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   DielmoOpenLidar 7 May 2011 Point Cloud Analysis
Keywords: pointcloud, visualization, data management analysis
License: GNU General Public License

Description: DielmoOpenLiDAR is an open source software with GNU GPL license based in gvSIG for the management of LiDAR data. It allows access, visualization and analysis of the original LiDAR data, toguether with the possibility of visualizing at the same time big volumes (hundreds of GigaBytes) of original LiDAR data (irregular points in formats LAS and BIN) along with other geographic data. In the near future, it will also generate basic final products such as (DSM, DTM, intensity images, etc) and new added value final products.

Developing open source software for the management of LiDAR data, we hope to make this technology more accessible to standard GIS users and scientific communities, having as final objective increase the use of LiDAR data.

For developing this application, we had the collaboration of the Regional Valencia Council for Infrastructures and Transportation - CIT and National Geographic Institute of Spain - IGN


2   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

  • 3   LIDAR Analyst 20 Mar 2014 Software Suite
    Keywords: LIDAR, Automated Feature Extraction
    License: Commercial License

    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.


    4   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

    5   lidar2dems 29 Jul 2015 DEM generation
    Keywords: DEM, DSM, DTM, CHM, PDAL, points2grid, gridding
    License: BSD license

    Description: The lidar2dems project is a collection open-source (FreeBSD license) command line utilities for supporting the easy creation of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) from LiDAR data. lidar2dems uses the PDAL library (and associated dependencies) for doing the actual point processing and gridding of point clouds into raster data.

    6   Points2Grid 23 Jun 2011 DEM generation
    Keywords: gridding, P2G, point cloud, binning, local gridding, DEM
    License: BSD license

    Description: Points2Grid is a robust and scalable tool for gridding LIDAR point cloud data to generate Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). Points2Grid uses a local gridding method to compute grid cell elevation using a neighborhood defined around each cell based on a search radius provided by the user (see image below). Points2Grid offers two processing modes - in-core and out-of-core - to allow it to handle generation of rasters larger than available memory.

    7   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


    8   Points2Grid Utility (winP2G) 20 Nov 2010 DEM generation
    Keywords: point cloud, lidar, DEM, gridding, binning
    License: Free to use/Unspecified

    Description: The Points2Grid Utility is a simple tool for the generation of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) from lidar point cloud data. The Points2Grid Utility is a Windows application that utilizes the same local binning algorithm deployed in the OpenTopography lidar system to offer rapid generation of DEMs from large volumes of LiDAR point return data. Note that winP2G is no longer supported - information about newer implementations of the algorithm can be found here: https://opentopography.org/otsoftware/points2grid

    9   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.

    10   NERC-ARF DEM Scripts 7 Jul 2016 DEM generation
    Keywords: DTM, DSM, LAS, GRASS
    License: GNU General Public License

    Description: A collection of scripts developed by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Airborne Research Facility Data Analysis Node (NERC-ARF-DAN; formerly ARSF) for generating DEMs from point clouds.
    Through command line tools or Python functions the ARSF DEM Scripts provide a common interface to generate DSMs or DTMs from LAS files using GRASS, SPDLib, points2grid, FUSION or LAStools. When using SPDLib, FUSION or LAStools will classify ground returns to produce a DTM (note license required to produce a DTM using LAStools).
    Additional utilities are available for manipulating DEMs (e.g., patching with a courser resolution DEM to fill in gaps) using GRASS.


    11   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.