RCS file format

[George S. Mercier]

Martin,

Was wondering if you might could incorporate Autodesk's .RCS format as a viable input / output file type for LASTools.  

I don't know much about the it other than it's what civil 3d uses.  At the moment I use Recap to convert the LAS files to RCS when we need to bring the point cloud data into Civil 3d application.  Knowing Autodesk it's probably something proprietary so it may not be possible.  But just wanted to ask.

Below here is the LASINFO for WG_Walking-trail_dem.laz and here is a link to the RCS created from that las file, WG_Walking-trail_dem.rcs

Respectfully,

George S. Mercier

[Brandon Del Priore - Spectre-CMG]

FARO Scene and Leica CYCLONE also allow for this conversion from their native file format to RCS/RCP, LAS, E57, PTS, etc.

I'm sure it's possible, but may require a licensing agreement with Autodesk. 

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[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

the idea of an exchange format such as LAS or LAZ (and also e57) is that the vendors (who may have their own proprietary formats) offer a well-implemented export option in their software from and to these exchange formats. 

It seems that these are proprietary format that the vendor has no interest in documenting:

 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/recap-forum/rcs-rcp-file-format-documentation/td-p/7815795

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/recap-forum/rcp-and-rcs-format-specification/td-p/6941716

So I don't think there will be a rcs2las converter as part of LAStools.

Regards.

Martin

[George S. Mercier]

I figured as much.  Autodesks's Recap currently supports importing various formats as seen here, one of which is a .LAZ extension that they call a LASZip, I suspect this is Trimble's ripoff which is now, apparently, muddying the waters by using the .LAZ extension.  I tested this by bringing this data into Trimble Business Center and exporting this .LAZ which imported without error into Adesk Recap.  But this real .LAZ data created with LAStools would not import into Recap.  I suspect something nefarious and deliberate here.

Anyway this creates another step (LAZ=>LAS), just to get the data into Recap so it can be exported right back out to .RCS for the technicians to use with Civil3D.

Civil3D is fairly well entrenched in many civil engineering offices here in the United States so it's kinda annoying, but typical, that Adesk doesn't play well with others.  It's also interesting that they do have a few export options as seen here (.RCS, .PTS, .E57, .PCG) but no options to export .LAS or .LAZ.

Respectfully,

George S. Mercier

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[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

LASzip is the merely name of the compression algorithm / implementation that turns LAS into LAZ and LAZ into LAS, so other than the poor capitalization (LASZip instead of LASzip) I see no wrong-doing on the side of any software vendor here. The file that does not import properly may be a LAS 1.4 file using point type 6 or higher, which means the "native LAS 1.4" extension of LASzip is needed. As this was released much later then the original LASzip compressor for LAS 1.3 file from point type 0 up to point type 5 it might just be that your version of Autodesk and/or Recap software has not upgraded to the latest version of the LASzip compressor yet which is available at 

http://laszip.org

Regards,

Martin @rapidlasso

[George S. Mercier]

👍 okay.  I guess I'm jumping to conclusions.

-G. 

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