LiDAR Format Wars Creep into the Media

I've been in the GIS news business since GIS Monitor launched in 2000. My job for most of the last 15 years at several different publications, involved identifying and writing about what my colleagues and I considered important stories. For the last few months I've not done that sort of work. Instead, I've watched as others covered the industry news via tweets, press releases, blog posts, online articles and print content.

Image by Üleslaadija: Marek9134
under CC BY-SA 3.0

LiDAR Format Wars

Depending on your GIS news reading habits, you may or may not know that there's been a "concern" about LiDAR exchange formats brewing. I first heard of it more than a year ago when Esri announced its optimized LiDAR format. I began following Martin Isenburg of rapidlasso, who's been very vocal about maintaining an open format and open access to it.

Last week several individuals concerned about open LiDAR exchange penned an open letter. The letter details the evolution of the open LAS format and how there's work to be sure it's not overshadowed by something less open. The letter includes specific requests to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Esri, users and sponsors of LiDAR data, and the ASPRS LAS working group. Just today rapidlasso announced new software to "free" LiDAR data
held in a closed format.