overcome any challenge related to the use and sharing of spatial data, so you can focus your energies on your objectives, instead. Specifically, FME supports LiDAR data formats, enabling you to leverage the wealth of information in your LiDAR assets by enabling you to quickly prepare your LiDAR data to suit your specific needs. Safe Software, the maker of FME, is the pioneering global leader in the spatial data transformation technology market.	Data Management / Handling	transform, convert, translate, extract, integrate, automated, repeatable	(0 rating)
6 May 2012	LAStools 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	Software Suite	filtering, clipping, reprojecting, compression, classification, DSM, DTM, TIN, contours, bare-earth	(4 ratings)
20 Mar 2014	LIDAR Analyst Description: LIDAR Analyst® software is the premier feature extraction solution for airborne LIDAR data, allowing geospatial analysts to unlock the value of LIDAR by automatically extracting 3D objects such as bare earth, trees or buildings. Now the software has been upgraded with a major enhancement: an integrated 3D Viewer that delivers mission-critical high-resolution 3D exploitation and further establishes LIDAR Analyst as the Gold Standard. Enjoy the performance of viewing and manipulating LIDAR data containing over a billion points. LIDAR Analyst has eight years of proven heritage as one of the first commercially released LIDAR applications. The power, speed, accuracy and broad selection of tools enable users to get real work accomplished. Thats why LIDAR Analyst is so widely respected and used daily by military forces, federal agencies, local governments, academic universities and GIS services providers around the globe. Since LIDAR Analyst is an extension for Esri ArcGIS®, the products familiar environment makes it easy to install and learn. Use the 3D Viewer to manipulate, filter and edit LIDAR point clouds displayed in stunning color. Rapidly inventory all the buildings across a city or area of interest by using LIDAR Analysts advanced algorithms to detect, recognize, and extract complex 3D building shapes. Count the trees in a forest or scattered throughout a neighborhood. Strip away the buildings and shrubbery to reveal the true ground level for detailed terrain.	Software Suite	LIDAR, Automated Feature Extraction	(1 rating)
17 Dec 2012	ENVI LiDAR Description: ENVI LiDAR is an interactive geospatial software environment that allows you to create realistic 3D visualizations and easily extract important features (trees, powerlines, buildings) from LiDAR point cloud data. Elevation information contained within LiDAR can be included in your geospatial analysis projects such as viewshed and line-of-sight studies, forest inventories, right-of-way analyses, and urban planning applications. With ENVI LiDAR, you have the software tool to quickly prepare LiDAR data, accurately extract 3D features, fine-tune results, and export your results to your existing tools, such as ENVI or ArcMap, for further analysis or inclusion in your geospatial products.	Software Suite	LiDAR, Point Cloud, DSm, DTM, Feature Extraction	(0 rating)
22 Feb 2014	RiverTools Description: RiverTools is a user-friendly GIS application that contains a wide variety of tools specifically designed for terrain and watershed analysis and visualization. Version 4.0 supports the latest versions of Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.	Software Suite	DEMs, terrain, river network extraction, contributing area, curvature	(1 rating)
9 Mar 2014	LiForest(LiDAR Forest Software) Description: LiForest (LiDAR software for forestry applications) provides a platform that enables users to freely manipulate the LiDAR point cloud and extract useful information specially for forest studies. It consists of several primary modules for LiDAR point cloud data processing, including point cloud I/O, LiDAR-based forest metric calculation, digital model generation, regression models and individual tree segmentation.	Point Cloud Analysis	Forest metrics, regression models, individual tree segmentation, point cloud segmentation	(2 ratings)
4 Sep 2014	GeoNet Description: Computational tool for the automatic extraction of channel networks and channel heads from high resolution topography	DEM Analysis	channel heads, channel networks, nonlinear filtering, geodesic curves, curvature analysis	(2 ratings)
5 Mar 2015	Global Mapper LiDAR Module Description: The Global Mapper LiDAR Module is an optional enhancement to the software that provides numerous advanced LiDAR processing tools, including automatic point cloud classification, feature extraction, cross-sectional viewing and editing, dramatically faster surface generation, and much more. At a fraction of the cost of comparable applications, it is a must-have for anyone using or managing LiDAR data.	Visualization, Point Cloud Analysis	automatic point cloud classification, feature extraction, cross-sectional viewing and editing, drama	(1 rating)
5 Jul 2018	Lidar360 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	Visualization, Point Cloud Analysis, DEM generation, DEM Analysis, Data Management / Handling, Software Suite	Point Cloud Processing, Terrain Classification, ALS Forestry, TLS Forestry, Lidar Power line Survey	(0 rating)
5 Feb 2020	GeoSync - Z tools Description: Easy to use 3D toolbox for finding, filtering, clipping and visualizing point cloud data. Designed by surveying professionals to streamline point cloud workflows and reduce processing time, often by 50% or more. Find, Download, Colorize, Visualize, Extract and Filter Point Cloud and public domain lidar data for all 50 states	Visualization, DEM generation, Data Management / Handling, Software Suite	Find, Download, Colorize, Visualize, Extract and Filter Point Cloud and public domain lidar data	(1 rating)
9 Apr 2013	LP360 for ArcGIS, LP360 for Windows Description: LP360 for ArcGIS is an extension to ArcMap that allows visualizing and processing of very large point clouds (LIDAR and dense image matching) in a familiar GIS desktop environment. Available in three levels of capability, LP360 provides tools from rapid visualization and derived product generation through advanced features such as automatic ground classification and building footprint extraction. LP360 adds to the native viewing capabilities of ArcGIS 10.1 by providing the capability to work with very large projects such as county-wide aerial LIDAR data sets. From Quality Check to advanced feature extractions, LP360 is the tool of choice for LIDAR professionals throughout the world.	Visualization, Point Cloud Analysis, DEM generation, DEM Analysis, Software Suite	LIDAR, Classification, Breaklines, Visualization, Automatic Extraction, Volumetric Analysis	(0 rating)
18 Mar 2011	River Bathymetry Toolkit (RBT) 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.	Software Suite	LiDAR, bathymetry, river, raster, detrending, water, RBT	(0 rating)
4 Nov 2019	uniTank Description: uniTank is a comprehensive, highly automated software solution for near real-time 3D storage tank analysis and reporting based on 3D LiDAR data. The data registration tool is robust and versatile and does not rely on targets in field. uniTank‘s in-depth structural tank analysis includes precise data classification and feature extraction, manway and nozzle detection for tank calibration and all features to perform the analysis of shell roundness, verticality, peaking and bending, shell and edge settlement, roof, floor and floating roof settlement, floating roof rim space, girder, rafter and column deflection as well as tank calibration and berm survey. The graphic and textual reports are generated instantly and offer rapid access to critical decision making information the same day.	Visualization, Point Cloud Analysis, Data Management / Handling	laser scan data, LIDAR, point cloud, data registration, classification, storage tank analysis, tank	(0 rating)
21 Jul 2015	TopoToolbox Description: TopoToolbox is a suite of MATLAB functions for topographic analysis. The major aim of TopoToolbox is to offer helpful analytical GIS utilities in a non-GIS environment in order to support the simultaneous application of GIS-specific and other quantitative methods. Key methods include advanced methods of flow direction derivation, stream network extraction and manipulation, slope-area analysis, chiplots, and swath profiles.	Visualization, DEM Analysis	MATLAB, tectonic geomorphology, DEM analysis	(0 rating)
23 Sep 2014	TerEx Description: The TerEx Tool automates the process of mapping terraces and floodplains from high resolution topography data (works best on <3m grid resolution). The tool maps terraces and floodplains from user-defined parameters including, a local-relief threshold selected by a variable-size moving window, minimum area threshold, and maximum distance from the channel to identify and map discrete terrace and floodplain surfaces. Subsequently, the tool automatically measures planform area, absolute elevation, and height relative to the local river channel for each terrace polygon. TerEx can be run in a Python environment or as a GUI plugin for ArcMap. See Stout and Belmont, 2014 and the users manual for explanations of tool functionality and several test cases that provide guidance on parameter values for a wide range of landscapes.	DEM Analysis	terrace, mapping, feature extraction, floodplain	(0 rating)