OSGeo - User contributions [en]

Conference Resources

2022-09-07T09:38:27Z

Skampus:

= Goals =
The goals of Conference Resources is support LOC with the conference organisation, providing some solutions to problems that other already solved.
Some of the topic we will be able to address:
* support using Pretalx if the LOC choose to use it
* support for the online platform (Venueless) and streaming options
* support to find sponsors; maintaining and sharing the list of contact of previous sponsor
* support for travel grant
* support for website and app for schedule

= Members =
* [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]] (proposer and chair)
* [[User:astrid_emde | Astrid Emde]]
* [[User:Silli | Silvia Franceschi]] (sponsor)
* [[User:Delawen | María Arias de Reyna]] (website support, can help with venueless, pretix, pretalx)
* [[User:Laura_Mugeha | Laura Mugeha]] (General & tech support)
* [[User:Codrina | Codrina Ilie]] (Program support, can help with pretalx)
* Besfort Guri
* [[User:Skampus | Stefano Campus]] (General support)

= Topics =

== Pretalx ==
pretalx is a FOSS conference management software that give you the opportunity to set up a call for papers, review the abstracts, contact the speakers and finally create your schedule.
OSGeo is running a pretalx instance at https://talks.osgeo.org/. This can be used by the LOC of international or regional FOSS4Gs. Admins of this service are Regina Obe, Luca Delucchi, Astrid Emde, María Arias de Reyna Domínguez, Vicky Vergara.
Conference Resources can:
* invest some of OSGeo money to improve pretalx
* help you creating an event for you and guide you for a better experience
* have a list of potential reviewers to be included in the call for papers process
* help navigate the academic track (ISPRS publishing, for example)

== Venueless ==
Venueless is a FOSS software to manage online and hybrid conferences. It has the capabilities to provide live streaming with integrated chat, Q&A sections, standalone chat rooms, video group chat, sponsor exhibition, integrate web pages using iframes.
Conference Resources can help you explaining how to set up your Venueless instance

== Sponsor ==
Sponsors are really important component of a conference, OSGeo has contacts with several entities, a lot of big/medium/small companies use OSGeo products in their daily work and they like to advertise it during conferences. Conference Resources should be able to provide to LOC an updated list of possible sponsors with main contacts.

== Travel Grant ==
Travel Grant is one of the most demanding work, LOC has to set up a call, assessing candidates and finally support them with invitation letter to get them VISA if needed. Synergies with other realities like [https://hotosm.org HOT] and [https://www.youthmappers.org/ YouthMappers] should be created and maintained.

== Website ==
Could be really useful to have a website simple to create and reusable every year without the force to recreate it from scratch. State of the Map conference is doing something like that.

== Mobile app for schedule ==
Using pretalx as conference management software the two better apps for mobile are [https://github.com/Wilm0r/giggity giggity] (to see your schedule just add a pull request with the link to your pretalx instance) and [https://github.com/EventFahrplan/EventFahrplan EventFahrplan] (who require some customization usually done by the main developer with a small amount of money).
Right now the bigger problem seems to be iOS without any app available.

FOSS4G 2022/BirdsOfAFeather

2022-08-18T11:47:47Z

Skampus: /* Italian Remote sensing workshops program */

= Introduction =

Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions are unstructured timeslots where people can self-organise themselves to discuss topics of interest.

== General Information ==

At the [[FOSS4G 2022]] conference in Firenze, a number of spaces have been reserved for people to flock together in Birds of a Feather sessions.

For reference, an overview of the FOSS4G [https://2022.foss4g.org/program-outline.php schedule is available at here].

=== How to organize a BOF ===

BoF sessions are informal gatherings of people around a specific topic. BoF's can be held in: BoF rooms or taken off-site for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

The FOSS4G conference provides the spaces, but the setup of the bird-of-feather meetup is done informally using this wiki.

=== Capacities ===

The BoF sessions rooms used are the ones in which the conference takes place, right after the last presentation:

* Room Verde
* Room Limonaia
* Room Onice
* Room 4
* Room 6
* Room 9
* Room 12 (available all the times, no video projector)
* Room Modulo 3A
* Room Hall 3A
* Room Hall 3B (available all the times, no video projector)

We will also put a BoF organizing board on site for better organization.

= Thursday 25 August (8:00 - 9:00) =

== TODO: Room name ==

=== TODO: BoF title ===

* Description: TODO
* Person to contact: TODO

Who is coming:
* TODO

== Onice Room ==

=== Italian Remote sensing workshops program ===
* Description:
* Person to contact: Alessandro Frigeri, Paolo Dabove

Who is coming
* Alessandro Frigeri
* Paolo Dabove
* Luca Delucchi (maybe)
* Stefano Campus (TBC)

= Thursday 25 August (18:15 - 19:15) =

== Room 9 ==

=== Charter members F2F ===

* Description: Get to know each other and talk about our duties.
* Person to contact: Vicky Vergara

Who is coming:
* Vicky Vergara
* Zoltan Siki
* Luca Delucchi (maybe)

== Room Verde ==

=== GRASS GIS ===

* Description: Talk about priorities and use cases
* Person to contact: [[User:Wenzeslaus|Vaclav (Vashek) Petras (User:Wenzeslaus)]]
* The same room as the ''State of GRASS GIS talk'' in the morning.

Who is coming:
* Vaclav (Vashek) Petras
* Anna Petrasova
* Markus Neteler

== Room Limonaia ==

=== GeoServer BoF ===

* Description: GeoServer is flocking awesome
* Person to contact: Jody Garnett

Who is coming:
* Jody Garnett
* Andrea Aime
* Ian Turton

== Room 6 ==

=== Meet Planet / NICFI Satellite Data Program ===

* Description: Learn about the NICFI Satellite Data Program (https://www.planet.com/nicfi/), its users, and discuss how Planet’s high-resolution, analysis-ready mosaics can help reduce and reverse the loss of tropical forests, combat climate change, conserve biodiversity, and facilitate sustainable development.

* Person to contact: Luisa Teixeira

Who is coming:
* TODO

== Room Onice ==

=== OSGeo and OGC collaboration ===

* Description: Let's talk about all the cool opportunities that the newly refreshed OSGeo - OGC MoU brings to our communities!
* Person to contact: Tom Kralidis, Joana Simoes

Who is coming:
* Tom Kralidis
* Joana Simoes
* Codrina Ilie

== TODO: Room name ==

=== TODO: BoF title ===

* Description: TODO
* Person to contact: TODO

Who is coming:
* TODO

= Friday 26 August (8:00 - 9:00) =

== TODO: Room name ==

=== TODO: BoF title ===

* Description: TODO
* Person to contact: TODO

Who is coming:
* TODO

[[Category:FOSS4G2022]]

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-16T11:45:37Z

Skampus: /* Signed */

=Open Letter of the Need for Open Standards in LiDAR=
April 2015.

We, the undersigned, are concerned that the current interoperability between LiDAR applications, through use of the open "LAS" format, is being threatened by ESRI's introduction and promotion of an alternative "Optimized LAS" '''''proprietary format.''''' This is of grave concern given that fragmentation of the LAS format will reduce interoperability between applications and organisations, and introduce vendor lock-in.

We request that:
# The OGC initiate the formalisation of an open standard for storing LiDAR data, and that OGC sponsors help prioritise the development of this open LiDAR standard.
# ESRI support the OGC in their [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/vision mission] "to advance the development and use of international standards and supporting services that promote geospatial interoperability." In particular, ESRI join the OGC in consolidating an Open Standard for use of LiDAR data. This might include proposing ESRI's "Optimized LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdles in use of "Optimized LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimized LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimized LAS" can legally be implemented by Open Source software such as libLAS or LASzip.
# Users and sponsors of LiDAR data, publicly state their preference for the use of an open LiDAR format over proprietary when selecting software and services.
# The custodians of the open LAS format [http://www.asprs.org/LD-Division/LAS-Working-Group.html LAS Working Group (LWG)], who are part of [http://www.asprs.org/ American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS)], request the term "LAS" not to be included in the name of a proprietary format, as it makes such a proprietary format appear to be an approved derivative of LAS.

=Signed=
Name, Affiliation(s), Optional comment on interest in Open LiDAR format

# Suchith Anand, Geo for All, committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Policy.
# Martin Isenburg, founder of [http://rapidlasso.com rapidlasso GmbH] and creator of [http://rapidlasso.com/LASzip LASzip], [http://rapidlasso.com/LAStools LAStools], and [http://rapidlasso.com/PulseWaves PulseWaves].
# Cameron Shorter, GeoSpatial Director at [http://lisasoft.com LISAsoft], Core contributor and coordinator of [http://live.osgeo.org OSGeo-Live], Contributor to numerous OGC testbeds, technical lead on a range of previous Australian and New Zealand Open Government initiatives.
# Stefan Keller, founder and director of [http://www.hsr.ch/geometalab Geometa Lab]; researcher in GIS, databases, open (government) data and interoperability; maintainer of GeoConverter; contributor to open source software (GDAL/OGR, QGIS).
# Patrick Hogan, NASA World Wind Project Manager, committed to the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure principles, one being "to make geographic data more accessible to the public" [http://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html NSDI]. Open standards are essential for this.
# Lene Fischer, Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen. User of Open and free Data from The Danish Geodata Agency - Using LAZ and LAS http://download.kortforsyningen.dk/content/dhmpunktsky.
# [http://www.ege-como.polimi.it/index.php?content=maria_brovelli Maria Antonia Brovelli], Full Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano. Geo For All, committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Policy. Committed to Open Principles in Research.
# Ron Fortunato, President of [http://www.trilliumlearning.com/AmericaBridge/ Trillium Learning] LLC. Committed to open data standards that are necessary for education and all levels of communication.
# Armin Schmidt, Chief Developer at [http://www.GeodataWIZ.com GeodataWIZ Ltd] and Chairman of [http://www.archprospection.org ISAP], committed to better science through Open Data.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/gconti Giuseppe Conti], CTO Trilogis Srl, Italy. Committed to open data standards that maximize opportunity for innovative solutions, unencumbered by artificial obstacles to data exchange.
# Jorge Gustavo Rocha, Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through Open Data.
# Jim Miller, University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science, http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Prof. Jorg M. Hacker, Director/Chief Scientist of [http://www.airborneresearchaustralia.com Airborne Research Australia], Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Open formats have always been a great benefit to airborne LiDAR.
# Didier Richard, Head of IS Training Dept. in Education and Research Directorate of [http://www.ign.fr Institut National de l'Information Géographique et Forestière], France. OGC user, Contributor to OSGeO projects like GDAL.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/adryane-gorayeb/74/517/96a Adryane Gorayeb], [http://www.ufc.br/ Federal University of Ceará Brazil], Geography Department. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/yuryryabov Yury Ryabov], PhD, Senior researcher at [http://www.istc.ru/istc/db/inst.nsf/wsu/i0001823 Russian Scientific-Research Centre for Ecological Safety], [http://www.interacademies.net/Academies/ByRegion/CentralEasternEurope/13383.aspx Russian Academy of Sciences], Saint Petersburg, Russia. Open data formats are essential for successful and reproducible scientific research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/teresa-lamelas-gracia/40/4a7/20b María Teresa Lamelas], [http://cud.unizar.es/ Centro Universitario de la Defensa Zaragoza], [http://geoforest.unizar.es/es/index.php GeoForest-IUCA]. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidherries David Herries], [http://www.interpine.co.nz/SitePages/Home.aspx Using LiDAR for forest yield modelling at Interpine Innovation], Establishing open data standards provide scope for exponential growth in innovation. This is key to a rapidly developing technology like LiDAR.
# [[User:Ivansanchez|Iván Sánchez Ortega]], [http://www.mazemap.no Mazemap]. OSGeo Charter member and Open Data nerd.
# [[User:AnitaGraser|Anita Graser]], GIS specialist with AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, OSGeo Charter member and QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# [[User:vehrka|Pedro-Juan Ferrer]], [http://www.geomaticblog.net Geomaticblog]. OSGeo Charter member and member of the Open Knowledge Foundation.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/karl-donert/3/160/571 Professor Karl Donert], President European Association of Geographers (http://www.eurogeo.nl/ EUROGEO)
# Drew Fenton. Please Protect Open Standards for Geospatial data!
# [[User:Bolosig|Wladimir Szczerban]], [http://www.geoinquiets.cat Geoinquiets] Geogeek & OSGeo Spanish Local Chapter Member, Spain
# [http://vmx.cx Volker Mische], OSGeo Charter member and creator of GeoCouch
# [[User:carlos_psig|Carlos López Quintanilla]], [http://www.psig.es PSIG] [http://www.geoinquiets.cat Geoinquiets] GIS consultant, Spain
# [[User:woodbri|Stephen Woodbridge]], [http://imaptools.com iMaptools], OSGeo Charter member.
# [[User:odoepner|Oliver Doepner]], [http://oliver.doepner.net doepner.net], Software Engineer (Java,Linux), Open Standards and Open Source advocate
# [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]], [http://gis.cri.fmach.it Fondazione Edmund Mach], OSGeo Charter member, FOSS4G and Open Data developer, advocate, contributor and user.
# Antoine Cottin, CTO of [http://www.carbomap.com Carbomap Ltd.] and creator of [https://github.com/carbomap/Fleurdelas Fleurdelas], Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
# [http://strk.keybit.net Sandro Santilli], [http://strk.keybit.net/services.html NetLab], Free Software Hacker. There are already too many users slave to their tools, let's stop that!
# [http://www.itopen.it Alessandro Pasotti], [http://www.itopen.it ItOpen], GIS Free Software Developer.
# [http://www.roccatello.com Eduard Roccatello], [http://www.3dgis.it 3DGIS], 3DGIS CTO and co-Founder
# [[User:moovida|Andrea Antonello]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Open Source GIS developer, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# [http://www.associazionegfoss.it Stefano Campus], President of [http://www.associazionegfoss.it GFOSS.it] Association (Associazione Italiana per l'Informazione Geografica Libera), Italian Local Chapter of OSGeo Foundation.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement, much like a radar system, that uses laser light instead of electromagnetic waves. The standard LiDAR product is a 3D point cloud that can be conceptualized as a series of point measurements representing distance between the sensor to a returned emission.

For over a decade (since 2003), there has been a common format for storing LiDAR data, the [http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange-Activities.html “LAS” format], and open source libraries have been developed to read, write and process these LAS files: [http://live.osgeo.org/en/overview/liblas_overview.html libLAS] and [http://github.com/LASlib/LASlib LASlib]. These libraries have been incorporated within many LiDAR applications, allowing read/write access to a common exchange format, and resulting in full interoperability between the applications. There is also an open source compression algorithm for the LAS format called [http://laszip.org LASzip] that many LiDAR data portals use to compress LAS into smaller LAZ files for faster download. Many LiDAR software packages have added [http://laszip.org/#software-with-native-laz-support native support] for these compressed LAZ files.

==LAS Limitations==

Quoting [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey]:

: LAS format is not without its drawbacks:

:* While it is a binary format and does not waste any space unnecessarily, neither does it apply any compression to the data it stores. That’s not good for archival use.
:* Also, LAS stores points in scan order, so accessing any particular chunk of points involves reading the whole file. That’s not good for random access.
: Clearly there is a little more work to be done. Can LAS be improved? In fact, it already has been:
:* An open source compression library, LASzip can apply 20''':'''1 lossless compression to LAS files, making them great for archival purposes.
:* Other LAS users have experimented with re-ordering points in a LAS or LASzip file to allow random access to internal chunks of the LIDAR point cloud.
: Basically, making LAS smaller and faster is not rocket science, and if the work were incorporated into libLAS then the whole LIDAR community could leverage it together, and the user community would only have one file type to interchange.

=="Optimized LAS" A ''' ''Proprietary'' ESRI Format'''==
ESRI has announced the release of an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 "Optimized LAS"] format which is claimed to provide faster access and smaller file sizes (similar to the open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format). This announcement created a outburst of vocal protest in the LiDAR community [[http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ 1] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ 2] [http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2014/01/15/las-laz-lazzip-zlas-and-you/ 3] [http://www.northrivergeographic.com/archives/lidar-software 4] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars-2/ 5] [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/02/lidar-format-wars-3/ 6]].

The "Optimized LAS" format is neither published, nor available under any open license, which provides both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. This creates a vendor lock-in scenario which is contrary to the principles of the Open Geospatial Consortium, the OSGeo Foundation, and many government IT procurement policies.

One year after releasing the "Optimized LAS" format, ESRI released a free Windows DLL that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between "free" and "open". Unless the Windows DLL is released under an "open" license, libLAS and related products will be legally prevented from incorporating ESRI's reader/writer code into their codebase, or from fixing any underlying bugs or performance limitations which may exist in ESRI's product.

==OGC's Efforts For An ''' ''Open'' LiDAR Standard'''==

The [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)] has indicated their interest in developing a standard LiDAR format.

Carl Reed (formerly on OGC staff) provided the following information on OGC's previous efforts to work toward enabling Open Standards in LiDAR:

: "Over the last 8 or so years, the OGC approached ASPRS at least twice regarding LAS and worked with ASPRS to bring LAS into the OGC for consideration as both a Best Practice and an OGC standard. OGC member Rick Pearsall worked diligently on this. Rick worked for NGA, was active in the OGC, and was also the Standards Committee chair at ASPRS. Rick and Carl tried and failed. These attempts go back to [http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf at least 2007]. More recently, Carl Reed had an email dialogue with Lewis Graham to bring LAS into OGC as an OGC Best Practice. Carl thought progress was being made, but then for some reason all communication stopped."

[http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/organization/staff/ssimmons Scott Simmons] (Executive Director, Standards Program) has explained the OGC's continuing interest in pursuing point cloud encoding standards, including a member-initiated mechanism to extend LAS data with OGC-standard XML content.
: The OGC invites interested members who wish to work on this effort to please contact Scott Simmons (Executive Director, Standards Program E-mail : ssimmons@opengeospatial.org) to register their interest and discuss details. OGC will also be holding an ad hoc session at the OGC's next [http://www.opengeospatial.org/event/1506tc Technical Committee meeting in Boulder, CO, USA in early June] to bring together all interested parties from all sectors (government, industry, academia) for this and plan next steps.

==History: LAS and ESRI's "Optimized LAS"==

Martin Isenburg, one of the leading experts in LIDAR formats, and creator of [http://rapidlasso.com/LASzip LASzip], [http://rapidlasso.com/LAStools LAStools] and [http://rapidlasso.com/PulseWaves PulseWaves], explains the history of LAS and "Optimized LAS":

: '''Summary:'''

:* The LAS format has been used successfully for over a decade.
:* Within last couple of years, ESRI has added native LAS support into ESRI products.
:* ESRI discussed embracing the open [http://laszip.org LAZ] format and simultaneously developed a proprietary "Optimized LAS" format.
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's proprietary "Optimized LAS" format is very similar in design and performance to the open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format.

: '''1998: Original LAS format definition'''

: The original development of the LAS format started in 1998 according to [http://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lasroom/zKqchDj1JL4/discussion Lewis Graham]. The effort was at first led by pioneers of the LiDAR industry until the format was donated to the [http://www.asprs.org/Committee-General/LASer-LAS-File-Format-Exchange-Activities.html ASPRS]. Since then ASPRS's [http://www.asprs.org/LD-Division/LAS-Working-Group.html LAS Working Group (LWG)] has been maintaining the LAS format, guiding it from the initial LAS 1.0 version until today's LAS 1.4 version. This effort successfully created an open data exchange format for discrete LiDAR points that is currently supported by practically every LiDAR-related software program.

: '''2011: ESRI joins LAS Working Group'''

: ESRI did not join the LWG of the ASPRS until rather late, the 24th of August in 2011. At that time ESRI was not a significant "player" in the LiDAR market given they did not have much support for LiDAR in any of their products. That was to change soon as they were planning to add LAS as a native data type in ArcGIS 10.1.

: Shortly before that, in June 2011, Martin Isenburg received a personal message from the ESRI development team: "I have a question about LAS compression. I’m evaluating some potential enhancements and support for [LAS and] LAZ is one of them. Compression time and amount is impressive." When inquiring two months later about the status of [http://laszip.org LAZ] integration Martin was told: "We’re in beta and working to finish the current release. I very much doubt LAZ will make it in because it’s too big a change at this time. So, we’ll be considering, for the following release, [for] what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

: '''June 2012: ArcGIS 10.1 includes [proprietary] LAS Dataset file'''

: In June 2012 ESRI released ArcGIS 10.1 and introduced the proprietary "LAS Dataset file (*.lasd)" that groups collections of files into one logical unit. This format of this useful LAS container file was not shared with others despite several private and eventually [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/jwHpi0efUgA/discussion public] requests.

: '''2012/2013: Collaboration Discussions'''

: There were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about adopting the open LAZ format in January 2012: "I would be interested in having a more in depth meeting with you to better understand the great work you are doing with LAS and how we can possibly better partner on this." and again in December 2012: "If you have time, I'd like to set some time aside Tuesday afternoon to meet with <an important person> at the ESRI booth. Does 2pm sound okay?" The meeting went well and it looked as if ESRI was going to embrace the LAZ format because shortly after the meeting Martin got word that: "I hear from <an important person> that it was a success and that he had a good meeting with you. I wanted to see if we can have a telephone discussion on Wednesday or Thursday this week related to the potential of incorporating LAZ into ArcGIS."

: Then the first signs of hesitation showed. First there were legal issues raised in February 2013: "Currently the legal aspects are being reviewed. They were having some issues separating the LPGL aspects from LASzip from the remainder of LAStools etc." and then in April 2013 concerns about the code were made: "We have started to look into the integration of LAZ, but came across some issues. We don’t want to copy files from the other package, mix and match or hack around. We were hoping for an API to stream points out of a LAZ file as well as write LAZ files. There should be a simple code sample for that?" and - following up on that - in June 2013 Martin was told "I see value in LASzip becoming a de-facto standard that provides compression to the LAS format. If this is to happen then it needs to be bundled together with appropriate reference implementations, examples and documentation as a standard and so ensure that issues as defined earlier in email do not occur."

: '''June 2013: ESRI asked to sponsor clean LASzip DLL'''

: At that time [http://laszip.org LASzip] was an open source project without sponsorship. The original funding from [http://www.erdc.usace.army.mil/Locations/ColdRegionsResearchandEngineeringLaboratory.aspx USACE] that had turned [http://laszip.org LASzip] from an academic prototype into an industry strength compression engine had long run out. So Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the clean [http://laszip.org LASzip] API that ESRI was after. The answer was: "ESRI often helps in the financing of Open Source projects and I could foresee ESRI possibly helping in LASzip. [...] If you are interested in promoting LASzip as such a standard and doing the required work then I would recommend you put together a proposal and I can look to get ESRI as a sponsor."

: Immediately Martin proposed to ESRI: "I hereby propose to write an easy to use open source DLL wrapper for LASzip that will make it easier to integrate LASzip in a standardized manner into other software products such as ArcGIS, LP 360, or Terrasolid. This will come with example code on how to use the DLL for reading and writing LAZ files and include a few compressed example files. I hereby ask ESRI to provide funding for this effort without imposing any limitations on the produced DLL API."

: '''July 2013: ArcGIS 10.2 includes [proprietary] LAS indexing '''

: With the release of ArcGIS 10.2 in July 2013, ESRI introduced spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. The new proprietary *.lasx files with seemingly identical functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] in May 2011 and were [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ presented] at ELMF in November 2012.

: '''July 2013: Open LASzip API released'''

: After more requests for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]), Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion released] a clean, well-documented, and easy-to-use LASzip DLL (without ESRI funding). Martin expected that developers at ESRI would now use it to add read and write support for [http://laszip.org LAZ] to their next release of ArcGIS.

: '''December 2013 : ESRI discovered to be secretly developing proprietary LAS format'''

: In December of 2013, several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be creating a proprietary LAS compression. Martin [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ broke the news] as soon as it became evident that ESRI had used the time it needed to resolve "legal issues" and "code problems" to put together their own proprietary compressed format with near-identical performance and functionality to [http://laszip.org LASzip]. A few days later ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] to confirming this was the case.

: From day one, Martin has worked with stakeholders, including ESRI, to avoid format fragmentation. Martin's core argument for resolving this to everybody's benefit was that - coincidentally - a natural break was happening in the LAS format with the introduction of the new LAS 1.4 point types. Martin outlined a detailed plan for how a joint development of [http://laszip.org LASzip] for LAS 1.4 between rapidlasso and ESRI could exploit this natural break in the LAS format to accomplish two things at once:
:# Add the unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at desiring, and
:# Extend the [http://laszip.org LASzip] compression scheme to handle the new point types introduced with the LAS 1.4 specification. As there was no pressing need at the time to handle LAS 1.4 Martin had delayed the extension of [http://laszip.org LASzip] to the new LAS 1.4 point types to make sure a cooperation with ESRI would remain a viable option.

: '''1 April 2014: Positive reception to "Optimized LAS" / LASzip collaboration April Fools announcement'''

: In an attempt to convince ESRI management of the community desire for an open standard, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] pretending that ESRI had already agreed to the envisioned collaboration to develop a joint LiDAR compressor. Community [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ jubilant reactions (see comments)] left no doubt about the sentiment on this issue within the LiDAR community.

: '''October 2014: Announcement of [open] LAS Compatibility mode'''

: [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] became a Gold Sponsor of [http://laszip.org LASzip] for the development of the [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that was [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/nUFMkKSz53g/discussion beta-released] in November 2014. This allowed support for the new point types in [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor.

: '''November 2014: ESRI announces proprietary extension to LAS 1.4'''

: In November 2014 [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated ESRI announced] that they had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS", dismissing the opportunity to develop a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had suggested.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] "Optimized LAS". By including the term "LAS" in "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS", the distinction between the open LAS format and proprietary format is blurred. This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. To date, [April 2014], the [http://www.asprs.org/a/society/committees/standards/LAS_1_4_r13.pdf custodians of the LAS format], the LAS Working Group (LWG) of the ASPRS has [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ yet to make an official statement] regarding use of the "LAS" name in promoting a proprietary LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described in most government IT policies. For instance, the United Kingdom policy states:
: … Government assets should be interoperable and open for re-use in order to maximise return on investment, avoid technological or supplier lock-in, reduce operational risk in ICT projects and provide responsive services for citizens and business. This should also lower barriers to entry for more diverse sources of IT services, including citizens and SMEs. <ref>All about Open Source – An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT, Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf</ref>

The value of Open Standards has been described in numerous national studies on the effects of standards on economic growth.

: ... the national studies demonstrate that standards have a positive influence on economic growth due to the resulting improved diffusion of knowledge. The contribution of standards to the growth rate in each country is equivalent to 0.9% in Germany, 0.8% in 0.3% in the UK and 0.2% in Canada. <ref>Prof. Dr. Knut Blind, Prof. Dr. Andre Jungmittag, Dr. Axel Mangelsdorf [http://www.din.de/sixcms_upload/media/2896/DIN_GNN_2011_engl_akt_neu.pdf "The Economic Benefits of Standardization"], ''DINN, 2000''. Retrieved March 2015.</ref>

=Further Reading=

# Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS, http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/
# Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib, http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/
# Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg, http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/
# First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg, http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/
# ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS", http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/
# ESRI description of "Optimised LAS", http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214
# Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list , http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html

=References=

<references />