arknoll / laspy

Laspy is a pythonic interface for reading/modifying/creating .LAS LIDAR files matching specification 1.0-1.4.

Laspy

Laspy is a python library for reading, modifying and creating LAS LiDAR files.

Laspy is compatible with Python 3.6+.

Examples

Directly read and write las

import laspy

las = laspy.read('filename.las')
las.points = las.points[las.classification == 2]
las.write('ground.laz')

Open data to inspect header (opening only reads the header and vlrs)

import laspy

with laspy.open('filename.las') as f:
    print(f"Point format:       {f.header.point_format}")
    print(f"Number of points:   {f.header.point_count}")
    print(f"Number of vlrs:     {len(f.header.vlrs)}")

Use the 'chunked' reading & writing features

import laspy

with laspy.open('big.laz') as input_las:
    with laspy.open('ground.laz', mode="w", header=input_las.header) as ground_las:
        for points in input_las.chunk_iterator(2_000_000):
            ground_las.write_points(points[points.classification == 2])

Appending points to existing file

import laspy

with laspy.open('big.laz') as input_las:
    with laspy.open('ground.laz', mode="a") as ground_las:
        for points in input_las.chunk_iterator(2_000_000):
            ground_las.append_points(points[points.classification == 2])

API Documentation and tutorials are available at ReadTheDocs.

Installation

Laspy can be installed either with pip:

pip install laspy # without LAZ support
# Or
pip install laspy[laszip] # with LAZ support via LASzip
# Or
pip install laspy[lazrs] # with LAZ support via lazrs

Changelog

Version 2.0.1

• Fix .min .max methods of array views
• Ship the tests as part of the source distribution (But they won't be installed with pip install)

Version 2.0.0

• Overhaul of the internals by essentially incorporating pylas into laspy, while the API to retrieve and set dimensions stayed the same, other parts changed and will require adaptation.
• Better LAZ support
  • Added support for writing LAZ
  • Changed decompression mechanism by using either laszip python bindings (and not laszip-cli) or lazrs
• Added ability to read and write LAS/LAS in stream / chunked mode.
• Changed laspy to support the reading and writing of LAS/LAZ data from and to file-objects and bytes
• Dropped support for python2.7, python3.6+ is supported.

Version 1.7.0

• Fixed bug in point record format 5, 9 and 10 #105
• Return explicit msg if laszip executable was not found #110
• Supprt numpy 1.17 #122

Version 1.6.0

• Bug fix #92
• Test creation of all valid custom dimension data types
• Modify handling of extra bytes to be char data instead of numeric byte data

Version 1.5.1

• Bug fixes #67, #75, b02b40900b5
• Allow usage of laszip-cli when working with LAZ files #77

Version 1.5.0

• Improved memory handling in base.FileManager #48
• Introduced r- file mode, that only reads the header of as LAS file #48
• LAS v. 1.4 bug fixes #55
• Python 3 support #62