Point Cloud Data Management

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Assign projection

Assigns a Coordinate Reference System to a point cloud layer, if it is missing or wrong. A new layer is created.

pdalreproject

Parameters

Label Name Type Description

Input layer INPUT [point cloud] Input point cloud layer to assign a CRS to

Desired CRS CRS [crs] The CRS to apply to the layer

Output layer

OUTPUT

[point cloud]

Default: [Save to temporary file]

Specify the point cloud file to use as output. One of:

Outputs

Label	Name	Type	Description
Converted	`OUTPUT`	[point cloud]	Output point cloud layer with a new CRS. Currently supported formats are `.LAS`, `.LAZ`, `.COPC.LAZ` and `.VPC`.

Python code

Algorithm ID: pdal:assignprojection

Build virtual point cloud (VPC)

Creates a virtual point cloud (VPC) <virtual_point_cloud> from input point cloud data.

If you leave the optional parameters unchecked, the VPC file will be built very quickly as the algorithm will only read metadata of input files. With any of the optional parameters set, the algorithm will read all points which can take some time.

Generating Virtual Point Cloud with overview from a set of point cloud tiles

pdalmerge

Parameters

Label	Name	Type	Description
Input layers	`LAYERS`	[point cloud] [list]	Input point cloud layers to combine inside a virtual point cloud layer
Calculate boundary polygon	`BOUNDARY`	[boolean] Default: False	Set to True to show the exact boundaries of data (rather than just rectangular extent)
Calculate statistics	`STATISTICS`	[boolean] Default: False	Set to True to understand ranges of values of the various attributes
Build overview point cloud	`OVERVIEW`	[boolean] Default: False	Generates a single “thinned” point cloud of all the input data (using only every 1000th point from original data). The overview point cloud will be created next to the VPC file -for example, for `mydata.vpc`, the overview point cloud would be named `mydata-overview.copc.laz`.
Virtual point cloud	`OUTPUT`	[point cloud] Default: `[Save to temporary file]`	Specify the point cloud file to build the data into. One of:

Outputs

Label	Name	Type	Description
Virtual point cloud	`OUTPUT`	[raster]	Output point cloud layer combining all the input data, as a virtual file.

Python code

Algorithm ID: pdal:virtualpointcloud

Clip

Clips a point cloud layer by a polygon layer so that the resulting point cloud contains only points within the polygons.

Clipping an input point cloud layer with a polygon coverage

Parameters

Basic parameters

Label Name Type Description

Input layer INPUT [point cloud] Input point cloud layer to clip

Clipping polygons OVERLAY [vector: polygon] Polygon vector layer to use as coverage for clipping the points

Clipped

OUTPUT

[point cloud]

Default: [Save to temporary file]

Specify the point cloud file to export the clipped points to. One of:

Advanced parameters

Label Name Type Description

Filter expression

Optional

FILTER_EXPRESSION

[expression]

A PDAL expression <pdal_expressions> for selecting a subset of features in the point cloud data

Cropping extent

Optional

FILTER_EXTENT

[extent]

A map extent for selecting a subset of features in the point cloud data

Outputs

Label	Name	Type	Description
Clipped	`OUTPUT`	[raster]	Output point cloud whose features are the points within the coverage polygon layer.

Python code

Algorithm ID: pdal:clip

Create COPC

Creates the index for all the input point cloud files in a batch mode.

Parameters

Label Name Type Description

Input layers LAYERS [point cloud] [list] Input point cloud layers to create an index for

Output directory

Optional

OUTPUT

[folder]

Default: [Skip output]

Specify the folder to create the new files in. One of:

Outputs

Label	Name	Type	Description
Output directory	`OUTPUT`	[folder]	Output folder containing point cloud layers with accompanying COPC index files.

Python code

Algorithm ID: pdal:createcopc

Information

Outputs basic metadata from an input point cloud file.

Example of output information:

LAS           1.4
point format  6
count         56736130
scale         0.001 0.001 0.001
offset        431749.999 5440919.999 968.898
extent        431250 5440420 424.266
              432249.999 5441419.999 1513.531
crs           ETRS89 / UTM zone 34N (N-E) (EPSG:3046)  (vertical CRS missing!)
units         horizontal=metre  vertical=unknown

Attributes:
- X floating 8
- Y floating 8
- Z floating 8
- Intensity unsigned 2
- ReturnNumber unsigned 1
- NumberOfReturns unsigned 1
- ScanDirectionFlag unsigned 1
- EdgeOfFlightLine unsigned 1
- Classification unsigned 1
- ScanAngleRank floating 4
- UserData unsigned 1
- PointSourceId unsigned 2
- GpsTime floating 8
- ScanChannel unsigned 1
- ClassFlags unsigned 1

Parameters

Label Name Type Description

Input layer INPUT [point cloud] Input point cloud layer to extract metadata information from

Layer information

OUTPUT

[file]

Default: [Save to temporary file]

Specify the file to store the metadata information. One of:

Outputs

Label	Name	Type	Description
Layer information	`OUTPUT`	[vector]	`HTML` file to store the metadata information.

Python code

Algorithm ID: pdal:info

Merge

Merges multiple point cloud files into a single one.

pdalvirtualpointcloud

Parameters

Basic parameters

Label Name Type Description

Input layers LAYERS [point cloud] [list] Input point cloud layers to merge into a single one

Merged

OUTPUT

[point cloud]

Default: [Save to temporary file]

Specify the output point cloud merging input files. One of:

Advanced parameters

Label Name Type Description

Filter expression

Optional

FILTER_EXPRESSION

[expression]

A PDAL expression <pdal_expressions> for selecting a subset of features in the point cloud data

Cropping extent

Optional

FILTER_EXTENT

[extent]

A map extent for selecting a subset of features in the point cloud data

Outputs

Label	Name	Type	Description
Merged	`OUTPUT`	[point cloud]	Output point cloud layer merging all the input files.

Python code

Algorithm ID: pdal:merge

Reproject

Reprojects a point cloud to a different Coordinate Reference System (CRS).

pdalassignprojection

Parameters

Label Name Type Description

Input layer INPUT [point cloud] Input point cloud layer to reproject to a different CRS

Target CRS CRS [crs] The CRS to apply to the layer

Reprojected

OUTPUT

[point cloud]

Default: [Save to temporary file]

Specify the reprojected point cloud file. One of:

Advanced parameters

Label Name Type Description

Coordinate operation

Optional

OPERATION

[datum]

The datum transformation <datum_transformation> to use to reproject the data between the origin and target systems.

Outputs

Label	Name	Type	Description
REPROJECTED	`OUTPUT`	[point cloud]	Output point cloud layer in the target CRS.

Python code

Algorithm ID: pdal:reproject

Thin (by sampling radius)

Creates a thinned version of the point cloud by performing sampling by distance point (reduces the number of points within a certain radius).

html

Thining point cloud (by sampling radius)

pdalthinbydecimate

Parameters

Basic parameters

Label Name Type Description

Input layer INPUT [point cloud] Input point cloud layer to create a thinned version from

Sampling radius (in map units)

SAMPLING_RADIUS

[number]

Default: 1.0

Distance within which points are sampled to a unique point

Thinned (by radius)

OUTPUT

[point cloud]

Default: [Save to temporary file]

Specify the output point cloud with reduced points. One of:

Advanced parameters

Label Name Type Description

Filter expression

Optional

FILTER_EXPRESSION

[expression]

A PDAL expression <pdal_expressions> for selecting a subset of features in the point cloud data

Cropping extent

Optional

FILTER_EXTENT

[extent]

A map extent for selecting a subset of features in the point cloud data

Outputs

Label	Name	Type	Description
Thinned (by radius)	`OUTPUT`	[point cloud]	Output point cloud layer with reduced points.

Python code

Algorithm ID: pdal:thinbyradius

Thin (by skipping points)

Creates a thinned version of the point cloud by keeping only every N-th point (reduces the number of points by skipping nearby points).

pdalthinbyradius

Parameters

Basic parameters

Label Name Type Description

Input layer INPUT [point cloud] Input point cloud layer to create a thinned version from

Number of points to skip

POINTS_NUMBER

[number]

Default: 1

Keep only every N-th point in the input layer

Thinned (by decimation)

OUTPUT

[point cloud]

Default: [Save to temporary file]

Specify the output point cloud with reduced points. One of:

Advanced parameters

Label Name Type Description

Filter expression

Optional

FILTER_EXPRESSION

[expression]

A PDAL expression <pdal_expressions> for selecting a subset of features in the point cloud data

Cropping extent

Optional

FILTER_EXTENT

[extent]

A map extent for selecting a subset of features in the point cloud data

Outputs

Label	Name	Type	Description
Thinned (by decimation)	`OUTPUT`	[point cloud]	Output point cloud layer with reduced points.

Python code

Algorithm ID: pdal:thinbydecimate

Tile

Creates tiles from input point cloud files, recommended for best performance (in display or analysis) with such datasets in QGIS.

pdalvirtualpointcloud, pdalcreatecopc

Parameters

Basic parameters

Label Name Type Description

Input layers LAYERS [point cloud] [list] Input point cloud layers to create tiles from

Tile length

LENGTH

[number]

Default: 1000.0

Size of the edge of each generated tile

Output directory

OUTPUT

[folder]

Default: [Save to temporary folder]

Specify the folder to store the generated tiles. One of:

Advanced parameters

Label Name Type Description

Assign CRS

Optional

CRS

[crs]

The CRS to apply to the layer

Outputs

Label	Name	Type	Description
Output directory	`OUTPUT`	[folder]	Output folder containing the tiles generated from input files.

Python code

Algorithm ID: pdal:tile

Files

pointclouddatamanagement.rst

Latest commit

History

pointclouddatamanagement.rst

File metadata and controls

Point Cloud Data Management

Assign projection

Parameters

Outputs

Python code

Build virtual point cloud (VPC)

Parameters

Outputs

Python code

Clip

Parameters

Basic parameters

Advanced parameters

Outputs

Python code

Create COPC

Parameters

Outputs

Python code

Information

Parameters

Outputs

Python code

Merge

Parameters

Basic parameters

Advanced parameters

Outputs

Python code

Reproject

Parameters

Advanced parameters

Outputs

Python code

Thin (by sampling radius)

Parameters

Basic parameters

Advanced parameters

Outputs

Python code

Thin (by skipping points)

Parameters

Basic parameters

Advanced parameters

Outputs

Python code

Tile

Parameters

Basic parameters

Advanced parameters

Outputs

Python code