Conference Paper
Abstract:
[this will be a status report on the development and success of LASzip as a de-facto standard and an update report on the LiDAR format war emerging with ESRI]
In this I will talk about the success story of the open source LiDAR compressor LASzip (*.laz) that has become the de-facto industry standard for lossless compression of LAS files achieving ratios between 1:5 and 1:13 highlighting some harmonious anekdotes along the way.
But then comes 2014. Instead of embracing or bettering the existing technology a big GIS corporation recently decided to blaze their own path (head first into a brick wall) by developping the so called "LAZ clone" with near identical performance and features. We are currently in talks to hopefully avoid a stupid "format war".
I will end with a report on the latest from the frontlines and (maybe) with a battle strategy and a call to arms.
Presenter Biography:
Dr. Isenburg received his PhD in 2004 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA in Computer Science. Currently, he is an independent scientist, lecturer, and research consultant. Dr. Isenburg has created a popular suite of LiDAR processing software modules called LAStools that is the flagship product of rapidlasso GmbH, the company he founded in 2012. The LAStools software suite is heavily used in industry, government agencies, research labs, and educational institutions. See http://rapidlasso.com for more information.