With pleasure we share this recently published article in LiDAR Magazine: “LAStools Rises from the Ashes“, by Dr. A. Stewart Walker
Category Archives: press releases
LAStools@INTERGEO
LAStools@INTERGEO 2022! Visit rapidlasso’s booth C3.101/Hall 3 to meet our team and talk about LiDAR processing. Email to info@rapidlasso.de for free tickets. See you there!
Development and perspective
Beside maintenance and customer support, LAStools will certainly need some updates and further development to remain competitive. We are currently working on the following tasks.
New GUI
LAStools is a fundamental element regarding LiDAR data processing, but the GUI is outdated. Young professionals require a more intuitive operation. Visualizing cloud points helps to understand about data and processing. We‘ve started to develop a new GUI wrapper. It‘s challenging, but certain parts are already running.
Linux
Compiling the open-source part of LAStools is quite easy and done by many users. The commercial part is more difficult to port due to various dependencies and the complexity of the code. Nevertheless, most of it is done. The binaries are too big to pack them into our regular releases. If you are interested in running the commandline version of LAStools in a native Linux environment, kindly contact us to join our Linux beta tester program.
Manuals
LAStools are basically commandline tools optimized for batch processing. The “–help” output and the *_README.txt files of each tool provide basic information. Additionally, there is a lot of information (forums, videos) that is not easy to find, especially for initial users. Our aim is to collect the scattered information and elaborate a user manual for each tool. Together with our tutorials, this results in a complete documentation of LAStools.
We look forward to your feedback and are always open for requests.
LAStools Win Big at INTERGEO Taking Home Two Innovation Awards
PRESS RELEASE (for immediate release) October 2, 2017 rapidlasso GmbH, Gilching, Germany
At INTERGEO 2017 in Berlin, rapidlasso GmbH – the makers of the popular LiDAR processing software LAStools – were awarded top honors in both of the categories they had been nominated for: most innovative software and most innovative startup. The third award for most innovative hardware went to Leica Geosystems for the BLK360 terrestrial scanner. The annual Wichman Innovation Awards have been part of INTERGEO for six years now. Already at the inaugural event in 2012 the open source LiDAR compressor LASzip of rapidlasso GmbH had been nominated, coming in as runner-up in second place.
Dr. Martin Isenburg, the founder and CEO of rapidlasso GmbH, receives the two innovation awards at the ceremony during INTERGEO 2017 in Berlin.
After receiving the two awards Dr. Martin Isenburg, the founder and CEO of rapidlasso GmbH, was quick to thank the “fun, active, and dedicated user community” of the LAStools software for their “incredible support in the online voting”. He pointed out that it was its users who make LAStools more than just an efficient software for processing point clouds. Since 2011, the community surrounding LAStools has constantly grown to several thousand users who help and motivate each other in designing workflows and in solving format issues and processing challenges. They are an integral part of what makes these tools so valuable, so Dr. Isenburg.
About rapidlasso GmbH:
Technology powerhouse rapidlasso GmbH specializes in efficient LiDAR processing tools that are widely known for their high productivity. They combine robust algorithms with efficient I/O and clever memory management to achieve high throughput for data sets containing billions of points. The company’s flagship product – the LAStools software suite – has deep market penetration and is heavily used in industry, government agencies, research labs, and educational institutions. Visit http://rapidlasso.com for more information.
Prototype for “native LAS 1.4 extension” of LASzip LiDAR Compressor Released
PRESS RELEASE (for immediate release) February 13, 2017 rapidlasso GmbH, Gilching, Germany
Just in time for ILMF 2017 in Denver, the makers of the popular LiDAR processing software LAStools announce that the prototype for the “native LAS 1.4 extension” of their award-winning open source LASzip LiDAR compressor is ready for testing. An update to the compressed LAZ format had become necessary due to a core change in the ASPRS LAS 1.4 specification which had introduced several new point types.
A new feature of the updated LASzip compressor is the ability to selectively decompress of only those attributes of each point that really are needed by the application that is reading the LAZ file. Minimally this will be the x and y coordinate of each point and the return counts, which are sufficient to – for example – calculate the exact extend of the survey area. Most applications will also want to access z coordinate. However, the intensities, the GPS times, the RGB or NIR colors, and the new “Extra Bytes” are often not needed. As the updated LAZ format compresses these different attributes into separate layers, their decompression can then be skipped. Therefore sometimes only 40% of a compressed LAZ file needs to be decompressed to access the coordinates of points with many attributes.
The percentages of a compressed LAZ file used to encode different point attributes for two example LAS 1.4 files.
The new LASzip prototype is currently being crowd-tested. Interested parties who already have holdings of LAS 1.4 files with point types 6 to 10 may send an email to ‘lasproto@rapidlasso.com’ to participate in these tests.
The release of the new LASzip compressor comes more than a year late as development had been intentionally delayed to give ESRI an opportunity to contribute their needs and ideas to create a joint open format with the community and avoid LiDAR format fragmentation. Sadly, this effort ultimately failed.
About rapidlasso GmbH:
Technology powerhouse rapidlasso GmbH specializes in efficient LiDAR processing tools that are widely known for their high productivity. They combine robust algorithms with efficient I/O and clever memory management to achieve high throughput for data sets containing billions of points. The company’s flagship product – the LAStools software suite – has deep market penetration and is heavily used in industry, government agencies, research labs, and educational institutions. Visit http://rapidlasso.com for more information.
New ‘laspublish’ creates Web Portals for 3D Viewing and Downloading of LiDAR
PRESS RELEASE (for immediate release) February 18, 2016 rapidlasso GmbH, Gilching, Germany
Just in time for ILMF 2016, the makers of the open LASzip LiDAR compressor annouce the latest addition to their LiDAR processing software LAStools. The new ‘laspublish‘ from rapidlasso GmbH creates stand-alone Web Portals for interactive 3D viewing of LiDAR points and for selective downloading of LAZ or LAS files. The new tool is based on the cutting-edge streaming point cloud viewing technology of Potree that optimizes large LiDAR point clouds for streaming via the Web such that anyone can visualize, explore, and (optionally) download them with any modern browser.
3D viewer and download portal created with ‘laspublish’
The interactive 3D viewer streams on demand only the relevant parts of the point clouds. It not only visualizes the LiDAR in many useful and intuitive ways, but is also equipped with measurement tools to calculate distances or areas and profile or clipping tools for close-up inspections. With its integrated LASzip compression, options to color LiDAR by classification, return type, intensity, and point source ID, stunning visuals via Eye Dome Lighting (EDL), and the optional 2D download map, the new ‘laspublish‘ empowers professional and novice users alike to create stand-alone LiDAR Webportals with just a few button clicks.
a few clicks and ‘laspublish’ creates a professional LiDAR portal
The new ‘laspublish‘ is now an integral part of the LAStools software and is bundled together with all necessary components of the Potree software. It provides an instant and cost-effective solution for generating a set of Web pages that realize a self-contained LiDAR portal offering interactive online visualization and exploration as well as easy and intuitive distribution of large LiDAR data sets via the optional download map.
street in Surrey, BC courtesy of Safe Software
LiDAR download map for Nadi, Fiji
UAV point cloud courtesy of Marcus Gerke
About rapidlasso GmbH:
Technology powerhouse rapidlasso GmbH specializes in efficient LiDAR processing tools that are widely known for their high productivity. They combine robust algorithms with efficient I/O and clever memory management to achieve high throughput for data sets containing billions of points. The company’s flagship product – the LAStools software suite – has deep market penetration and is heavily used in industry, government agencies, research labs, and educational institutions. Visit http://rapidlasso.com for more information. As the only Diamond sponsor, rapidlasso GmbH has been the main financial supporter of the open source Potree package by Markus Schütz over the past two years.
About Potree:
Potree is a WebGL based viewer for large point clouds. The project evolved as a Web based viewer from the Scanopy desktop point cloud renderer by TU Wien, Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms. It will continue to be free and open source with a FreeBSD license to enable anyone to view, analyze and publicly share their large datasets. Visit http://potree.org for more information.
Rapidlasso receives “Green Asia Award” at ACRS 2015
PRESS RELEASE (for immediate release) November 16, 2015 rapidlasso GmbH, Gilching, Germany
At the Asian Conference on Remote Sensing 2015 (ACRS 2015) held in Manila, rapidlasso GmbH was honored with the “Green Asia Award” by the Chinese Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (CSPRS). This award is given to a paper that directs Asia towards a greener future using remote sensing technology. This year’s award commends rapidlasso GmbH on advancing the area of LiDAR processing through their PulseWaves effort. PulseWaves is a vendor-neutral full waveform LiDAR data exchange format and API that simplifies access to full waveform data and allows researchers to focus on algorithms and share results. In the future this technology may prove valuable to improve biomass estimates for carbon credit programs such as the TREEMAPS project of WWF.
Prof. Kohei Cho and Prof. Peter T. Y. Shih present the Green Asia Award
The society communicated to Dr. Martin Isenburg, CEO of rapidlasso GmbH, that this award was also meant to honor his many years of teaching and capacity building across the Asian region. Since the beginning of 2013 rapidlasso GmbH has conducted well over 50 seminars, training events, and hands-on workshops at universities, research institutes, and government agencies in Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines. The on-going LiDAR teaching efforts of rapidlasso GmbH in Asia and elsewhere can be followed via their event page.
Green Asia Award given to the CEO of rapidlasso GmbH
The award certificate that was presented to Dr. Martin Isenburg by Prof Kohei Cho and Prof Peter Shih during the closing ceremony of ACRS 2015 came with a cash reward of USD 300. The award money was donated to the ISPRS summer school that followed the ACRS conference to top off the pre-existing “green sponsorship” by rapidlasso GmbH that was already supporting a “green catering” of summer school lunches and dinners to avoid single-use cups, plastic cutlery and styrofoam containers. The additional award money was used for hosting the main summer school dinner at a sustainable family-run restaurant serving “happy chickens” and “happy pigs” raised organically on a local farm.
Award Ceremony held during Closing of ACRS 2015
About rapidlasso GmbH:
Technology powerhouse rapidlasso GmbH specializes in efficient LiDAR processing tools that are widely known for their high productivity. They combine robust algorithms with efficient I/O and clever memory management to achieve high throughput for data sets containing billions of points. The company’s flagship product – the LAStools software suite – has deep market penetration and is heavily used in industry, government agencies, research labs, and educational institutions. Visit http://rapidlasso.com for more information.
Potree puts Big and Beautiful LiDAR in Your Browser
PRESS RELEASE (for immediate release) September 14, 2015 rapidlasso GmbH, Gilching, Germany
Just in time for INTERGEO 2015, the Potree software was released in its latest 1.3 version. Potree is a WebGL based point cloud viewer for very large datasets. The Potree software allows to publish large LiDAR point clouds on the Web such that anyone can explore the data with nothing more but a modern browser. The interactive 3D viewer not only visualizes the LiDAR in many useful and intuitive ways but also comes with tools to perform various measurements. As its only Gold Sponsor, rapidlasso GmbH is the main supporter of this powerful open source package by Markus Schütz.
17.7 billion points from San Simeon, CA courtesy of Open Topography
The long-term sponsorship of rapidlasso GmbH has directly supported a number of useful features such as the integration of our award-winning LASzip compressor using the pure javascript version contributed by Hobu Inc, optimization for massive airborne LiDAR data, profile selection, tools for distance and area measurements, options to color by classification, return type, and point source ID, and a clipping tool. The particular features sponsored in the most recent 1.3 release of Potree are the incredible Eye Dome Lighting (EDL) and faster data conversion for large data sets. A number of interesting showcases (including the CA13 example shown here) are available on the Potree page.
In the near future the Potree software will be distributed together with the LAStools package to offer a one-click solution for generating Webportals that host and distribute large LiDAR data sets and offer interactive online visualization and exploration. Potree is open source software that is free for anyone to acquire and to deploy. Please remember that using open source software is not the same as supporting open source software. Given the positive experience that rapidlasso GmbH has had with Potree we can only encourage other geospatial companies to support with time or money those open source projects that help your business.
About rapidlasso GmbH:
Technology powerhouse rapidlasso GmbH specializes in efficient LiDAR processing tools that are widely known for their high productivity. They combine robust algorithms with efficient I/O and clever memory management to achieve high throughput for data sets containing billions of points. The company’s flagship product – the LAStools software suite – has deep market penetration and is heavily used in industry, government agencies, research labs, and educational institutions. Visit http://rapidlasso.com for more information.
About Potree:
Potree is a WebGL based viewer for large point clouds. The project evolved as a Web based viewer from the Scanopy desktop point cloud renderer by TU Wien, Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms. It will continue to be free and open source with a FreeBSD license to enable anyone to view, analyze and publicly share their large datasets. Visit http://potree.org for more information.
RIEGL Becomes LASzip Sponsor for LAS 1.4 Extension
PRESS RELEASE (for immediate release) August 31, 2015 rapidlasso GmbH, Gilching, Germany
We are happy to announce that RIEGL Laser Measurement Systems, Austria has become a sponsor of the award-winning LASzip compressor. Their contribution at the Silver level will kick-off the actual development phase of the “native LAS 1.4 extension” that had been discussed with the LiDAR community over the past two years. This “native extension” for LAS 1.4 complements the existing “compatibility mode” for LAS 1.4 that was supported by Gold sponsor NOAA and Bronze sponsors Quantum Spatial and Trimble Geospatial. The original sponsor who initiated and financed the open sourcing of the LASzip compressor was USACE – the US Army Corps of Engineers (see http://laszip.org).
The existing “LAS 1.4 compatibility mode” in LASzip was created to provide immediate support for compressing the new LAS 1.4 point types by rewriting them as old point types and storing their new information as “Extra Bytes”. As an added side-benefit this has allowed legacy software without LAS 1.4 support to readily read these newer LAS files as most of the important fields of the new point types 6 to 10 can be mapped to fields of the older point types 1, 3, or 5.
In contrast, the new “native LAS 1.4 extension” of LASzip that is now sponsored in part by RIEGL will utilize the “natural break” in the format due to the new point types of LAS 1.4 to introduce entirely new features such as “selective decompression”, “rewritable classifications and flags”, “integrated spatial indexing”, … and other functionality that has been brain-stormed with the community since rapidlasso GmbH had issued the open “call for input” on native LASzip compression for LAS 1.4 in January 2014. We invite you to follow the progress or contribute to the development via the discussions in the “LAS room“.
About rapidlasso GmbH:
Technology powerhouse rapidlasso GmbH specializes in efficient LiDAR processing tools that are widely known for their high productivity. They combine robust algorithms with efficient I/O and clever memory management to achieve high throughput for data sets containing billions of points. The company’s flagship product – the LAStools software suite – has deep market penetration and is heavily used in industry, government agencies, research labs, and educational institutions. Visit http://rapidlasso.com for more information.
About RIEGL:
Austrian based RIEGL Laser Measurement Systems is a performance leader in research, development and production of terrestrial, industrial, mobile, bathymetric, airborne and UAS-based laser scanning systems. RIEGL’s innovative hard- and software provides powerful solutions for nearly all imaginable fields of application. Worldwide sales, training, support and services are delivered from RIEGL‘s Austrian headquarters and its offices in Vienna, Salzburg, and Styria, main offices in the USA, Japan, and in China, and by a worldwide network of representatives covering Europe, North and South America, Asia, Australia and Africa. Visit http://riegl.com for more information.
LAStools Toolbox now also for ERDAS IMAGINE 2015
PRESS RELEASE (for immediate release) August 17, 2015 rapidlasso GmbH, Gilching, Germany
The August release of LAStools from rapidlasso GmbH now also contains a toolbox for the latest 15.1 version of ERDAS IMAGINE® 2015 from Hexagon Geospatial. The two companies had announced their cooperation earlier this year after releasing the first version of a LiDAR processing toolbox based on LAStools for the 2014 version of ERDAS IMAGINE. For the new 2015 version of the toolbox the installation procedure has been significanlty simplified so that users of ERDAS IMAGINE can – just moments after downloading LAStools – utilize 19 of the most popular LiDAR processing modules from rapidlasso GmbH either via the icons of a new toolbar or as operators within the IMAGINE Spatial Modeler framework.
The toolboxes for the 2014 and the 2015 version of ERDAS IMAGINE are both distributed with the latest LAStools release. They instantly augment the existing image analysis tools of ERDAS IMAGINE with the widely-popular point processing capabilities of LAStools. The new tools empower users to validate, quality-check, clean, classify, thin, raster, contour, and compress LiDAR pointclouds in LAS or LAZ formats as well as directly consume and further analyze the resulting raster or vector products with the rich functionality of ERDAS IMAGINE.
The icons of those LAStools available in the new IMAGINE 2015 toolbox for LiDAR Processing
About rapidlasso GmbH:
Technology powerhouse rapidlasso GmbH specializes in efficient LiDAR processing tools that are widely known for their high productivity. They combine robust algorithms with efficient I/O and clever memory management to achieve high throughput for data sets containing billions of points. The company’s flagship product – the LAStools software suite – has deep market penetration and is heavily used in industry, government agencies, research labs, and educational institutions. Visit http://rapidlasso.com for more information.
About Hexagon Geospatial:
Hexagon Geospatial helps you make sense of the dynamically changing world. Hexagon Geospatial provides the software products and platforms to a large variety of customers through direct sales, channel partners and other Hexagon businesses. For more information, visit http://hexagongeospatial.com.
Hexagon Geospatial is part of Hexagon, a leading global provider of information technologies that drive quality and productivity improvements across geospatial and industrial enterprise applications. Hexagon’s solutions integrate sensors, software, domain knowledge and customer workflows into intelligent information ecosystems that deliver actionable information, automate business processes and improve productivity. They are used in a broad range of vital industries. Hexagon (Nasdaq Stockholm: HEXA B) has more than 15,000 employees in 46 countries and net sales of approximately 3.1bn USD. Learn more at http://hexagon.com.
© 2015 Hexagon AB and/or its subsidiaries and affiliates. All rights reserved. Hexagon and the Hexagon logo are registered trademarks of Hexagon AB or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks or servicemarks used herein are property of their respective owners. Hexagon Geospatial believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. Such information is subject to change without notice.
rapidlasso GmbH 