What is a LAS file ?

LAS is a public file format meant to exchange 3D point data, mostly used to exchange lidar point clouds. LAZ is a lossless compression of the LAS format.

The latest LAS specification is the LAS 1.4. laspy supports LAS files from Version 1.2 to 1.4.

LAS files are organized in 3 main parts:

  1. Header

  2. VLRs

  3. Point Records

VLRs

After the header, LAS files may contain VLRs (Variable Length Record). VLRs are meant to store additional information such as the SRS (Spatial Reference System), description on extra dimensions added to the points.

VLRs are divided in two parts:

  1. header

  2. payload

The payload is limited to 65,535 bytes (Because in the header, the length of the payload is stored on a uint16).

See Manipulating VLRs

Point Records

The last chunk of data (and the biggest one) contains the point records. In a LAS file, points are stored sequentially.

The point records holds the point cloud data the LAS Spec specifies 10 point formats. A point format describe the dimensions stored for each point in the record.

Each LAS specification added new point formats, the table below describe the compatibility between point formats and LAS file version.

LAS file version

Compatible point formats

1.2

0, 1, 2, 3

1.3

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

1.4

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

The names written in the tables below are the one you will have to use in your code.

Note

The dimensions ‘X’, ‘Y’, ‘Z’ are signed integers without the scale and offset applied. To access the coordinates as doubles simply use ‘x’, ‘y’ , ‘z’

Point Format 0

Dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

X

signed

32

Y

signed

32

Z

signed

32

intensity

unsigned

16

return_number

unsigned

3

number_of_returns

unsigned

3

scan_direction_flag

bool

1

edge_of_flight_line

bool

1

classification

unsigned

5

synthetic

bool

1

key_point

bool

1

withheld

bool

1

scan_angle_rank

signed

8

user_data

unsigned

8

point_source_id

unsigned

8

The point formats 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 are based on the point format 0, meaning that they have the same dimensions plus some additional dimensions:

Point Format 1

Added dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

gps_time

Floating

64

Point Format 2

Added dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

red

unsigned

16

green

unsigned

16

blue

unsigned

16

Point Format 3

Added dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

gps_time

Floating

64

red

unsigned

16

green

unsigned

16

blue

unsigned

16

Point Format 4

Added dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

gps_time

Floating

64

wavepacket_index

unsigned

8

wavepacket_offset

unsigned

64

wavepacket_size

unsigned

32

return_point_wave_location

floating

32

x_t

floating

32

y_t

floating

32

z_t

floating

32

Point Format 5

Added dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

gps_time

Floating

64

red

unsigned

16

green

unsigned

16

blue

unsigned

16

wavepacket_index

unsigned

8

wavepacket_offset

unsigned

64

wavepacket_size

unsigned

32

return_point_wave_location

unsigned

32

x_t

floating

32

y_t

floating

32

z_t

floating

32

Point Format 6

The Point Format 6, is the new base point format (6, 7, 8, 9, 10) introduced in the LAS specification 1.4. The main modifications from point format 0 and point format 6 are that now the gps_time is baseline and some fields takes more bits, for example the classification is now stored on 8 bits (previously 5).

Dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

X

signed

32

Y

signed

32

Z

signed

32

intensity

unsigned

16

return_number

unsigned

4

number_of_returns

unsigned

4

synthetic

bool

1

key_point

bool

1

withheld

bool

1

overlap

bool

1

scanner_channel

unsigned

2

scan_direction_flag

bool

1

edge_of_flight_line

bool

1

classification

unsigned

8

user_data

unsigned

8

scan_angle

signed

16

point_source_id

unsigned

8

gps_time

Floating

64

Point Format 7

Add RGB to point format 6.

Added dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

red

unsigned

16

green

unsigned

16

blue

unsigned

16

Point Format 8

Adds RGB and Nir (Near Infrared) to point format 6.

Added dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

red

unsigned

16

green

unsigned

16

blue

unsigned

16

nir

unsigned

16

Point Format 9

Add waveform data to points

Added dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

wavepacket_index

unsigned

8

wavepacket_offset

unsigned

64

wavepacket_size

unsigned

32

return_point_wave_location

unsigned

32

x_t

floating

32

y_t

floating

32

z_t

floating

32

Point Format 10

Adds RGB, Nir (near infrared), waveform data to point format 6

Added dimensions

Type

Size (bit)

red

unsigned

16

green

unsigned

16

blue

unsigned

16

nir

unsigned

16

wavepacket_index

unsigned

8

wavepacket_offset

unsigned

64

wavepacket_size

unsigned

32

return_point_wave_location

unsigned

32

x_t

floating

32

y_t

floating

32

z_t

floating

32

EVLRs

Version 1.4 of the LAS specification added a last block following the point records: EVLRs (Extended Variable Length Record) which are the same thing as VLRs but they can carry a higher payload (length of the payload is stored on a uint64)