Today LizardTech has added the capability to compress LiDAR data with a new utility that offers a minimum of 4:1 lossless compression. This capability meets a growing demand to make LiDAR data more accessible and portable. The need for a LiDAR compressor was the #1 request that the company has been receiving over the past few years, and it took some time to tackle the “completely random” nature of LiDAR point data that is stored in either ASCII or LAS format.
The huge file sizes of LiDAR data has typically forced organizations that order the data to only receive data derivatives such as DEMs, rather than take delivery of the raw data that can reach into the high gigabytes in file size. Due to the random nature of the point cloud, it took a significant engineering effort to arrive at compression, requiring entirely new approaches that the company is in the process of patenting.
The new tool is a rather simple workflow that provides the user with a small viewer window and the ability to control the level of compression between lossless and lossy options. The “virtually lossy” compression ratio approaches 10:1 before there’s visible degredation of the point cloud data.
The tool is available today with a free trial or purchase at http://www.lizardtech.com/products/lidar/
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In case all the LIDAR data that you want to compress happens to be in LAS format, then you can consider laszip.exe that is part of the LAStools package (http:://www.cs.unc.edu/~isenburg/lastools) as a cost free alternative that also delivers much better compression rates.
The free LASzip (http://laszip.org) compressor is now in version 2.0.2 allowing random access decompression which is a major improvement over version 1.0. It already has native support in FME 2012, TopoDOT, LAStools, and more vendors will be adding it in their next releases.
The largest collection of LAZ content is provided by the DNR Minnesota. You will soon find LIDAR for the entire state online as compressed LAS. Here the growing list of counties that are already completed:
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/dodge/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/douglas/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/faribault/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/fillmore/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/freeborn/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/houston/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/jackson/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/lesueur/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/martin/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/mower/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/murray/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/nobles/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/olmsted/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/pine/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/pope/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/rice/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/rock/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/steele/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/wabasha/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/waseca/laz/
- ftp://lidar.dnr.state.mn.us/data/raw/county/winona/laz/