Tools to process airborne and satellite LiDAR point clouds
Warning! This package is under active development and may change rapidly!
- 3DEP AWS Public Dataset
- Locally available, classified LiDAR point clouds in las/laz format
lidar_tools is a collection of CLI scripts to process LiDAR data. It should be installed into a stand-alone environment to ensure that scripts execute as intended. We recommend using pixi to install a locked software environment.
We recommend using pixi package manager to install a locked software environment for executing code in this repository.
Pixi can be installed following instructions from here. For Linux and Mac OSX machines, pixi can be installed from the terminal by running the below command:
curl -fsSL https://pixi.sh/install.sh | sh
git clone https://github.com/uw-cryo/lidar_tools.git
cd lidar_tools
pixi install --frozenRun our example workflow to create DSM, DTM without interpolation, DTM with interpolation, and LiDAR Intensity for 3DEP data over a part of University of Washington Campus in Seattle, WA!
# NOTE: takes ~5 min to run
pixi run example
Once installed, you can run processing scripts from a terminal:
export PIXI_FROZEN=true # NOTE: set this to always use locked environment
pixi shell # NOTE: 'exit' deactivates the environment
pdal_pipeline create-dsm --helpUsage: pdal_pipeline create-dsm [ARGS] [OPTIONS]
Create a Digital Surface Model (DSM), Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and intensity raster from a given extent and
3DEP point cloud data.
╭─ Parameters ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ * EXTENT-POLYGON --extent-polygon Path to the polygon file defining the processing extent. │
│ [required] │
│ * OUTPUT-PREFIX --output-prefix prefix with directory name and filename prefix for the project │
│ (e.g., CO_ALS_proc/CO_3DEP_ALS) [required] │
│ TARGET-WKT --target-wkt Path to the WKT file defining the target coordinate reference │
│ system (CRS). │
│ LOCAL-UTM --local-utm --no-local-utm If true, compute the UTM zone from the extent polygon and use it │
│ to create the output rasters. If false, use the CRS defined in │
│ the target_wkt file. [default: False] │
│ SOURCE-WKT --source-wkt Path to the WKT file defining the source coordinate reference │
│ system (CRS). If None, the CRS from the point cloud file is used. │
│ LOCAL-LAZ-DIR --local-laz-dir If the path to a local directory containing laz files is │
│ specified, the laz files are processed. If not specified, the │
│ function will process USGS 3DEP EPT tiles │
│ EPT-TILE-SIZE-KM --ept-tile-size-km The size of the EPT tiles to be processed. This is only used if │
│ local_laz_dir is not specified. The default is 1.0 km, which │
│ means that the function will process 1 km x 1 km tiles. If you │
│ want to process larger tiles, you can specify a larger value. │
│ [default: 1.0] │
│ PROCESS-SPECIFIC-3DEP-SURVEY If specified, only process the given 3DEP survey. This should be │
│ --process-specific-3dep-survey a string that matches the workunit name in the 3DEP metadata │
│ PROCESS-ALL-INTERSECTING-SURVEYS If true, process all available EPT surveys which intersect with │
│ --process-all-intersecting-surveys the input polygon. If false, and process_specific_3dep_survey is │
│ --no-process-all-intersecting-surveys not specified, only process the first available 3DEP EPT survey │
│ that intersects the input polygon. [default: False] │
│ NUM-PROCESS --num-process Number of processes to use for parallel processing. Default is 1, │
│ which means all pdal and gdal processing will be done serially │
│ [default: 1] │
│ CLEANUP --cleanup --no-cleanup If true, remove the intermediate tif files for the output tiles, │
│ leaving only the final mosaicked rasters. Default is True. │
│ [default: True] │
╰───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯Use a developement environment (including pytest, ruff, mypy etc)
export PIXI_FROZEN=true # Disable this if you're changing dependency versions
pixi shell -e dev
Or run the test sweet
pixi run test
Run linting and formatting
pixi run lint
pixi run typecheck