Surface covered by a LAS* object. The surface covered by a point cloud is mathematically 0.
To compute non zero values the function uses different strategies. The area is computed based on
the number of occupied cells, or on the area of the convex hull of the points depending on the density
and the size of the point cloud. The result is necessarily an approximation that depends on the method
used.
For a LAScatalog it is computed as the sum of the bounding boxes of the files. For
overlapping tiles the value may be larger than the total area covered because some regions are
sampled twice. For a LASheader it is computed with the bounding box. As a consequence, for the same file
st_area applied on a LASheader or on a LAS can return slightly different values. st_area()
extends sf:st_area(), area() extends raster:area(). area() is provided for backward
compatibility.
# S3 method for LAS
st_area(x, ...)# S3 method for LASheader
st_area(x, ...)
# S3 method for LAScatalog
st_area(x, ...)
# S4 method for LAS
area(x, ...)
# S4 method for LASheader
area(x, ...)
# S4 method for LAScatalog
area(x, ...)
numeric. A number in the same units as the coordinate reference system.
An object of class LAS*.
unused.