R package to read and write .las and .laz binary files used to store LiDAR data.

rlas relies on a modified version of the open source parts of LAStools. LASlib and LASzip were modified to be compatible with R. The library can therefore be compiled into R without any complaints from R CMD check. It enables users to read and write into R binary files commonly used to store LiDAR data in R both at the R level and at the C++ level.

Install rlas

• The latest released version from CRAN with

install.packages("rlas")

• The latest development version from github with

devtools::install_github("Jean-Romain/rlas", dependencies=TRUE)

To install the package from github make sure you have a working development environment.

• Windows: Install Rtools.exe.
• Mac: Install Xcode from the Mac App Store.
• Linux: Install the R development package, usually called r-devel or r-base-dev

Read las and laz files

At the R level

lasdata   = read.las("<myfile.las>")
lasheader = read.lasheader("<myfile.las>")

At the C++ level

Linking rlas into your c++ code.

// [[Rcpp::depends(rlas)]]

#include <rlasstreamer.h>

// [[Rcpp::export]]
List readlasdata(CharacterVector ifiles, CharacterVector filter)
{
  try
  {
    RLASstreamer lasstreamer(ifiles, filter);
    lasstreamer.allocation();
  
    while(lasstreamer.read_point())
    {
      lasstreamer.write_point();
    }
  
    return lasstreamer.terminate();
  }
  catch (std::exception const& ex)
  {
    Rcerr << "Error: " << ex.what() << std::endl;
    return(List(0));
  }
}

Changelog

See changelog here

Copyright Information

rlas contains code written by both Jean-Romain Roussel and Martin Isenburg. The latter is included for technical reasons. Details below.

• For LASlib and LASzip:
  • (c) 2007-2015 martin.isenburg@rapidlasso.com - http://rapidlasso.com
  • Provided under LGPL license and modified to be R-compliant by Jean-Romain Roussel. Each modification is dated and registered into the file headers.
• For rlas code enabling Martin Isenburg's code to be wrapped into R:
  • (c) 2016 Jean-Romain Roussel
  • Provided under GPL-3 license.