We announce the release of laslook 1.2.0 – a major improvement to the software, including many new features and some bug fixes. This article first introduces some important innovations, at the end of the text you will find a list of further changes
Pointcloud colorization
Currently, colorization can be done by different attributes like classification or z-value. The colorization can be configured by own color definitions (maps). The color definitions can be assigned 1:1 or by interpolation between values.
This feature has been completely redesigned. For simple basic colorization it is still possible to select only the color mode in the main visualization. To experience the full scope of the new color scheme, simply click the „color +++“ button.
This will open the coloring window and allow advanced coloring.
As an important new colorization feature, we now support an alpha channel. This enables transparency within the pointcloud visualization. It is possible to stack pointclouds and „see through“ them by blending the color values.
The color mechanism follows an iterative process, starting with the base value. There you select the input value of this colorizer. A new colorizer can be added by clicking on “+” in the header. This colorizer either modifies the previous color in terms of brightness, saturation, color(hue) or opacity(alpha) or defines its own color map. When a new color map is started, the two colors will be mixed by user selection.
In the sample image above, the points are colored by point class.
The second colorizer modifies the color value of each point according to the height of the point. The height of the point modifies the brightness of the color. It is defined that the input range of 0..255 leads to an output brightness of this point of 255..55.
A third colorizer calculates a new color for each point according to the Y-value. The resulting color will be an average mix of both colors.
Each color of the mapping can be adjusted manually in the table on the right. In addition, single map entries can be suppressed. This makes it possible, for example, to filter out some classes but not color by class at all, since a second colorizer calculates a new, different color.
Each file has a colorizer instance and each standard colorization has its own colorizer instance (constant, class, RGB, height,…). So when you change a file, the colorizer changes as well. Clicking on a property color scheme always reverts to the default of that prop-color-scheme. To allow easy assignment, colorizers can be:
- stored at a stack
- saved as file
Both options are available at the toolbar.
Color mapping
By default, all input values are mapped to a range of 256 colors for fast coloring. If the input value is > 256 and very precise coloring is required, an interpolated mapping can be forced by setting the „High precision“ checkbox.
Points selection and simple measurements
The point selection mode is started by clicking on the „Info:“ checkbox on the 3D control element. If the pointcloud is approximately in the Z-center and the mouse moves over the cloud, the points under the cursor will be selected.
At the right you will see all point coordinates selected at the cursor position within a certain radius. The info box shows the coordinates of the mouse(x/y), the pointcloud (R, relative) and within the absolute (A) coordinate values. By default, the selection does not check elevation values until the „z“ option is checked.
Multiple file view redesign
The logic for showing multiple files in one view has been redesigned. The function is still activated by the „Multiple files“ checkbox. The file list now has two columns: First column toggles the visibility of the file. The second line, select the file for colorization.
There are other new features via the context menu to improve handling of more than one point cloud:
- ‘Focus File’ selects the file in the viewer
- ‘Load entire file’ loads all points from file system if only part of the file is loaded
- ‘Select all or none’ toggles the visibility of all files
- ‘Remove file’ removes the selected file from the viewer list/removes all files from the viewer list
- ‘Move up or down’ changes the order of the pointcloud in the list – This is useful when using the cloud-compare feature in the colorizer
Lock camera
Camera and zoom are always optimized when loading a new file. To toggle between different files, it sometimes makes sense not to change the view. This can be achieved via the „lock camera“ function.
High-Res / High-DPI Support
When using a small, high-resolution display, Windows sets the display dpi/ppi (dots per inch/pixel per inch) to value higher than the default of 96 ppi. laslook always supported high-resolution displays, but in some environments the fonts were mixed, resulting in a display as shown in the image below where the element area didn’t match the font size.
This problem has been fixed with the new version.
List of further new features & bug fixes in laslook 1.2.0
New features:
- 3D view: Redesign object positioning; Enhanced screen object location info
- 3D view: Auto detection and correction of 8Bit color values in LAS/LAZ
- 3D view: Mouse object selection improved
- Notes: Tab on selected block intends the entire block
- FileInfo: Show VLR info in LAZ file information (delayed)
- FileInfo: Rightclick: Function „Copy all to clipboard“
- FileInfo: Rightclick: Function „run lasinfo“
- FileInfo: Rightclick: Enables to thousands separators to be suppressed
- FileInfo: Copy information to clipboard: If selection is active: Copy only this selection.
- Files: Remember current project file in the project data
- Files: Support DIR navigation (in/out) by keyboard (Ctrl-Left/Right)
- Files: Remove manually added files
- Console: Support global vars with expressions like „set dir=c:\dir“
- Console: Show total execution time in output header
- Console: „Ctrl-C“ copies the result in the console output window to the clipboard
- Main: Clicking on the status bar copies the text to the clipboard and removes warning or error status
Bug fixes:
- Documentation view: (Always) search all README files, even if some are filtered in the LAStools global tool list
- File Preview: If a file cannot be displayed, display the info instead while keeping the most recent file data (e.g. TIFF files)
- Load project: Improved error handling
- Show console error output even if the command exits immediately
- Main: Strg-Tab/Strg-Shift-Tab switches between the open project tabs
- Deinit viewer object when changing the file directory
- Console: Only output the hint ‘verbose’ if isn’t already verbose
- Files: Fixes the filter for LAS/LAZ files when adding files manually
- Files: Finds the last subdirectory in the directory up action
- Files: Load files > 2GB enabled