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	BCAL LiDAR Tools	8 Mar 2011	Software Suite
Keywords: lidar, visualization, filtering, value-added products License: GNU General Public License Description: BCAL LiDAR Tools are open-source tools developed by Idaho State University, Boise Center Aerospace Laboratory (BCAL). These tools can be used for processing, analyzing and visualizing LiDAR data. They are written in IDL programming language and is intended to be used as add-on in the ENVI remote sensing software package.
2	Point Cloud Library (PCL	13 Aug 2011	Point Cloud Analysis
Keywords: point clouds, visualization, processing, segmentation, filtering, feature estimation, registration License: BSD license Description: The Point Cloud Library (or PCL) is a large scale, open project for point cloud processing. The PCL framework contains numerous state-of-the art algorithms including filtering, feature estimation, surface reconstruction, registration, model fitting and segmentation. PCL is released under the terms of the BSD license and is open source software. It is free for commercial and research use. The project is financially supported by multiple companies, including: Willow Garage, NVidia, Google, and Toyota
3	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
4	GeoNet	4 Sep 2014	DEM Analysis
Keywords: channel heads, channel networks, nonlinear filtering, geodesic curves, curvature analysis License: GNU General Public License Description: Computational tool for the automatic extraction of channel networks and channel heads from high resolution topography
5	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.
6	GeoSync - Z tools	5 Feb 2020	Visualization, DEM generation, Data Management / Handling, Software Suite
Keywords: Find, Download, Colorize, Visualize, Extract and Filter Point Cloud and public domain lidar data License: Commercial License 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