LIDAR Thinner

This utility analyses a LIDAR YXZ/LAS file and reduces the number of points to a specified grid interval.

LIDAR data is extremely dense and in many instances cumbersome to work with because of the large number of points. Equally important is that some of the LIDAR points may not be on the ground level, but actually of the top of structures or trees, creating an incorrect DTM model.

For every grid interval, the program extracts the lowest point. The grid size (density) is determined by the amount of available memory up to 3GB.

Essentially the LIDAR Thinner can reduce a file from this amount of points:

To this amount of points:

Procedure

  1. The LIDAR Thinner settings display.

  1. Click ... to select the LIDAR file to process. The program scans the LIDAR file and display a summary of the data.

  1. Specify the output folder if it is different to the location of the LIDAR file. Specify a grid spacing.

  2. Click Estimate if you want to calculate approximately how many points will be in the reduced file.

  1. Click Process to continue. The thinned data set is saved as a .dat file, which can be imported into Civil Designer.