New Tools and Features in the LiDAR Module

New in v20

• New tool for creating a 3D model surface from selected LiDAR points
• Support for spatially thinning Lidar point clouds
• New tool for gridding LiDAR Data by Classification
• New option to create higher quality orthoimage during the Pixels to Points process by creating the image from the 3D mesh rather than the point cloud
• New option to extract buildings from LiDAR as 3D models rather than 3D vector areas

New in v19.1

• New function in the Pixels-to-Points™ tool for creating a 3D mesh (3D model) with photo textures in OBJ or GMP format
• New option to import Ground Control Points from a file or a loaded point layer in the Pixels-to-Points tool
• New option when exporting a point cloud to GMP to export to sort the data by the 2D position. This improves the processing speed when reimported

New in v19

• New Pixels-to-Points™ tool for creating 3D point clouds from collections of overlapping images with position information, such as those from a drone
• Support for gridding the RGB(I) color values in LiDAR point clouds to create an orthoimage layer
• Support for reading and writing LAZ (LasZip) files with the LAS 1.4 fields, such as 255 classifications and NIR color bands
• New option when loading LiDAR point clouds to automatically spatially sort poorly organized points for faster display and analysis
• Improved automatic classification of ground returns from LiDAR data sets. A new option for 'Maximum Building Width' was added to allow more control in urban areas
• Improved automatic noise point LiDAR classification
• Improved display of building outlines with side walls extracted from LiDAR

New in v18.2

• New ability to apply 3D breaklines and flatten 3D areas when gridding LiDAR data using a Bin Grid method - this allows for the creation of Hydro-flattened terrain surfaces from LiDAR and other point clouds
• Saved workspaces now include shared LiDAR draw mode setting if LiDAR data is loaded and the LiDAR module active
• New LIDAR_COMPARE script command for performing LiDAR to control point compare and adjust in a script
• New LiDAR draw modes for coloring by the withheld, overlap, and model key point flags
• New ability to filter LiDAR points (either selected or when performing operations like gridding) by the withheld, overlap, and key point status flags
• New option in LiDAR import dialog to control whether or not withheld points are marked as deleted

New in v18.1

• New LiDAR QC tool for comparing point cloud elevations with known elevations at control points and for adjusting the point cloud elevations to match
• New option to visualize and filter LiDAR point clouds by density
• New tool for adding colors to a point cloud from a gridded layer (eg, NDVI, land cover)
• New feature to display statistics about selected Lidar points in the Digitizer Tool under the right-click Analysis menu

New in v18

• "Infinite View" point cloud visualization in the 3D View allowing the display of an entire LiDAR dataset
• Dynamic 3D rendering that updates the detail level as the map is zoomed and panned
• New option to automatically group all areas that from an automatically extracted building roof area with the associated floor and side-wall areas
• Improved 3D selection tool and editing of LiDAR points in the 3D View
• A dozen new 3D point styles to choose from for 3D point rendering

New in LiDAR Module v17.2

• Significantly reduced memory requirements and increased draw speeds for Lidar point clouds loaded from text-based formats (i.e. .ply, .xyzi, etc.) as well as MrSID Lidar formats
• New option to reset existing noise points to unclassified prior to performing an automatic Lidar noise classification
• Sped up LiDAR gridding, classification, and extraction operations, particularly in low-memory situations in the 32-bit version

New in LiDAR Module v17.1

• New Custom Feature Extraction Tool including ability to manually select a series of points as part of a custom area or line feature for extracting it to a custom geometry. Feature vertices are placed while cycling through the profile views resulting in precise 3D line or area features such as road edge and curb lines, powerlines, and buildings
• New Toolbar button for quickly and easily assigning the Ground classification to selected points
• Added support for editing which classification groups a Lidar class belongs to

New in LiDAR Module v17

• Added support for automatically classifying power lines and above-ground utility cables
• Expanded feature extraction to include the creation of line features representing power lines
• Added option to detect and reclassify or delete noise points
• Dramatically sped up nearly all Lidar operations, including load and display. In some cases operations will be 10 times faster or even more
• Updated the filter dialog for Lidar to allow filtering by intensity, height-above-ground, NDVI and NDWI (when available), and return type in addition to the filter settings that were already there
• Improved the speed of calculation and display of filled gaps when doing a binned grid of Lidar points

New in LiDAR Module v16.2

• Added support for Lidar with NIR (near infrared) sensor data. The new functionality makes use of 4-band RGB+NIR LAS files
• Added support for NIR (near-infrared) data for Lidar point clouds. This includes new draw modes for CIR (color infrared), NDVI, and NDWI display, export to new LAS files with the NIR channel included, improved automatic classification of high vegetation/buildings using NDVI/NDWI, and gridding the calculated NDVI and NDWI values for the NIR-enabled Lidar

New in LiDAR Module v16.1

• Numerous improvements to LiDAR Module analysis features such as automated building and vegetation classification, feature extraction, and building height calculations for more streamlined processing and improved output
• New support for the ZFS (Zoller+Frohlich) LiDAR format

New in LiDAR Module v16.0

• The ability to automatically classify building and trees
• Feature extraction to render building and trees
• Filter LiDAR points by class, elevation, color, scan-angle and source-ID when exporting, gridding, and selecting from point clouds
• Dramatically improved automatic classification of ground points
• Improved classification to filter out likely buildings and trees and added parameters controls to the ground classify dialog
• Faster automatic classification of ground points for machines with multiple cores
• Perform automatic classification on just selected points to speed up processing
• Support for filtering LiDAR LAS/LAZ when exporting, filter by elevation range, color, allowed classes, angle range, and/or within a list of point source IDs
• Support for filtering LiDAR point clouds when gridding, filter by elevation range, color, allowed classes, angle range, and/or within a list of point source IDs
• Support for gridding LiDAR intensity or height above ground values rather than elevation
• Enhanced option to filter the selected LiDAR points with the Digitizer Tool as well as an added option to filter the selection by classification, point source ID, and scan angle range
• Support for coloring LiDAR point clouds by the difference in return values
• Added right-click option for the Line of Sight Function in the Path Profile Tool to set the corridor width
• New scripting commands for automatically classifying building and high vegetation using the LIDAR_CLASSIFY script command

New in LiDAR Module v15.2

• Support for transforming (shift/rotate/scale) of LiDAR point clouds
• New LIDAR_CLASSIFY script command for classifying ground points in a script
• Keep the original file offset/scale or specify a new one when exporting to LiDAR LAS/LAZ files
• Crop to a selected area when specifying the bounds to import from a LiDAR point cloud
• Export point clouds to Esri File Geodatabases (GDB) as normal 3D point features

New in LiDAR Module v15.1

• Added additional selection option on path profile dialog with LiDAR points shown to select by drawing a polygon.
• Added support for loading Leica PTS point cloud files.
• Added option when batch converting to LiDAR LAS/LAZ files to apply color from loaded imagery.

New in LiDAR Module v15

• Introduction of the New LiDAR module with advanced LiDAR analysis functionality. The licensing is handled under a new Help menu option for working with module and feature extension licenses. Visit our purchasing page for more info.