Overview of all LAStools

DATA COMPRESSION

• laszip – Lossless compression of LiDAR data in LAS format.  <open source>
• demzip – Lossless compression of DEM data.  <free>

DATA CONVERSION (Import / Export)

• las2txt – Converts LiDAR from LAS/LAZ/BIN/ASCII format into ASCII format.  <open source>
• txt2las – Converts LiDAR data from ASCII text formats to binary LAS/LAZ/BIN format.  <open source>
• las2las – Extract first/last returns, reprojects, subsamples, translates,… LiDAR in LAS/LAZ/BIN/ASCII format.  <open source>
• e572las – Converts 3D point files in E57 format to binary LAS/LAZ format.  <free>
• las2shp – Converts LiDAR from LAS/LAZ/BIN/ASCII format into ESRI Shapefile format.  <licensed>
• shp2las – Converts ESRI Shapefiles with Points or MultiPoints to LAS/LAZ/BIN/TXT files.  <licensed>

CLASSIFICATION & FILTERING

• lasground – Extracts the bare-earth from LiDAR by classifying ground points.  <licensed>
• lasground_new – Extracts the bare-earth from LiDAR by classifying ground points (improved version).  <licensed>
• lasclassify – Finds buildings and trees in airborne LiDAR point clouds.  <licensed>
• lastrack – Classifies LiDAR point based on vertical or horizontal trajectory.  <licensed>
• lasthin – Thins LiDAR points using the lowest, highest or a random point per grid set.  <licensed>
• sonarnoiseblaster – Streaming cleaning of massive SONAR point clouds from multi-beam echosounders.  <free>

DSM/DTM GENERATION & PRODUCTS

• las2dem – Rasters LiDAR (via a temporary TIN) to hillshade, slope, elevation, RGB or false color grid.  <licensed>
• las2iso – Extracts, optionally simplified, elevation contours from LiDAR (via a temporary TIN).  <licensed>
• lasgrid – Rasterizes huge LiDAR collections into grids by elevation, intensity, ….  <licensed>
• lasheight – Computes for each LiDAR point its height above the ground.  <licensed>
• lascanopy – Computes many different plot or raster metrics for forest analysis.  <licensed>
• lasvoxel – Computes various voxelizations for LiDAR point clouds.  <licensed>
• demdiff – Compares rasters in ASC, BIL, TIF, IMG, RasterLAZ formats and reports differences.  <free>
• las2tin – Triangulates the LiDAR points of a LAS/LAZ/BIN/ASCII file into a TIN.  <licensed>
• lasplanes – Finds sufficiently planar patches of LAS/LAZ points fulfilling several criteria and output them in SHP or PEF format.  <licensed>
• lascolor – Colors LiDAR points using RGB values from an orthophoto.  <licensed>
• blast2dem – Rasters billions of LiDAR points via a streaming TIN to elevation, intensity, slope or RGB grid. <licensed>
• blast2iso – Contours billions of LiDAR points via a streaming TIN to isolineas in KML or SHP format. <licensed>

PREPROCESSING

• lasindex – Creates a spatial index (*.LAX) for fast spatial queries.  <open source>
• laslayers – Adds layer functionality to LAS/LAZ files.  <licensed>
• lasmerge – Merges several LiDAR files into one (or splits them into several parts).  <open source>
• lasoverage – Finds and flags overage points to remove the flightline overlaps from an airborne LiDAR collect.  <licensed>
• lasboundary – Computes the exact boundary polygon for massive amounts of LiDAR points.  <licensed>
• lasclip – Clips or classifies LiDAR points against poligonal building footprints/swath boundaries.  <licensed>
• lasoptimize – Optimize, compress and spatially index LiDAR files before distribution.  <free>
• lassort – Sorts LiDAR by gps_time, point_source, or into spatial proximity via space filling curve.  <licensed>
• lasduplicate – Removes duplicate LiDAR points with identical x and y coordinates (and optionally, z).  <licensed>
• lastile – Tiles huge amounts of LiDAR points from LAS/LAZ/BIN/ASCII format into square files.  <licensed>
• lassplit – Splits LAS or LAZ files into multiple files by flightline or other attributes.  <licensed>
• lasnoise – Removes or flag isolated noise points in LiDAR files.  <licensed>
• lascopy – Copies selected point attributes from a reference file to a target file.  <licensed>
• lasdatum – Shift LiDAR points via a NTv2 grid transformation.  <licensed>
• lasdiff – Compares two LAS/LAZ files and reports whether and where they are identical or different.  <open source>
• lasdistance – Classifies, flags, or remove points within a specified distance of polygonal segments.  <licensed>
• lasprecision – Finds the actual precision of LiDAR points and allows to correct the scaling if necessary.  <open source>
• lasvdatum – Transforms LiDAR from ellipsoidal to orthometric elevations using a grid.  <licensed>
• las3dpoly – Modifies points within a certain distance of polylines.  <licensed>
• lasintensity – Corrects the intensity attenuation due to atmospheric absorption.  <licensed>
• lascopcindex – Creates a COPC *.laz file for a given set of *.las or *.laz files.  <open source>

QUALITY CONTROL & INFORMATION

• lasinfo – Extracts metadata information and additional information from a LAZ/LAS file.  <open source>
• lasoverlap – Quality check for LiDAR flightline overlaps and horizontal/vertical alignments.  <licensed>
• lasreturn – Reports geometric returns statistics and repairs ‘number of returns’ field based on GPS time.  <licensed>
• lascontrol – Quality check of LiDAR elevation against a list of control points.  <licensed>
• lasprobe – Probes the elevation of the LIDAR for a given x and y location and reports it to a text file or to stdout.  <licensed>
• lasvalidate – Determine if LAS files are conform to the ASPRS LAS specification.  <free>

VISUALIZATION

• laslook – Integrated workbench to visualize point clouds and run LAStools commands. Reference documentation of all LAStools modules.  <free>
• lasview – Viewer for LiDAR data (includes manual classification editing tools).  <free>
• laspublish – Creates a Web page for online viewing and download of LiDAR using Potree.  <licensed>

LAStools reference documentation

LAStools reference