Las2txt

[Aaron Marx]

Hi,

I downloaded the LAS Tools and am trying to use Las2txt to use the points in Rhino. I have successfully downloaded LAS files from MNtopo, but am having trouble converting from LAS to TXT, any help is much appreciated. I have read the command line prompt resource, however cannot find any info on how to use the program. I can browse to my LAS file and load it (nothing shows up except a flat blue plane with red outline), when I hit run nothing happens. Can you direct me to any resources or help?

Thanks!

[Martin Isenburg]

Hello,

thanks for the link to MNtopo. I had not seen their nice download portal. Let's turn this not-so-exciting question about turning LAS/LAZ into ASCII with las2txt into an exciting hunt for (decommissioned) nuclear missile bases in Minnesota ... (-: 

So I went to the download site for the Minnesota LiDAR data at

http://arcgis.dnr.state.mn.us/maps/mntopo/

and zoomed to one of the former missile bases from the cold war that is described here

http://substreet.org/minnesotan-missiles/ 

that was covered by the Arrowhead LiDAR campaign of 2011 (see attached image). Using an appropriate area-of-interest polygon and a secret email address (see next image) I received a link to the LiDAR data in form of a zipped archive containing four LAZ files. Note that compressing LAZ files with WinZIP does not make them any smaller, it actually makes them bigger as evidenced by the screen shot. I then used lasview with option '-set_min_max 300 306' to get a nice coloring of the hillshaded DSM and DTM for the decommissioned nuclear missile base that - like many similar sites - has gone from its glamorous cold-war days to see its buildings become a self-storage business. (-:

On to the actual question. Using the GUI of las2txt and picking the area of interest I generate this command line:

las2txt -i nuclear_missle_base\2758-03-04.laz ^

           -inside 584500 5197700 585500 5198700 ^

           -parse xyzirncpt

more nuclear_missle_base\2758-03-04.txt

584514.93 5198698.61 311.92 3 1 3 5 565 35580996.821933

584515.62 5198698.63 303.65 3 2 3 5 565 35580996.821933

584514.79 5198699.67 304.92 2 1 2 5 565 35580996.821943

584515.35 5198699.70 298.10 30 2 2 3 565 35580996.821943

584513.69 5198699.60 298.92 26 2 2 3 565 35580996.840583

584513.70 5198698.53 307.58 2 1 2 5 565 35580996.840593

584514.50 5198698.57 297.93 30 2 2 2 565 35580996.840593

584512.82 5198697.73 306.99 15 1 2 5 565 35580996.856453

584513.57 5198697.76 297.94 12 2 2 2 565 35580996.856453

584511.90 5198698.75 309.33 4 2 3 5 565 35580996.856463

584512.84 5198698.80 297.95 21 3 3 2 565 35580996.856463

584511.51 5198699.80 305.30 2 1 2 5 565 35580996.856473

584512.12 5198699.83 297.97 28 2 2 2 565 35580996.856473

584510.77 5198699.56 297.96 20 1 1 2 565 35580996.875083

584511.52 5198698.53 297.82 22 1 1 2 565 35580996.875093

584510.32 5198698.05 297.81 26 1 1 2 565 35580996.890983

584508.38 5198699.02 312.52 10 2 4 5 565 35580996.890993

584508.79 5198699.04 307.52 4 3 4 5 565 35580996.890993

584509.59 5198699.09 297.82 11 4 4 2 565 35580996.890993

584506.80 5198699.08 311.06 10 1 2 5 565 35580996.909584

584507.87 5198699.16 298.02 10 2 2 3 565 35580996.909584

584507.76 5198698.08 308.18 4 1 2 5 565 35580996.909594

584508.59 5198698.13 297.98 15 2 2 3 565 35580996.909594

584507.07 5198698.45 297.83 4 2 2 2 565 35580996.925514

584505.28 5198699.41 310.85 9 1 2 5 565 35580996.925524

584506.34 5198699.49 297.89 15 2 2 8 565 35580996.925524

584504.11 5198699.27 306.20 2 1 1 5 565 35580996.944084

584504.39 5198698.20 311.60 3 1 3 5 565 35580996.944094

584504.70 5198698.23 307.80 5 2 3 5 565 35580996.944094

584505.50 5198698.28 298.01 14 3 3 3 565 35580996.944094

584504.61 5198697.58 297.87 18 2 2 2 565 35580996.960034

Hope this made the answer to the question a bit more interesting for everyone ... (-:

Happy Holidays!

Martin 

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[Aaron Marx]

Thanks Martin! I discovered that the GUI produces the command line text, but I had to go into the command line and hit enter to execute the command. *facepalm* 

Awesome tool, thanks so much for your help! Just an FYI, Rhino 6 supports importing of txt files, and I was successful in converting .las to a usable CAD format by converting to txt, importing into Rhino, and saving as required. 

The decommissioned nuclear base was a great example. I saw your post about the Pentagon also, super cool.

Thanks again, cheers!