Importing LAS to 12d - No Files Read

Ashley Flower · Post by **Ashley Flower** » Mon Dec 18, 2017 11:07 am

Hi,

I have been using the new Geoscience website (http://elevation.fsdf.org.au/) to get free lidar tiles.

However, I am getting point cloud .las files which I haven't used before.

When I try to import them under DATAINPUT>POINT CLOUD>LAS>Import LAS I get "finished reading data - no files read"

And I get no data come in. I have opened the LAS in textpad and its all encoded, but the fact that it is 40mB clearly tells me there is plenty of data to read.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Ashley Flower
Bligh Tanner

Alexander Cook · Post by **Alexander Cook** » Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:32 am

Hey Ashley,

Not sure if you sorted this by now, but when downloading from Geoscience, the point cloud format is .laz which is a compressed format. You need to convert it to las to enable it to be read into 12d.

There are download tools available to do this for free, such as laszip (https://www.laszip.org/).

Good luck

Trent Lester · Post by **Trent Lester** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:55 pm

Alexander,

Are you able to provide any assistance with the LASZIP program?

I am trying to Decompress a .laz file as mentioned above.

I think I have everything entered correctly however I don't get any resulting file.

Matthew Monk · Post by **Matthew Monk** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 6:17 pm

Did you download the Windows command-line only binary? https://laszip.org/#binaries

Download that somewhere (same folder as your .laz files will be easiest).
Open a command prompt (search the Start menu for cmd.exe) and browse to that directory.
- In Windows Explorer, you can typically hold Shift and then right-click on a folder, which brings up a menu. One of these items can be "Open command window here", which will open a command window already at that location
- Otherwise, type in:
  Code: Select all
```
cd C:\Some\path\to\folder
```
  to change directory from the command prompt.
Then you should just be able to run this command:
Code: Select all
```
laszip.exe -i my_zipped_file.laz -o my_unzipped_file.las
```

Post by **Alan Gray** » Fri Jul 27, 2018 9:20 am

We have scheduled support for LAZ in an update.

Post by **Lee Gregory** » Fri Jul 27, 2018 1:50 pm

Please Note:
A LAZ is NOT simply a zipped LAS file.

Paul Mashford · Post by **Paul Mashford** » Wed Nov 21, 2018 5:02 pm

We've been using lastools to convert LAS=>LAZ. We are wondering how the LAZ support is progressing ?
Also would like to request an option to import LAZ=>12d tin.