Points2Grid Lidar Gridding Code Open Source Release

Jun 24, 2011

We're pleased to formally announce the open source release of the OpenTopography-developed Points2Grid algorithm for Digital Elevation Models generation from lidar point cloud data. Points2Grid is a robust and scalable local gridding tool for processing LIDAR point cloud data to DEMs. The algorithm uses a local gridding method to compute grid cell elevation using a neighborhood defined around each cell based on a search radius provided by the user. Points2Grid offers two processing modes - in-core and out-of-core - to allow it to handle generation of rasters larger than available memory.

Points2Grid is used as the default DEM generation algorithm for the OpenTopography point cloud processing system, and thus been tested through thousands of DEM generation jobs.

Version 1.0 of Points2Grid offers the following features:

  • Reads input point clouds in ASCII and LAS formats
  • Outputs grids in Arc ASCII and GRD ASCII formats
  • DEM products including min, max, mean, and idw values
  • Output of point count values for every grid cell
  • User defined search radius and grid resolution
  • Null filling, using a configurable moving window, to fill cells that have null values
  • In-core and out-of-core processing modes to enable generation of grids larger than available memory.  The user can define the threshold at which the code switches to out-of-core, based on the memory resources of their machine.

Points2Grid is open source and offered under a modified BSD license as required by the University of California Regents.

Version 1.0 of Points2Grid can be downloaded from OpenTopopgraphy's space on sourceforge.net, otforge at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/otforge/files/points2grid/1.0/

Visit our Points2Grid page for more information about the tool.