lidar_tools

Tools to process airborne and satellite LiDAR point clouds

Warning! This package is under active development and may change rapidly!

Datasets Supported

• 3DEP AWS Public Dataset
• Locally available, classified LiDAR point clouds in las/laz format

Quickstart

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 --frozen

Example workflow

Run 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

CLI Commands:

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 --help

Usage: 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 vector dataset containing a polygon defining the      │
│                                             processing extent. [required]                                     │
│ *  OUTPUT-PREFIX --output-prefix            Path for output files, containing directory path and filename     │
│                                             prefix (e.g., /tmp/CO_3DEP_ALS). [required]                       │
│    TARGET-WKT --target-wkt                  Path to a text file containing WKT2 definition for the output     │
│                                             coordinate reference system (CRS). If unspecified, a local UTM    │
│                                             CRS will be used.                                                 │
│    LOCAL-UTM --local-utm --no-local-utm     If true, automatically compute the local UTM zone from the extent │
│                                             polygon for final output products. If false, use the CRS defined  │
│                                             in the target_wkt file. [default: False]                          │
│    SOURCE-WKT --source-wkt                  Path to a text file containing WKT2 definition for the coordinate │
│                                             reference system (CRS) of the input point cloud. If unspecified,  │
│                                             the CRS defined in the source point cloud metadata will be used.  │
│    LOCAL-LAZ-DIR --local-laz-dir            Path to directory containing source laz point cloud files. If not │
│                                             specified, the program 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             Only process the specified 3DEP project name. This should be a    │
│      --process-specific-3dep-survey         string that matches the workunit name in the 3DEP metadata.       │
│    PROCESS-ALL-INTERSECTING-SURVEYS         If true, process all available 3DEP EPT point clouds which        │
│      --process-all-intersecting-surveys     intersect with the input polygon. If false, and                   │
│      --no-process-all-intersecting-surveys  process_specific_3dep_survey is not specified, first 3DEP project │
│                                             encountered will be processed. [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]                                                   │
╰───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Development

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