Read and Write 'las' and 'laz' Binary File Formats Used for Remote Sensing Data

Read and write 'las' and 'laz' binary file formats. The LAS file format is a public file format for the interchange of 3-dimensional point cloud data between data users. The LAS specifications are approved by the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing < https://community.asprs.org/leadership-restricted/leadership-content/public-documents/standards>. The LAZ file format is an open and lossless compression scheme for binary LAS format versions 1.0 to 1.4 < https://laszip.org/>.

R package to read and write .las and .laz binary files used to store LiDAR data.

This package is used by the lidR package and is not intended to be used by regular users. Everything you need is in the lidR package with a high-level front end. Only package developers who would like to build something new from a low-level API might be interested in rlas.

rlas relies on a modified version of LASlib and LASzip that were modified to be compatible with R. The library can therefore be compiled into R without any complaints from R CMD check. It enables R users to read and write binary files commonly used to store LiDAR data. LAS/LAZ version 1.0 to 1.4 are supported.

library(rlas)
lasdata   <- read.las("<myfile.las>")
lasheader <- read.lasheader("<myfile.las>")

Copyright Information

rlas contains code written by both Jean-Romain Roussel and Martin Isenburg. The latter is included for technical reasons. Details below.

• For LASlib and LASzip:
  • (c) 2007-2021 martin.isenburg@rapidlasso.com - http://rapidlasso.com
  • Provided under LGPL license and modified to be R-compliant by Jean-Romain Roussel.
• For rlas code enabling Martin Isenburg's code to be wrapped into R:
  • (c) 2016-2021 Jean-Romain Roussel
  • Provided under GPL-3 license.