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

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, DEM, 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 polygon file defining the processing extent. [required]           │
│ *  TARGET-WKT --target-wkt                  Path to the WKT file defining the target coordinate reference system (CRS).   │
│                                             [required]                                                                    │
│ *  OUTPUT-PREFIX --output-prefix            prefix with directory name and filename prefix for the project (e.g.,         │
│                                             CO_ALS_proc/CO_3DEP_ALS) [required]                                           │
│    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.                           │
│    PROCESS-SPECIFIC-3DEP-SURVEY             If specified, only process the given 3DEP survey. This should be a string     │
│      --process-specific-3dep-survey         that matches the survey name in the 3DEP metadata                             │
│    PROCESS-ALL-INTERSECTING-SURVEYS         If true, process all intersecting surveys. If false, only process the first   │
│      --process-all-intersecting-surveys     LiDAR survey that intersects the extent defined in the GeoJSON file.          │
│      --no-process-all-intersecting-surveys  [default: False]                                                              │
│    CLEANUP --cleanup --no-cleanup           If true, remove the intermediate tif files for the output tiles [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