Monday, July 25, 2016

Assign a coordinate reference system to a LiDAR las file using PDAL

Some of the LiDAR las files I receive do not contain embedded coordinate reference system (CRS) tags. It would be nice to be able to set a CRS tag to the las file so that I don't have to choose a coordinate reference system everytime I load the file; and I found the Point Data Abstraction Library (PDAL) to have the tools to do exactly that.

To use PDAL to assign a CRS to a las file, do the following:

  1. Open up a Command prompt. Type in the pdal command:

    C:\> pdal translate -i input.las -o output.las --writers.las.a_srs="EPSG:32750"

    Note: where a_srs is the option to assign a CRS e.g. EPSG:32750

  2. To double check whether the CRS tag has been assigned to the las file, you can use the lasinfo tool from liblas, as shown below.


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