LiDAR scripts

The scripts below are provided with absolutely no warranty regarding their behavior. Use them at your own risk. I wrote them to support my LiDAR research when relevant tools either did not exist or were proprietary and costly to purchase. There were by no means a complete collection then and certainly not now. I first mentioned them during an oral presentation I gave to the 2007 Silvilaser conference in Espoo, Finland. Soon after, I started receiving requests, mostly from colleagues, to share these scripts. With the frequency of the requests increasing, I decided to upload them to the Forest Service FTP server. I moved them here after the FTP server became unavailable. If you still use and find them useful, please acknowledge the author where warranted. The scripts work with LAS versions 1.0 to 1.2. They cannot handle the compressed version (.laz). PNW-FIA_LiDAR_script_info.pdf provides script details and suggestions on how they can be used.

I fully endorse FUSION, a free, comprehensive collection of LiDAR visualization and analysis tools, developed and maintained by my colleague Bob McGaughey. FUSION can be downloaded here.

64-bit Windows	32-bit Windows	Description

LAS_Header_View.exe	LAS_Header_View32.exe	Shows the header of an LAS file
LAS_Update_Header.exe	LAS_Update_Header32.exe	Reads the data in an LAS file and, if necessary, updates the file header
LAS2ASC.exe	LAS2ASC32.exe	Converts an LAS file to a text file
LAS_Stats.exe	LAS_Stats32.exe	Queries the contents of an LAS file and creates a report
LAS_Subset_by_Attribute.exe	LAS_Subset_by_Attribute32.exe	Subsets the contents of an LAS file to a new LAS file using a variety of user-specified criteria
LAS_Subset_by_Raster.exe	LAS_Subset_by_Raster32.exe	Subsets the contents of an LAS file to a new LAS file via referencing to a co-located raster
LASZ2H.exe	LAS2H32.exe	Converts Z (elevation) values in an LAS file to above-ground distance (height) using a ASCII DEM
LAS2Shape.exe	LAS2Shape32.exe	Converts an LAS file to a point shapefile">
LAS_Tile.exe	LAS_Tile32.exe	Rearranges LAS file(s) into new LAS file(s) (tiles) using user-specified tile size and, optionally, tile buffer
LAS2Raster.exe	LAS2Raster32.exe	Generates rasters, binary or text format, of LAS attribute metrics
LAS_Incidence_Angle.exe	LAS_Incidence_Angle32.exe	Uses airborne platform trajectory information to compute the incidence angle of the parent pulse for every return in an LAS
LAS_prj.exe	LAS_prj32.exe	Projects the coordinates of returns in an LAS file from one system to another
LAS_RotTrans.exe	LAS_RotTrans32.exe	Rotates and/or translates (shifts) the return coordinates of an LAS file
LAS_Merge.exe	LAS_Merge32.exe	Combines the contents of LAS files into a new LAS file
trj2ASCII.exe	trj2ASCII32.exe	Converts a binary (.trj) platform trajectory file to a text equivalent
LAS_IntRopt.exe	LAS_IntRopt32.exe	Performs range-based normalization of return intensity for fixed-gain LiDAR acquisitions

Additional resources, needed for script execution, can be obtained below:
64-bit DLLs
32-bit DLLs
LAS_prj.exe DLLs (64-bit)
LAS_prj32.exe DLLs

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Demetrios Gatziolis. Last update November 2, 2015