An Implementation of the Asprs Las Standard

The laser scanning technology has become de-facto as a successful measuring mean in numerous applications of remote sensing and mapping. A development of hardware has been followed by a development of a new data file format standard know as the American society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Lidar Exchange Format (LAS). This data format standard has been designed in order to make the exchange of lidar data, (pre-/post-) processing, analysis, and storing less time consuming and more convenient. There are three versions of the ASPRS LAS standard: 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 (draft). A number of the manufacturers of hardware and software, laser scanning service providers and end users have already accepted a concept of ASPRS LAS as an industry standard. However, a less experienced end user might be confused by the different definitions of the term LAS that appear in literature and are used by various software vendors. The following main LAS definitions in remote sensing and geomatics exist: Land Analysis System by USGS, Log ASCII Standard by the Canadian Well Logging Society, LAS image format by ER Mapper, and ASPRS LAS by the ASPRS Lidar Committee. This paper explains the different common meanings of those terms. Several popular software products used for lidar data processing are also reviewed and the terminology associated with the file format defined. At this time there is no common tool available for converting from one ASPRS LAS format to another, and this can be a challenge when working with multiple formats. Only in one study case a version number of ASPRS LAS was clearly identified in the Import/Export tool. This paper also provides a comparison feature matrix of the different versions of ASPRS LAS.