OSGeo - User contributions [en]

FOSS4G 2019 Community Sprint

2019-08-15T17:45:09Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Registered Attendees */

== Code Sprint ==

This year, we are following the OSGeo tradition of hosting a code sprint right after [http://2019.foss4g.org FOSS4G 2019].

Participation is free of charge and anyone involved or interested in getting involved in OSGeo community projects is welcome.

You can choose to contribute to one or more projects. The sky is the limit. There’s always plenty to do – it’s not all about programming. Translation, documentation, feedback, discussions, and testing are very important for projects! Conference registration is not a prerequisite for participation in code sprint.

=== When ===
The code sprint will be held Saturday August 31 2019.

=== Where ===

University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography (Bucharest, Romania)
* Bulevardul Nicolae Bălcescu 1, Bulevardul Nicolae Bălcescu 1
* https://en.unibuc.ro/academic-programmes/faculties/faculty-of-geography/

== Registered Attendees ==
The code sprint is free of charge but we kindly ask you to write down your name for better planning

{| border="1" cellpadding="2" class="wikitable sortable"
!width="30"|No
!width="250"|Name
!width="250"|Email
!width="250"|Projects
!width="250"|Saturday
!width="30"|vegetarian food
|-
|1 || [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]] || lucadeluge gmail com || GRASS GIS, pyModis, OSGeoLive (code sprint organizer) || x ||
|+
|2 || [[User:Neteler|Markus Neteler]] || neteler osgeo org || GRASS GIS, actinia, ... || x || (preferably)
|+
|3 || [[User:Astrid_Emde|Astrid Emde]] || astrid_emde osgeo org || OSGeo, OSGeoLive, Mapbender || x || x
|+
|4 || [[User:Tomkralidis|Tom Kralidis]] || tomkralidis gmail com|| pycsw, OWSLib, pygeoapi, GeoHealthCheck, MapServer, other geopython projects || x || x
|+
|5 || [[User:Veroandreo|Veronica Andreo]] || veroandreo gmail com|| GRASS GIS || x ||
|+
|6 || [[User:Komzpa|Darafei Praliaskouski]] || komzpa@gmail.com || PostGIS || x ||
|+
|7 || [[User:Kalxas|Angelos Tzotsos]] || tzotsos osgeo org|| OSGeoLive, pycsw, GeoNode, pygeoapi, OWSLib, UbuntuGIS || x ||
|+
|8 || [[User:Cvvergara|Vicky Vergara]] || vicky at georepublic.de || pgRouting, OSGeoLive, OSGeo web page || x ||
|+
|9 || [[User:boonen|Jan Boonen]] || jan.boonen at geodan.nl || GeoTools, GeoServer, PostGIS || x (have to catch a flight at 18h) || x
|+
|10 || [[User:StephanR|Stephan Reichhelm]] || reichhelm grit de || deegree || x ||
|+
|11 || [[User:Lastools|Martin Isenburg]] || martin rapidlasso com || RasterLAZ driver for GDAL || x || (no plastic)
|+
|}

== Workgroups ==

=== Project-name ===
To participate, copy this project skeleton and start a section below for your project.

'''Attending:'''
*user
*user

'''Goals:'''
*your goals

=== OSGeoLive ===

'''Attending:'''
* [[User:Astrid_Emde|Astrid Emde]]
* [[User:Cvvergara|Vicky Vergara]]

'''Goals:'''
* Documentation

=== GeoServer ===

'''Attending:'''
* [[User:Jive|Jody Garnett]]
* [[User:boonen|Jan Boonen]]

'''Goals:'''
*Follow up to Ian Turton's *Becoming a Documentation Contributor* lab with documentation activities.
*Follow up to GeoServer Developers workshop with mentoring sessions towards your first pull-request.
*TBD

=== GRASS GIS ===

'''Attending:'''
* [[User:Neteler|Markus Neteler]]
* ...

'''Goals:'''
* Finetune git workflows
* New GRASS GIS Web site
* [https://github.com/mundialis/actinia_core/ actinia OSGeo community project]: how to contribute

== Event Organization ==

The [https://2019.foss4g.org/about/committees BLOC] is the proud organiser of the code sprint.

For any question you can contact [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]], the person in charge of the code sprint.

[[Category:FOSS4G2019]] [[Category:FOSS4G]] [[Category:Code_Sprints]]

FOSS4G 2019 Community Sprint

2019-08-15T17:44:22Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Registered Attendees */

== Code Sprint ==

This year, we are following the OSGeo tradition of hosting a code sprint right after [http://2019.foss4g.org FOSS4G 2019].

Participation is free of charge and anyone involved or interested in getting involved in OSGeo community projects is welcome.

You can choose to contribute to one or more projects. The sky is the limit. There’s always plenty to do – it’s not all about programming. Translation, documentation, feedback, discussions, and testing are very important for projects! Conference registration is not a prerequisite for participation in code sprint.

=== When ===
The code sprint will be held Saturday August 31 2019.

=== Where ===

University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geography (Bucharest, Romania)
* Bulevardul Nicolae Bălcescu 1, Bulevardul Nicolae Bălcescu 1
* https://en.unibuc.ro/academic-programmes/faculties/faculty-of-geography/

== Registered Attendees ==
The code sprint is free of charge but we kindly ask you to write down your name for better planning

{| border="1" cellpadding="2" class="wikitable sortable"
!width="30"|No
!width="250"|Name
!width="250"|Email
!width="250"|Projects
!width="250"|Saturday
!width="30"|vegetarian food
|-
|1 || [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]] || lucadeluge gmail com || GRASS GIS, pyModis, OSGeoLive (code sprint organizer) || x ||
|+
|2 || [[User:Neteler|Markus Neteler]] || neteler osgeo org || GRASS GIS, actinia, ... || x || (preferably)
|+
|3 || [[User:Astrid_Emde|Astrid Emde]] || astrid_emde osgeo org || OSGeo, OSGeoLive, Mapbender || x || x
|+
|4 || [[User:Tomkralidis|Tom Kralidis]] || tomkralidis gmail com|| pycsw, OWSLib, pygeoapi, GeoHealthCheck, MapServer, other geopython projects || x || x
|+
|5 || [[User:Veroandreo|Veronica Andreo]] || veroandreo gmail com|| GRASS GIS || x ||
|+
|6 || [[User:Komzpa|Darafei Praliaskouski]] || komzpa@gmail.com || PostGIS || x ||
|+
|7 || [[User:Kalxas|Angelos Tzotsos]] || tzotsos osgeo org|| OSGeoLive, pycsw, GeoNode, pygeoapi, OWSLib, UbuntuGIS || x ||
|+
|8 || [[User:Cvvergara|Vicky Vergara]] || vicky at georepublic.de || pgRouting, OSGeoLive, OSGeo web page || x ||
|+
|9 || [[User:boonen|Jan Boonen]] || jan.boonen at geodan.nl || GeoTools, GeoServer, PostGIS || x (have to catch a flight at 18h) || x
|+
|10 || [[User:StephanR|Stephan Reichhelm]] || reichhelm grit de || deegree || x ||
|+
|11 || [[User:Lastools|Martin Isenburg]] || martin rapidlasso com || RasterLAZ driver for GDAL || x ||
|+
|}

== Workgroups ==

=== Project-name ===
To participate, copy this project skeleton and start a section below for your project.

'''Attending:'''
*user
*user

'''Goals:'''
*your goals

=== OSGeoLive ===

'''Attending:'''
* [[User:Astrid_Emde|Astrid Emde]]
* [[User:Cvvergara|Vicky Vergara]]

'''Goals:'''
* Documentation

=== GeoServer ===

'''Attending:'''
* [[User:Jive|Jody Garnett]]
* [[User:boonen|Jan Boonen]]

'''Goals:'''
*Follow up to Ian Turton's *Becoming a Documentation Contributor* lab with documentation activities.
*Follow up to GeoServer Developers workshop with mentoring sessions towards your first pull-request.
*TBD

=== GRASS GIS ===

'''Attending:'''
* [[User:Neteler|Markus Neteler]]
* ...

'''Goals:'''
* Finetune git workflows
* New GRASS GIS Web site
* [https://github.com/mundialis/actinia_core/ actinia OSGeo community project]: how to contribute

== Event Organization ==

The [https://2019.foss4g.org/about/committees BLOC] is the proud organiser of the code sprint.

For any question you can contact [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]], the person in charge of the code sprint.

[[Category:FOSS4G2019]] [[Category:FOSS4G]] [[Category:Code_Sprints]]

OGC Membership

2018-07-13T13:22:36Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Current Members */

This page describes OSGeo's process for selecting individuals as per the [[OSGeo signs Memorandum of Understanding with OGC | agreement between OGC and OSGeo]] by which up to six OSGeo community members can become OGC Individual Members free of cost.

== Members of OGC and OSGeo ==
Many individuals, companies, universities and public administrations involved with OSGeo and Open Source software are also regular members of the OGC. The full list is available at the [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/members OGC web site]. A lot of interaction and communication is already maintained through these members.

== OSGeo Member Access to OGC Membership ==
Especially innovative new projects with no existing infrastructure or a regular commercial champion often did not have a chance to participate in the internal OGC processes. Both the OGC and OSGeo have a mutual interest in facilitating this collaboration and have as per their [[OSGeo signs Memorandum of Understanding with OGC | Memorandum of Understanding]] agreed to allow for six OGC Individual Memberships to be used by OSGeo members. To obtain a membership, you must:
# Determine if you are eligible for membership, based on the [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/join/level/individual OGC Individual Membership] rules.
# Submit a short summary of why you want an OGC membership and what work you plan to do with it. This summary should be sent to the selection committee (listed below).
# Every six months, send a summary of what you have done with your membership to the selection committee and the standards list.

Memberships are valid for one year, after which you may reapply by submitting a short summary of why you want an OGC membership.

== Selection Committee ==
The selection committee keeps track of who is using our OGC memberships and what they are doing with them. The committee is appointed by the board of directors and periodically reports back to the board on the status of our OGC activity.

The members of this committee are currently:
* [[Jeff McKenna]]
* [[Bruce Bannerman]]

The committee operates transparently, recording its action on the [http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/standards Standards Mailing List].

== Current Members ==
# [[User:Djay | Gérald Fenoy]] term ends on 2018-09-30 ''(report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2017-October/001075.html 2017-10-17])''
# [[Even Rouault]] term ends on 2018-10-15 ''(report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2018-May/001091.html 2018-05-22])''
# [[Jáchym Čepický]] term ends on 2019-02-28 ''(confirmed active on 2017-04-28; report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2017-February/001031.html 2017-02-09])''
# [[Angelos Tzotsos]] term ends on 2019-03-31 ''(confirmed active on 2016-09-10; report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2015-September/000909.html 2015-09-10])''
# [[User:lastools | Martin Isenburg]] term ends on 2019-07-06 ''(confirmed active on 2017-01-31; report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2015-September/000918.html 2015-09-10], on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2016-June/000974.html 2016-06-21] and on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2018-July/001093.html 2018-07-13])''
# [[User:Kotzino | Dimitris Kotzinos]] term ends on 2019-10-16 ''(confirmed active on 2015-09-11; report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2015-October/000934.html 2015-10-26])''
[[Category:OGC]]

OGC Membership

2018-07-13T12:40:44Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Current Members */

This page describes OSGeo's process for selecting individuals as per the [[OSGeo signs Memorandum of Understanding with OGC | agreement between OGC and OSGeo]] by which up to six OSGeo community members can become OGC Individual Members free of cost.

== Members of OGC and OSGeo ==
Many individuals, companies, universities and public administrations involved with OSGeo and Open Source software are also regular members of the OGC. The full list is available at the [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/members OGC web site]. A lot of interaction and communication is already maintained through these members.

== OSGeo Member Access to OGC Membership ==
Especially innovative new projects with no existing infrastructure or a regular commercial champion often did not have a chance to participate in the internal OGC processes. Both the OGC and OSGeo have a mutual interest in facilitating this collaboration and have as per their [[OSGeo signs Memorandum of Understanding with OGC | Memorandum of Understanding]] agreed to allow for six OGC Individual Memberships to be used by OSGeo members. To obtain a membership, you must:
# Determine if you are eligible for membership, based on the [http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc/join/level/individual OGC Individual Membership] rules.
# Submit a short summary of why you want an OGC membership and what work you plan to do with it. This summary should be sent to the selection committee (listed below).
# Every six months, send a summary of what you have done with your membership to the selection committee and the standards list.

Memberships are valid for one year, after which you may reapply by submitting a short summary of why you want an OGC membership.

== Selection Committee ==
The selection committee keeps track of who is using our OGC memberships and what they are doing with them. The committee is appointed by the board of directors and periodically reports back to the board on the status of our OGC activity.

The members of this committee are currently:
* [[Jeff McKenna]]
* [[Bruce Bannerman]]

The committee operates transparently, recording its action on the [http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/standards Standards Mailing List].

== Current Members ==
# [[User:Djay | Gérald Fenoy]] term ends on 2018-09-30 ''(report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2017-October/001075.html 2017-10-17])''
# [[Even Rouault]] term ends on 2018-10-15 ''(report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2018-May/001091.html 2018-05-22])''
# [[Jáchym Čepický]] term ends on 2019-02-28 ''(confirmed active on 2017-04-28; report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2017-February/001031.html 2017-02-09])''
# [[Angelos Tzotsos]] term ends on 2019-03-31 ''(confirmed active on 2016-09-10; report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2015-September/000909.html 2015-09-10])''
# [[User:lastools | Martin Isenburg]] term ends on 2019-07-06 ''(confirmed active on 2017-01-31; report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2015-September/000918.html 2015-09-10] and on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2016-June/000974.html 2016-06-21])''
# [[User:Kotzino | Dimitris Kotzinos]] term ends on 2019-10-16 ''(confirmed active on 2015-09-11; report submitted to list on [https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2015-October/000934.html 2015-10-26])''
[[Category:OGC]]

Paris Code Sprint 2016

2016-02-10T14:47:59Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Participants */

[[File:Logo-TOSPrint_Paris.png|600px|TOSPrint Paris 2016]]

=== Gold Sponsors ===

{| border=0 cellspacing=15 cellpadding=10
|
[[File:Logo-Oslandia.png|260px|Oslandia|link=http://www.oslandia.com/]]
 
http://www.oslandia.com/
|
[[File:Logo-CartoDB.png|360px|CartoDB|link=https://www.cartodb.com/]]
 
https://www.cartodb.com/
|
[[File:Logo-IGN.png|160px|IGN|link=http://www.ign.fr/]]
 
http://www.ign.fr/
|}

=== Silver Sponsors ===

{| border=0 cellspacing=15 cellpadding=10
|
[[File:Logo-GeoCue.jpg|260px|GeoCue|link=http://www.geocue.com/]]
 
http://www.geocue.com/
|}

=== Bronze Sponsors ===

{| border=0 cellspacing=15 cellpadding=10
|
[[File:Logo-rapidlasso.png|260px|RapidLasso|link=http://www.rapidlasso.com/]]
 
http://www.rapidlasso.com/
|
[[File:Logo-Ioda-net.png|200px|Ioda-net|link=http://www.ioda-net.ch/]]
 
http://www.ioda-net.ch/
|
[[File:Logo-Compass.png|320px|Compass|link=http://www.compass.ie/]]
 
http://www.compass.ie/
|}
{| border=0 cellspacing=15 cellpadding=10
|
[[File:Logo-Azavea.png|280px|Azavea|link=http://www.azavea.com/]]
 
http://www.azavea.com/
|
[[File:Logo-AtolCD.png|320px|AtolCD|link=https://www.atolcd.com/]]
 
https://www.atolcd.com/
|}

=== Venue Sponsor ===

{| border=0 cellspacing=15 cellpadding=10
|
[[File:Logo-Mozilla.png|320px|Mozilla Foundation|link=https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/]]
 
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/
|}

=== Other/in-kind sponsors ===

{| border=0 cellspacing=15 cellpadding=10
|
[[File:Logo-Osgeo-fr.png|260px|OSGeo FR|link=http://osgeo.asso.fr/]]
 
http://osgeo.asso.fr/
|
[[File:OSGeo.png|260px|OSGeo|link=http://www.osgeo.org/]]
 
http://www.osgeo.org/
|}

== Purpose ==

Bring together project members to make decisions and tackle larger geospatial
problems as in previous years:

* [[Philadelphia Code Sprint 2015|Philadelphia]] (2015)
* [[Vienna Code Sprint 2014|Vienna]] (2014)
* [[Boston Code Sprint 2013|Boston]] (2013)
* [[IslandWood Code Sprint 2012|Island Wood (Seattle)]] (2012)
* [[Montreal Code Sprint 2011|Montreal]] (2011)
* [[New York Code Sprint 2010|New York City]] (2010)
* [[Toronto Code Sprint 2009|Toronto]] (2009)

== Dates and Times ==

Dates:
* Welcome event: evening of Mon, Feb 22
* Sprint: Tues, Feb 23 - Fri, Feb 26 (4 days)

== Place ==
* 16bis Boulevard Montmartre, 75009 Paris - Mozilla Foundation
* https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2883451098
* Metro: Grand Boulevard or Richelieu Drouot

'''To be noticed: For security reason, you have to be registered (on this Wiki page) to be allowed to enter in Mozilla place.'''

== Project Plans ==
(i.e what do you wish/want/plan to work on during the sprint ?)

* [[Paris_Code_Sprint_2016_:_PostGIS_Agenda|PostGIS Agenda]]
* [[Paris Code Sprint 2016 : SFCGAL Agenda|SFCGAL Agenda]]
* [http://wiki.orfeo-toolbox.org/index.php/OSGeo_Paris_Code_Sprint_2016 OTB Agenda]
* [[Paris Code Sprint 2016 : GDAL Agenda|GDAL Agenda]]

== Participants ==

We are planning for attendance of ~50. Please add your name and the projects
you are planning to sprint and note the likeliness of your attendance.

{| style="border: solid grey 1px; width:100%" class="sortable"
|+ Participants
|-
| # || Participant || Country || Organization || Arrival || Departure || Project Work on || Attendance / Notes
|-
| 1 || [[User:Olivier.courtin|Olivier Courtin]] || FR || Oslandia || first day || last day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Definite
|-
| 2 || [[User:kalxas|Angelos Tzotsos]] || GR || Remote Sensing Laboratory, NTUA || first day || last day || OSGeo-Live, pycsw, OTB || Booked
|-
| 3 || [[User:Schpidi|Stephan Meissl]] || AT || Eox ||first day || last day || MapServer || Booked
|-
| <s> # </s> || <s>Markus Schütz</s> || <s>AT</s> || || <s>first day</s> || <s>last day</s> || <s>Potree</s> || <s>Interested but unlikely</s> can't make it :(
|-
| 4 || [[User:msmitherdc|Michael Smith]] || US || US Army Corps of Engineers || first day || last day || PDAL / MapServer || Booked - Hotel Aston
|-
| 5 || [[User:hobu|Howard Butler]] || US || Hobu || first day || last day || PDAL / MapServer || Booked
|-
| 6 || [[User:lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]] || IT || Fondazione Edmund Mach || first day || last day || GRASS, OSGeo-Live || Booked
|-
| 7|| [[User:rouault|Even Rouault]] || FR || Spatialys || first day || last day || GDAL, MapServer, Proj.4? || Definite
|-
| 8 || [[User:mloskot|Mateusz Łoskot]] || PL || CadCorp || first day || last day || GDAL, PostGIS || Highly likely
|-
| 9|| [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]] || CA || MapGears || first day || last day || MapServer, GDAL/OGR || Booked
|-
|<s> # </s>|| <s>[[User:ianturton|Ian Turton]]</s>||<s>UK</s>|| || <s>first day</s>|| <s>last day</s> || <s>GeoTools, GeoServer, GeoNetwork? </s>|| <s>likely if any others from Java tribe appear</s> Have to work :-(
|-
| 10|| [[User:Aandre|Adrien André]]|| FR || || first day|| last day || GRASS || Very likely
|-
| 11 || Jérémy Gaillard || FR || Oslandia || first day || last day || Cesium buildings || Definite
|-
| 12|| [[User:Tbonfort|Thomas Bonfort]]|| FR || Terriscope || first day|| last day || MapServer || Definite
|-
| 13|| [[User:VincentP|Vincent Picavet]] || FR || Oslandia || first day|| last day || PostGIS/3D viz & streaming || Definite
|-
| 14|| [[User:Mhugo|Hugo Mercier]] || FR || Oslandia || first day|| last day || PostGIS/SFCGAL || Definite
|-
| 15|| [[User:Vmo|Vincent Mora]] || FR || Oslandia || first day|| third day || PostGIS/SFCGAL, Cesium building || Definite
|-
| 16|| [[User:Oscarmartinezrubi|Oscar Martinez Rubi]] || SP || Netherlands eScience Center|| first day|| last day || Potree / PDAL || Booked
|-
| 17|| Maarten van Meersbergen || NL || Netherlands eScience Center || first day|| last day || Potree / PDAL || Booked
|-
| 18|| Andrew Bell || US || || first day|| last day || PDAL || Booked
|-
| 19|| [[User:lastools|Martin Isenburg]] || DE || rapidlasso || first day|| last day || LASzip / QGIS || Booked
|-
| 20|| Connor Manning || US || || first day|| last day || PDAL/Potree || Booked
|-
|21|| Victor Poughon||FR|| CNES || first day||third day||Orfeo-toolbox||Booked
|-
|22|| Bruno Friedman||CH || Ioda-net || First day||Last day||Mapserver, Postgis, Potree||Definite
|-
|23|| Julien Enselme||FR|| Ioda-net || First day||Last day||Mapserver, Postgis, Potree||Definite
|-
|24|| Yann Chemin || FR || IWMI || first day || last day || GRASS || Definite
|-
|25|| [[User:remanuele|Rob Emanuele]] || US || Azavea || first day || last day || GDAL (https://git.io/vzZQJ) || Likely
|-
|26|| Paul Blottiere || FR || Oslandia || Second day || Last day || QGIS || Highly Likely
|-
|27|| Paul Ramsey || CA || CartoDB || First day || Last day || PostGIS || Booked
|-
|28|| Guillaume Pasero || FR || CS || First day || Third day || Orfeo ToolBox || Booked
|-
|29|| [[User:remic|Rémi Cura]] || FR || Thales/IGN || First day || Last Day || PostGIS?/PGPointCloud?/PDAL?/Potree? || Booked
|-
|30|| [[User:rjuju|Julien Rouhaud]] || FR || Dalibo || First day || Last Day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Highly Likely
|-
|31|| [[User:Sloriot|Sebastien Loriot]] || FR || GeometryFactory || Second day || Third Day || CGAL || Highly Likely
|-
|32|| Ronan Dunklau || FR || Dalibo || First day || Last Day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Highly Likely
|-
|33|| Tom van Tilburg || NL || Geodan || First day || Last Day || PostGIS (docs)/pgpointcloud || Booked
|-
|34|| Dan Baston || US || Maponics || First day || Last Day || PostGIS || Booked
|-
| 35 || [[User:Larss|Lars Schylberg]] || SE || Saab AB || First day || Last day || MapServer(doc/demo) || Booked - Hotel Astotel
|-
|36|| Maxence Ahlouche || FR || || First day || Last Day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Highly Likely
|-
|37|| Fabian Schindler || AT || Eox || First day || Last Day || MapServer/EOxServer || Highly Likely
|-
|38|| [[User:Lars|Lars Lingner]] || DE || || First day || Last Day || MapServer/(doc/demo/translation) || Booked
|-
|39|| Seth Girvin || IR || Compass || First day || (At least) Second Day || MapServer || Highly Likely
|-
|40|| Mickael Borne || FR || IGN || First day || Last Day || PostGIS/SFCGAL || Definite
|-
|41|| Guiseppe Broccolo || IT || 2nd Quadrant || First day || Last Day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Highly Likely
|-
|42|| [[User:Marcu|Marc Ducobu]] || BE || Champs Libre || First day || Last Day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Highly Likely
|-
|43|| Paul Norman || CA || CartoDB || First day || Last Day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Booked
|-
|44|| Nicolas Ribot || FR || || First day || Last Day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Highly Likely
|-
|45|| Mathieu Brédif || FR || IGN || First day || 2nd Day (at least) || PGPointCloud/Potree/itowns || Definite
|-
|46|| Quoc Dinh Nguyen || FR || IGN || First day || Last Day || Potree/itowns || Definite
|}

== Communication ==

* Please join the mailing list: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/tosprint
* IRC chat during the event: #tosprint Server: irc.freenode.net
* Twitter: #TOSprint ( https://twitter.com/search?q=tosprint )

== Costs ==

Participants should plan for the following costs:

* Travel to Paris
* Accommodation for four nights (including breakfast)

All other costs - food, outings and entertainment - should/will be covered by the sponsors

== Hotel and co ==

Center of Paris is indeed quite small, the sprint place quite central, and metro network quite dense. 
So no special need to be that close from the sprint place (anywhere else in Paris could also be fine, with less than 30-45' by tube).

However, nice hotels, quite close to the sprint place:
* http://www.astotel.com/hotel/hotel-le-34b/overview
* http://www.hotel20prieure.com/

A common way to find a discounted room in Paris is to use: booking.com

Paris is also well known to became an AirBNB city. 
Could be so a way to share (big) flat, among some sprinters.

And there's also hostels, for those who want/need to find a cheaper hosting solution.
* http://www.hostelworld.com/Paris

== Sponsors ==

We have three sponsorship levels:

* Gold: >= 2500 €
* Silver: 1500 €
* Bronze: 750 €

We encourage sponsors to support nutriment and entertainment for the
sprinters as they work hard and play hard for four or five productive days.
Contributions will be put towards lunch, snacks, and dinner costs for the
sprinters, and potentially bringing in sprinters who might otherwise be unable
to attend. Any surplus at the end of the event will be turned over to OSGeo or
used for a future code sprint.

Sponsors will receive the following honors:

* Your logo at the top of this page
* Mention in all of our public communication
* Our undying gratitude, which comes in handy when you least expect it (Remember that feature you wanted...)
* And as extra, for Silver and Gold: Kakemono in the event room (if you provide it)

To sponsor, please contact Olivier Courtin (olivier dot courtin at oslandia dot com) directly.

[[Category:Code Sprints]]
[[Category:C Tribe Code Sprint]]

FOSS4G 2016 Code Sprint

2016-02-04T12:47:44Z

Wiki-Lastools: added Martin Isenburg to participant list

== CodeSprint ==

Venue: Bonn, Germany

This year, once again, we are following the old tradition of hosting a codesprint on the FOSS4G. More precisely, we offer a setting so that individual projects can meet for their codesprint. Since projects benefit from each other as well, the codesprint will naturally be held conjointly at one place.
Unfortunately, circumstances have forced us to divide the codesprint timetable-wise.

[[Image:Basecamp5.png|200px|thumb|right]]
[[Image:Basecamp6.png|200px|thumb|right]]
[[Image:Basecamp7.png|200px|thumb|right]]
[[Image:Basecamp1.png|200px|thumb|right]]

'''The first part''' is scheduled to take place directly before the conference, the second immediately after. The first two and a half days start on Sunday, August 21, 2016 at around noon and are scheduled to end on Tuesday, August 23, 2016 (open end). The '''second part''' starts in the morning of Saturday, August 27, 2016 and ends on Sunday at 12 pm.

[[Image:Basecamp2.png|200px|thumb|right]]
[[Image:Basecamp3.png|200px|thumb|right]]

We are happy to have found a really '''awesome location''' for you. Codesprint and accommodations are combined in one hall. Check out http://www.basecamp-bonn.com/ for details about the venue.
Working zones will be created for you in the breakfast area and hallways. There’s the option of finding relatively inexpensive sleeping accommodations in train sleeping cars, camping buses, classic cars and more. Additionally, an outdoor area is available for you to enjoy Bonn’s summer weather in August, while working. Healthy and not-so-healthy catering of drinks and snacks will be provided by us. Participation in codesprint is free of charge. However, overnight stays will have to be reserved and paid for by you.

[[Image:Basecamp4.png|200px|thumb|right]]

Another hint: the BaseCamp is within '''walking distance from the conference venue''' (WCCB) and has good access to public transportation – the Icebreaker takes place here, too.
You see, it’s worthwhile booking here!

As the accommodations are available to all FOSS4G participants, we will make an effort to make advance booking possible for you a few days ahead, to ensure you have the opportunity to sleep on-site and wrap up the evenings jointly. For that, it’s necessary for you to sign up (https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2016_Code_Sprint) and leave your email address so that we can contact you immediately accomodation booking is available. We need your sign-up for the planning of snacks and drinks, too!

This is open to all who wish to participate in one or more projects. There’s always plenty to do – it’s not all about programming. Translation, documentation, feedback, discussions, testing – all this is also important for project so everyone is cordially invited to attend the codesprints! Registration with the conference is not a prerequisite for participation in codesprint.

One thing we’d like to ask you: with an approx. 120 participants anticipated, the WLAN capacity will naturally be exhausted at some point. Please be sure to avoid huge on-site downloads of data, as this could impact the work of others. Thank you!

The Codesprint Organizing Team is looking forward to your coming!

'''In summary:'''

'''When:'''
* Part I: Sun 2016-08-21 12:00 noon - Tue 2016-08-23 (open end)
* Part II: Sat 2016-08-27 - Sun 2016-08-28 12:00 noon

'''Where:'''
* Venue & Accommodation: BaseCamp. (For more informations: http://www.basecamp-bonn.com/)
* Nearby Hotel: Bonnox (http://www.bonnox.de/en/)

'''Questions/Comments/Ideas'''

* If you have questions/comments/ideas please let us know. Send an email to codesprint@foss4g2016.org. You are welcome!

== Registered Attendees ==

The Code Sprint does not cost any money. For us it makes planning easier if we know who is coming. So please leave your Name and mark the days you will come.

{| border="1" cellpadding="2" class="wikitable sortable"
!width="30"|No
!width="250"|Name
!width="250"|Email
!width="250"|Projects
!width="30"|sun
!width="30"|mon
!width="30"|tue
!width="30"|sat
!width="30"|sun
!width="60"|Accomodation
!width="30"|vegetarian food
|-
| 1 ||[[User:Astrid Emde|Astrid Emde]] || astrid_emde@osgeo.org || [[Mapbender]] & Organization || x || x || x || x || x || other || x
|-
| 2 ||[[User:rcoup|Rob Coup]] || robert@coup.net.nz || [[GDAL]], [[GeoServer]] || ? || x || x || x || ? || Basecamp? ||
|-
| 3 ||[[User:alfonx|Stefan Tzeggai]] || tzeggai@wikisquare.de || || - || - || x || x || - || Basecamp? ||
|-
| 4 ||[[User:Neteler|Markus Neteler]] || neteler@osgeo.org || [[GRASS GIS]] || x || x || x || x || x || other || x
|-
| 5 ||[[User:pcav|Paolo Cavallini]] || cavallini@faunalia.it || [[QGIS]] || x || x || x || x || x || Basecamp? ||
|-
| 6 ||[[User:Pirmin_Kalberer|Pirmin Kalberer]] || pka [ät] sourcepole.ch || [[QGIS]], [[GDAL]] || x || x || x || - || - || Basecamp ||
|-
| 7 ||[[User:neumann|Andreas Neumann]] || andreas [ät] qgis.org || [[QGIS]] || x || x || x || x || - || Basecamp ||
|-
| 8 ||[[User:timlinux|Tim Sutton]] || tim [ät] qgis.org || [[QGIS]] || x || x || x || x || - || Basecamp || yes
|-
| 9 ||[[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]] || lucadeluge @ gmail.com || [[GRASS GIS]] || x || x || x || x || x || Basecamp ||
|-
| 10 ||[[User:Schpidi|Stephan Meißl]]||stephan [ät] meissl.name||MapServer, EOxServer||?||?||x||-||-||Basecamp||
|-
| 11 ||[[User:lastools|Martin Isenburg]] || martin near rapidlasso.com || LASzip for LAS 1.4 || x || x || x || x || x || Basecamp ||
|-
| n ||Copy this line and add your details || || your projects || || || || || || Basecamp/other ||
|-
|}

= Workgroups =

== Mapbender ==

'''Attending:'''

* [[User:Astrid Emde]]

'''Goals:'''

* documentation

== GRASS GIS ==

'''Attending:'''

* [[User:Neteler|Markus Neteler]]
* [[User:Lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]]

'''Goals:'''

* planning towards GRASS GIS 8

== QGIS ==

'''Attending:'''

* [[User:pcav|Paolo Cavallini]]
* [[User:Pirmin_Kalberer|Pirmin Kalberer]]
* [[User:neumann|Andreas Neumann]]

'''Goals:'''

* working on QGIS 3.0
* porting plugins to Python 3
* Working on QWC II

== Project-name ==

To participate, copy this project skeleton and start a section below for your project.

'''Attending:'''

*user
*user

'''Goals:'''

*your goals

[[Category:FOSS4G2016]] [[Category:FOSS4G]] [[Category:Code_Sprints]]

Paris Code Sprint 2016

2015-12-22T13:18:09Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Participants */

== Purpose ==

Bring together project members to make decisions and tackle larger geospatial
problems as in previous years:

* [[Philadelphia Code Sprint 2015|Philadelphia]] (2015)
* [[Vienna Code Sprint 2014|Vienna]] (2014)
* [[Boston Code Sprint 2013|Boston]] (2013)
* [[IslandWood Code Sprint 2012|Island Wood (Seattle)]] (2012)
* [[Montreal Code Sprint 2011|Montreal]] (2011)
* [[New York Code Sprint 2010|New York City]] (2010)
* [[Toronto Code Sprint 2009|Toronto]] (2009)

== Dates and Times ==

Dates:
* Welcome event: evening of Mon, Feb 22
* Sprint: Tues, Feb 23 - Fri, Feb 26 (4 days)

== Place ==
* 16bis Boulevard Montmartre, 75009 Paris - Mozilla Foundation
* https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2883451098
* Metro: Grand Boulevard or Richelieu Drouot

== Project Plans ==
(i.e what do you wish/want/plan to work on during the sprint ?)

*
*

== Participants ==

We are planning for attendance of ~50. Please add your name and the projects
you are planning to sprint and note the likeliness of your attendance.

{| style="border: solid grey 1px; width:100%" class="sortable"
|+ Participants
|-
| # || Participant || Country || Arrival || Departure || Project Work on || Attendance / Notes
|-
| 1 || [[User:Olivier.courtin|Olivier Courtin]] || FR || first day || last day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Definite
|-
| 2 || [[User:kalxas|Angelos Tzotsos]] || GR || first day || last day || OSGeo-Live, pycsw || Very Likely
|-
| 3 || [[User:Schpidi|Stephan Meissl]] || AT || first day || last day || MapServer || Very Likely
|-
| 4 || [[Jeff McKenna]] || CA || second day || last day || MapServer || Very Likely
|-
| 5 || Markus Schütz || AT || first day || last day || Potree || Interested but not sure if able to
|-
| 6 || [[User:msmitherdc|Michael Smith]] || US || first day || last day || PDAL / MapServer || Highly likely
|-
| 7|| [[User:hobu|Howard Butler]] || US || first day || last day || PDAL / MapServer || Booked
|-
| 8|| [[User:lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]] || IT || first day || last day || GRASS, OSGeo-Live || Very likely
|-
| 9|| [[User:rouault|Even Rouault]] || FR || first day || last day || GDAL, MapServer, Proj.4? || Highly likely
|-
| 10|| [[User:mloskot|Mateusz Łoskot]] || PL || first day || last day || GDAL, PostGIS || Highly likely
|-
| 11|| [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]] || CA || first day || last day || MapServer, GDAL/OGR || Very likely
|-
| 12|| [[User:ianturton|Ian Turton]]||UK||first day|| last day || GeoTools, GeoServer, GeoNetwork? || likely if any others from Java tribe appear
|-
| 13|| [[User:Aandre|Adrien André]]|| FR ||first day|| last day || GRASS || Very likely
|-
| 14 || Jérémy Gaillard || FR || first day || last day || Cesium buildings || Definite
|-
| 15|| [[User:Tbonfort|Thomas Bonfort]]|| FR ||first day|| last day || MapServer || Very likely
|-
| 16|| [[User:VincentP|Vincent Picavet]] || FR ||first day|| last day || PostGIS/3D viz & streaming || Definite
|-
| 17|| [[User:Mhugo|Hugo Mercier]] || FR ||first day|| last day || PostGIS/SFCGAL || Definite
|-
| 18|| [[User:Ldgeo|Ludovic Delauné]] || FR ||first day|| third day || PostGIS/PointCloud || Definite
|-
| 19|| [[User:Vmo|Vincent Mora]] || FR ||first day|| third day || PostGIS/SFCGAL, Cesium building || Definite
|-
| 20|| [[User:Oscarmartinezrubi|Oscar Martinez Rubi]] || SP ||first day|| last day || Potree / PDAL || Very likely
|-
| 21|| Maarten van Meersbergen || NL ||first day|| last day || Potree / PDAL || Very likely
|-
| 22|| Andrew Bell || US ||first day|| last day || PDAL || Booked
|-
| 23|| Martin Isenburg || DE ||first day|| last day || LASzip / QGIS || Booked
|}

== Communication ==

* Please join the mailing list: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/tosprint
* IRC chat during the event: #tosprint Server: irc.freenode.net
* Twitter: #TOSprint ( https://twitter.com/search?q=tosprint )

== Costs ==

Participants should plan for the following costs:

* Travel to Paris
* Accommodation for four nights (including breakfast)

All other costs - food, outings and entertainment - should/will be covered by the sponsors

== Hotel and co ==

Center of Paris is indeed quite small, the sprint place quite central, and metro network quite dense. 
So no special need to be that close from the sprint place (anywhere else in Paris could also be fine, with less than 30-45' by tube).

However, nice hotels, quite close to the sprint place:
* http://www.astotel.com/hotel/hotel-le-34b/overview
* http://www.hotel20prieure.com/

A common way to find a discounted room in Paris is to use booking.com

Paris is also well known to became an AirBNB city. 
Could be so a way to share (big) flat, among some sprinters.

And there's also hostels, for those who want/need to find a cheaper hosting solution.
* http://www.hostelworld.com/Paris

== Sponsors ==

We have three sponsorship levels:

* Gold: > 2500 €
* Silver: 1500 €
* Bronze: 750 €

We encourage sponsors to support nutriment and entertainment for the
sprinters as they work hard and play hard for four or five productive days.
Contributions will be put towards lunch, snacks, and dinner costs for the
sprinters, and potentially bringing in sprinters who might otherwise be unable
to attend. Any surplus at the end of the event will be turned over to OSGeo or
used for a future code sprint.

Sponsors will receive the following honors:

* Your logo at the top of this page
* Mention in all of our public communication
* Our undying gratitude, which comes in handy when you least expect it (Remember that feature you wanted...)
* And as extra, for Silver and Gold: Kakemono in the event room (if you provide it)

To sponsor, please contact Olivier Courtin (oliver dot courtin at oslandia dot com) directly.

[[Category:Code Sprints]]
[[Category:C Tribe Code Sprint]]

Paris Code Sprint 2016

2015-12-22T13:17:30Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Participants */

== Purpose ==

Bring together project members to make decisions and tackle larger geospatial
problems as in previous years:

* [[Philadelphia Code Sprint 2015|Philadelphia]] (2015)
* [[Vienna Code Sprint 2014|Vienna]] (2014)
* [[Boston Code Sprint 2013|Boston]] (2013)
* [[IslandWood Code Sprint 2012|Island Wood (Seattle)]] (2012)
* [[Montreal Code Sprint 2011|Montreal]] (2011)
* [[New York Code Sprint 2010|New York City]] (2010)
* [[Toronto Code Sprint 2009|Toronto]] (2009)

== Dates and Times ==

Dates:
* Welcome event: evening of Mon, Feb 22
* Sprint: Tues, Feb 23 - Fri, Feb 26 (4 days)

== Place ==
* 16bis Boulevard Montmartre, 75009 Paris - Mozilla Foundation
* https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2883451098
* Metro: Grand Boulevard or Richelieu Drouot

== Project Plans ==
(i.e what do you wish/want/plan to work on during the sprint ?)

*
*

== Participants ==

We are planning for attendance of ~50. Please add your name and the projects
you are planning to sprint and note the likeliness of your attendance.

{| style="border: solid grey 1px; width:100%" class="sortable"
|+ Participants
|-
| # || Participant || Country || Arrival || Departure || Project Work on || Attendance / Notes
|-
| 1 || [[User:Olivier.courtin|Olivier Courtin]] || FR || first day || last day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Definite
|-
| 2 || [[User:kalxas|Angelos Tzotsos]] || GR || first day || last day || OSGeo-Live, pycsw || Very Likely
|-
| 3 || [[User:Schpidi|Stephan Meissl]] || AT || first day || last day || MapServer || Very Likely
|-
| 4 || [[Jeff McKenna]] || CA || second day || last day || MapServer || Very Likely
|-
| 5 || Markus Schütz || A || first day || last day || Potree || Interested but not sure if able to
|-
| 6 || [[User:msmitherdc|Michael Smith]] || US || first day || last day || PDAL / MapServer || Highly likely
|-
| 7|| [[User:hobu|Howard Butler]] || US || first day || last day || PDAL / MapServer || Booked
|-
| 8|| [[User:lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]] || IT || first day || last day || GRASS, OSGeo-Live || Very likely
|-
| 9|| [[User:rouault|Even Rouault]] || FR || first day || last day || GDAL, MapServer, Proj.4? || Highly likely
|-
| 10|| [[User:mloskot|Mateusz Łoskot]] || PL || first day || last day || GDAL, PostGIS || Highly likely
|-
| 11|| [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]] || CA || first day || last day || MapServer, GDAL/OGR || Very likely
|-
| 12|| [[User:ianturton|Ian Turton]]||UK||first day|| last day || GeoTools, GeoServer, GeoNetwork? || likely if any others from Java tribe appear
|-
| 13|| [[User:Aandre|Adrien André]]|| FR ||first day|| last day || GRASS || Very likely
|-
| 14 || Jérémy Gaillard || FR || first day || last day || Cesium buildings || Definite
|-
| 15|| [[User:Tbonfort|Thomas Bonfort]]|| FR ||first day|| last day || MapServer || Very likely
|-
| 16|| [[User:VincentP|Vincent Picavet]] || FR ||first day|| last day || PostGIS/3D viz & streaming || Definite
|-
| 17|| [[User:Mhugo|Hugo Mercier]] || FR ||first day|| last day || PostGIS/SFCGAL || Definite
|-
| 18|| [[User:Ldgeo|Ludovic Delauné]] || FR ||first day|| third day || PostGIS/PointCloud || Definite
|-
| 19|| [[User:Vmo|Vincent Mora]] || FR ||first day|| third day || PostGIS/SFCGAL, Cesium building || Definite
|-
| 20|| [[User:Oscarmartinezrubi|Oscar Martinez Rubi]] || SP ||first day|| last day || Potree / PDAL || Very likely
|-
| 21|| Maarten van Meersbergen || NL ||first day|| last day || Potree / PDAL || Very likely
|-
| 22|| Andrew Bell || US ||first day|| last day || PDAL || Booked
|-
| 22|| Martin Isenburg || DE ||first day|| last day || LASzip / QGIS || Booked
|}

== Communication ==

* Please join the mailing list: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/tosprint
* IRC chat during the event: #tosprint Server: irc.freenode.net
* Twitter: #TOSprint ( https://twitter.com/search?q=tosprint )

== Costs ==

Participants should plan for the following costs:

* Travel to Paris
* Accommodation for four nights (including breakfast)

All other costs - food, outings and entertainment - should/will be covered by the sponsors

== Hotel and co ==

Center of Paris is indeed quite small, the sprint place quite central, and metro network quite dense. 
So no special need to be that close from the sprint place (anywhere else in Paris could also be fine, with less than 30-45' by tube).

However, nice hotels, quite close to the sprint place:
* http://www.astotel.com/hotel/hotel-le-34b/overview
* http://www.hotel20prieure.com/

A common way to find a discounted room in Paris is to use booking.com

Paris is also well known to became an AirBNB city. 
Could be so a way to share (big) flat, among some sprinters.

And there's also hostels, for those who want/need to find a cheaper hosting solution.
* http://www.hostelworld.com/Paris

== Sponsors ==

We have three sponsorship levels:

* Gold: > 2500 €
* Silver: 1500 €
* Bronze: 750 €

We encourage sponsors to support nutriment and entertainment for the
sprinters as they work hard and play hard for four or five productive days.
Contributions will be put towards lunch, snacks, and dinner costs for the
sprinters, and potentially bringing in sprinters who might otherwise be unable
to attend. Any surplus at the end of the event will be turned over to OSGeo or
used for a future code sprint.

Sponsors will receive the following honors:

* Your logo at the top of this page
* Mention in all of our public communication
* Our undying gratitude, which comes in handy when you least expect it (Remember that feature you wanted...)
* And as extra, for Silver and Gold: Kakemono in the event room (if you provide it)

To sponsor, please contact Olivier Courtin (oliver dot courtin at oslandia dot com) directly.

[[Category:Code Sprints]]
[[Category:C Tribe Code Sprint]]

Paris Code Sprint 2016

2015-12-22T13:16:40Z

Wiki-Lastools: added Martin Isenburg to participant list

== Purpose ==

Bring together project members to make decisions and tackle larger geospatial
problems as in previous years:

* [[Philadelphia Code Sprint 2015|Philadelphia]] (2015)
* [[Vienna Code Sprint 2014|Vienna]] (2014)
* [[Boston Code Sprint 2013|Boston]] (2013)
* [[IslandWood Code Sprint 2012|Island Wood (Seattle)]] (2012)
* [[Montreal Code Sprint 2011|Montreal]] (2011)
* [[New York Code Sprint 2010|New York City]] (2010)
* [[Toronto Code Sprint 2009|Toronto]] (2009)

== Dates and Times ==

Dates:
* Welcome event: evening of Mon, Feb 22
* Sprint: Tues, Feb 23 - Fri, Feb 26 (4 days)

== Place ==
* 16bis Boulevard Montmartre, 75009 Paris - Mozilla Foundation
* https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2883451098
* Metro: Grand Boulevard or Richelieu Drouot

== Project Plans ==
(i.e what do you wish/want/plan to work on during the sprint ?)

*
*

== Participants ==

We are planning for attendance of ~50. Please add your name and the projects
you are planning to sprint and note the likeliness of your attendance.

{| style="border: solid grey 1px; width:100%" class="sortable"
|+ Participants
|-
| # || Participant || Country || Arrival || Departure || Project Work on || Attendance / Notes
|-
| 1 || [[User:Olivier.courtin|Olivier Courtin]] || FR || first day || last day || PostgreSQL/PostGIS || Definite
|-
| 2 || [[User:kalxas|Angelos Tzotsos]] || GR || first day || last day || OSGeo-Live, pycsw || Very Likely
|-
| 3 || [[User:Schpidi|Stephan Meissl]] || AT || first day || last day || MapServer || Very Likely
|-
| 4 || [[Jeff McKenna]] || CA || second day || last day || MapServer || Very Likely
|-
| 5 || Markus Schütz || A || first day || last day || Potree || Interested but not sure if able to
|-
| 6 || [[User:msmitherdc|Michael Smith]] || US || first day || last day || PDAL / MapServer || Highly likely
|-
| 7|| [[User:hobu|Howard Butler]] || US || first day || last day || PDAL / MapServer || Booked
|-
| 8|| [[User:lucadelu|Luca Delucchi]] || IT || first day || last day || GRASS, OSGeo-Live || Very likely
|-
| 9|| [[User:rouault|Even Rouault]] || FR || first day || last day || GDAL, MapServer, Proj.4? || Highly likely
|-
| 10|| [[User:mloskot|Mateusz Łoskot]] || PL || first day || last day || GDAL, PostGIS || Highly likely
|-
| 11|| [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]] || CA || first day || last day || MapServer, GDAL/OGR || Very likely
|-
| 12|| [[User:ianturton|Ian Turton]]||UK||first day|| last day || GeoTools, GeoServer, GeoNetwork? || likely if any others from Java tribe appear
|-
| 13|| [[User:Aandre|Adrien André]]|| FR ||first day|| last day || GRASS || Very likely
|-
| 14 || Jérémy Gaillard || FR || first day || last day || Cesium buildings || Definite
|-
| 15|| [[User:Tbonfort|Thomas Bonfort]]|| FR ||first day|| last day || MapServer || Very likely
|-
| 16|| [[User:VincentP|Vincent Picavet]] || FR ||first day|| last day || PostGIS/3D viz & streaming || Definite
|-
| 17|| [[User:Mhugo|Hugo Mercier]] || FR ||first day|| last day || PostGIS/SFCGAL || Definite
|-
| 18|| [[User:Ldgeo|Ludovic Delauné]] || FR ||first day|| third day || PostGIS/PointCloud || Definite
|-
| 19|| [[User:Vmo|Vincent Mora]] || FR ||first day|| third day || PostGIS/SFCGAL, Cesium building || Definite
|-
| 20|| [[User:Oscarmartinezrubi|Oscar Martinez Rubi]] || SP ||first day|| last day || Potree / PDAL || Very likely
|-
| 21|| Maarten van Meersbergen || NL ||first day|| last day || Potree / PDAL || Very likely
|-
| 22|| Andrew Bell || US ||first day|| last day || PDAL || Booked
|-
| 22|| Martin Isenburg || Germany ||first day|| last day || LASzip / QGIS || Booked
|}

== Communication ==

* Please join the mailing list: http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/tosprint
* IRC chat during the event: #tosprint Server: irc.freenode.net
* Twitter: #TOSprint ( https://twitter.com/search?q=tosprint )

== Costs ==

Participants should plan for the following costs:

* Travel to Paris
* Accommodation for four nights (including breakfast)

All other costs - food, outings and entertainment - should/will be covered by the sponsors

== Hotel and co ==

Center of Paris is indeed quite small, the sprint place quite central, and metro network quite dense. 
So no special need to be that close from the sprint place (anywhere else in Paris could also be fine, with less than 30-45' by tube).

However, nice hotels, quite close to the sprint place:
* http://www.astotel.com/hotel/hotel-le-34b/overview
* http://www.hotel20prieure.com/

A common way to find a discounted room in Paris is to use booking.com

Paris is also well known to became an AirBNB city. 
Could be so a way to share (big) flat, among some sprinters.

And there's also hostels, for those who want/need to find a cheaper hosting solution.
* http://www.hostelworld.com/Paris

== Sponsors ==

We have three sponsorship levels:

* Gold: > 2500 €
* Silver: 1500 €
* Bronze: 750 €

We encourage sponsors to support nutriment and entertainment for the
sprinters as they work hard and play hard for four or five productive days.
Contributions will be put towards lunch, snacks, and dinner costs for the
sprinters, and potentially bringing in sprinters who might otherwise be unable
to attend. Any surplus at the end of the event will be turned over to OSGeo or
used for a future code sprint.

Sponsors will receive the following honors:

* Your logo at the top of this page
* Mention in all of our public communication
* Our undying gratitude, which comes in handy when you least expect it (Remember that feature you wanted...)
* And as extra, for Silver and Gold: Kakemono in the event room (if you provide it)

To sponsor, please contact Olivier Courtin (oliver dot courtin at oslandia dot com) directly.

[[Category:Code Sprints]]
[[Category:C Tribe Code Sprint]]

OGC Membership

2015-07-10T08:28:09Z

Wiki-Lastools: Martin joints to represent OSGeo in new OGC Point Cloud group

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-05-07T05:34:20Z

Wiki-Lastools: fixed small mix-up between LASzip and LASlib

== Cover Letter from the OSGeo Board of Directors ==

The Board of the [http://osgeo.org Open Source Geospatial Foundation] (OSGeo) is presenting this letter to the geospatial community at large. The letter highlights concerns about the need for standards in LiDAR data formats, from many people within the OSGeo community. Although specific organizations are named in the letter, the OSGeo Board of Directors would like to focus on the general importance of standards in the industry, and learn from this example so we can make geospatial information easily accessible to all users. As always, if there is anything that the OSGeo Board can do to help, then please let us know.

Signed:
* Jeff McKenna (OSGeo President), Michael Smith (OSGeo Treasurer), Jáchym Čepický (OSGeo Secretary), Massimiliano Cannata, Vasile Craciunescu, Bart van den Eijnden, Gérald Fenoy, Anne Ghisla, Jorge Sanz

=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 joins with 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 LASlib.
# 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]; Professor in GIS, databases, open (government) data and interoperability; maintainer of GeoConverter; contributor to open source software (GDAL/OGR, QGIS).
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/phogan Patrick Hogan], [http://goworldwind.org/ 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, [http://www.polimi.it/en/university/ Politecnico di Milano]. Geo For All, committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Policy and to Open Principles in Research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ronfortunato 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bob-basques/14/8B2/537 Bob Basques], Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], Researcher and software developer, OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/raulnanclares Raul Nanclares], RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lucas-c-villa-real/7/a0b/b06 Lucas Villa Real], Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Warmerda Frank Warmerdam], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/etiennebracine Etienne B. Racine], Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alejandro-hinojosa/7/33b/342 Alejandro Hinojosa], [http://cicese.mx CICESE Research Center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:epifanio Massimo Di Stefano], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://clas.ucdenver.edu/directory/faculty-staff/Rafael-Moreno Rafael Moreno], University of Colorado Denver, [http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/ges/Pages/Geography.aspx Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences]. Openness is fundamental to progress.
# Peter Drexel, GIS manager, [http://www.vorarlberg.at/vorarlberg/bauen_wohnen/bauen/vermessung_geoinformation/start.htm State of Vorarlberg (State Survey Office)], Austria
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marco-minghini/a8/3b6/198 Marco Minghini], Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano]. Committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/candan-eyl%C3%BCl-kilsedar/65/380/976 Candan Eylül Kilsedar], WebGIS Developer, Research Fellow at [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AlastairMcKinstry Alastair McKinstry], Debian Linux meteorology/GIS developer, Ireland
# [http://people.unibo.it/it/elena.mezzini2 Elena Mezzini], Remote-sensing in forest ecology, Research Fellow, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=43566064 Mihai A. Tanase], Honorary fellow, Dept. of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-murray/10/742/3a2 Dave Murray], GIS Coordinator at [http://www.ci.westminster.co.us/ City of Westminster]
# Ayesa Martínez Serrano, Estudiante de Doctorado en [http://www.ciga.unam.mx/ Geografía del Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental de la UNAM-México]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/christopher-crosby/15/b7/114 Christopher Crosby], co-founder, [http://www.opentopography.org/ OpenTopography]
# [http://sg.linkedin.com/in/sgganesh Shanmugam Ganeshkumar], Vice President - Consulting, [http://www.geoicon.com GeoICON]
# [[User:Chaitanya|Chaitanya Kumar CH]], GIS Developer with [http://www.egis-geoplan.com/ Egis Geoplan - India] and OSGeo Charter member.
# KS Rajan, Associate Professor and Head, [http://lsi.iiit.ac.in/ Lab for Spatial Informatics, IIIT Hyderabad] and Chairman, [http://www.kaiinos.com/ KAIINOS Geospatial Technologies]; Promoter and Supported of Open Source, Open Data, Open Standards and e-Governance in India
# Pericles Nacionales, RS/GIS Specialist and OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/vasilecraciunescu Vasile Crăciunescu], Researcher at Romanian National Meteorological Administration and OSGeo Board member.
# [http://geo.tuwien.ac.at/staff/andreas-roncat/ Andreas Roncat] PostDoc Researcher, Research Groups Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, [http://www.geo.tuwien.ac.at/ Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation], Vienna University of Technology, Austria. In full agreement with [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin]: Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:remanuele Rob Emanuele], Software Developer, Azavea Inc.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/iliecodrinamaria Codrina Ilie], Researcher at the Groundwater Engineering Research Center, [http://utcb.ro/utcb/index_en.html Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest] and OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Djay Gérald Fenoy], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter Member.
# [http://www.aston.ac.uk/eas/staff/a-z/dr-lucy-bastin/ Lucy Bastin], Software Developer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission / Computer Science lecturer, UncertML developer, Member of OGC SWG on User Feedback.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/matt-wilkie/b1/3b1/a35 Matt Wilkie], Geomatics Analyst at [http://www.gov.yk.ca/ Yukon Government], [http://www.env.gov.yk.ca/geomatics Department of Environment]. A practising GIS Professional for 20+ years. Throughout that time, the process of manipulating data into, through and out of proprietary formats has been the most aggravating source of inefficiency and wasted time. Things are hard enough without adding unnecessary barriers.
# [[User:Annakrat|Anna Petrasova]], OSGeo Charter Member, GRASS GIS developer
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-seibel-gisp/45/517/942 Mark Seibel], Geospatial Hacker. Long live open Geo data & software.
# [http://www.wrsc.org/people/ben-discoe Ben Discoe], [http://vterrain.org/ Virtual Terrain Project] and [http://www.leica-geosystems.us/en/HDS-Laser-Scanners-SW_5570.htm Leica Geosystems HDS], I wrangle point clouds every day. Semi-open E57 is bad enough. No more closed formats!
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ilda-clos/19/21b/391 Ilda Clos], GIS & IWRM specialist
# [[User:Danielkastl|Daniel Kastl]], Founder [http://georepublic.info Georepublic] and OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Geejee Gert-Jan van der Weijden] Chairman of OSGeo.nl (local Dutch chapter)
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:rjhale1971 Randal Hale] Owner of North River Geographic Systems, Inc
# Volker Wichmann, [http://www.saga-gis.org SAGA GIS] and [http://www.laserdata.at LASERDATA LIS] developer
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/erictheise Eric Theise], Software Developer, San Francisco, CA.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/geogeek Darrell Fuhriman], Director of Technology, Renewable Funding/ Adjunct Instructor, [http://www.pdx.edu/geography/ Department of Geography, Portland State University]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ilkka-korpela/85/96/875 Ilkka Korpela], Academy Research Fellow, [http://university.helsinki.fi/en University of Helsinki]. Open formats benefit everyone.
# [http://www.pdx.edu/profile/meet-researcher-david-percy David Percy], Faculty, [http://geology.pdx.edu/ Dept of Geology, Portland State University].
# [http://dggs.alaska.gov/pubs/staff/kawoods Ken Woods], [http://dggs.alaska.gov/ Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys]. Providing a web-based map interface to the entire collection of [http://maps.dggs.alaska.gov/elevationdata all publicly available point-cloud data] in Alaska, USA.
# [[User:Wenzeslaus|Vaclav Petras]], using [http://grass.osgeo.org/grass70/manuals/r.in.lidar.html r.in.lidar] and [http://grass.osgeo.org/grass70/manuals/v.in.lidar.html v.in.lidar] in [http://grass.osgeo.org/ GRASS GIS] and afraid of [http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/elibrary/case/complex-singularity-versus-openness formats embraced by one vendor]
# [http://cehv.osu.edu/people/nespor.2 Jan Nespor], [http://www.osu.edu/ Ohio State University]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcosninoruiz Dr. Marcos Nino-Ruiz], Geospatial e-Enabler, [http://aurin.org.au/ AURIN] - [http://www.unimelb.edu.au/ The University of Melbourne], Australia
# Ed Russell, [http://www.ctmap.com/Computer Terrain Mapping, Inc.], Longmont, Colorado
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jim-robb/3/90/195 Jim Robb], [http://www.ziadesigngroup.com/ Zia Design Group/Zia Maps LLC], Boulder, Colorado. Establish and legally support an Open LiDAR format.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/travis-flohr/6/8a3/938 Travis Flohr], [http://la.wisc.edu/ University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Landscape Architecture]. Open geo standards are imperative to be successful in a transdisciplinary and collaborative world.
# [http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/iges/staff/academic-staff/pfb/ Pete Bunting] Senior Lecturer in Remote Sensing within the [http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/iges Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University] and developer of the open source [http://www.spdlib.org SPDLib] software package for processing LiDAR data.
# Chris Clasen, Lidar Scientist, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
# [http://au.linkedin.com/in/peterscarth Peter Scarth] Senior Research Scientist [http://www.gpem.uq.edu.au/jrsrp Joint Remote Sensing Research Program]. Open standards are essential for research data archival and reuse.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Just Just van den Broecke] OSGeo Charter member and Secretary of OSGeo.nl (Dutch Local Chapter)
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:fjbehr Franz-Josef Behr] Professor of spatial information processing at Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/monia-molinari/8a/b78/a48 Monia Elisa Molinari], Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# Don Brown, USGS, Enterprise GIS Specialist.
# [http://www.xing.com/profile/Thomas_Baumann84 Thomas Baumann], [http://geosysnet.de geoSYS], Project Manager GIS+Webmapping.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:mlennert Moritz Lennert], Université Libre de Bruxelles, Member of the GRASS GIS PSC
# Paulo Machado, [http://www.ptinovacao.pt/en/ Portugal Telecom Inovação] Committed to open data standards and open source software.
# [http://igeat.ulb.ac.be/fr/equipe/details/person/eleonore-wolff/ Eleonore Wolff], [http://www.ulb.ac.be/facs/sciences/index.html Universite Libre de Bruxelles]
# [http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Romanuel_Ramon_Antunez/ Romanuel Ramon Antunez], Member of UACEE, GIS Developer, Professor at [http://www.uci.cu University of Informatics Science], Cuba.
# [http://ajolma.net Ari Jolma], Biwatech Ltd.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pmeems Paul Meems], Active GIS developer in the [http://mapwindow4.codeplex.com/ MapWindow Open Source GIS] team.
# [http://www4.ncsu.edu/~ljsox Leslie John Sox], Master's GIS Student, NCSU Center for Geospatial Analytics,[http://cnr.ncsu.edu/geospatial], Degrees in Laser and Electro-Optics Technology, Geospatial Information Science, Raleigh, NC.
#[http://carlosgrohmann.com Carlos H. Grohmann], Assistant Professor (GIS/RS), University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:cschweik Charles Schweik], Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Rhaubourg Régis Haubourg], GIS manager, Adour-Garonne Water Basin Agency, France
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:kalxas Angelos Tzotsos], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:EdzerPebesma Edzer Pebesma], Professor, Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Muenster
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:oosterkamp Hugo Oosterkamp], Consultant Water & Sanitation
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:brylie Brylie Christopher Oxley] Free/Open Source software developer
# [http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Riccardo_Civico Riccardo Civico] Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Italy
# [http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlo_Alberto_Brunori Carlo Alberto Brunori] Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Italy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Rashad Rashad KM], Developer, OSGeo Charter Member.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:anibal Aníbal Pacheco], Developer, [http://agesic.gub.uy/ e-Government Agency], Uruguay.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Newmat Mattias Nyström], Researcher, [http://blogg.slu.se/fjarranalys/ Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences], Sweden. PhD in remote sensing of forests and now working with time series of remote sensing data and a remote sensing lab for the forestry education at the University.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/tom-mueller/7/a41/911 Thomas Mueller], Ph.D., GISP, California University of Pennsylvania, [http://www.calu.edu/academics/colleges/eberly/earth-science/index.htm Department of Earth Sciences]

=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, but one that uses laser light instead of radio 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 announced, 12 January 2014, 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 implementation of the "Optimized LAS" format is not available as Open Source and the format and algorithm details itself are undocumented, which means nobody can currently create alternate implementations, neither closed nor Open Source. This causes both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. It 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 Windows only library (DLL) as a free-of-charge (gratis) download that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between a "free-of-charge" binary distribution of DLLs and publishing something as "Open Source". Unless the source code of the library is released as Open Source under an Open Source 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.

Ironically, ESRI later placed their '''binary''' library files [http://github.com/Esri/esri-zlas-io-library on github] accompanied by an Apache License, but no source code was published. The distribution of binaries without source code is allowed by Apache License, but very uncommon and misleading, to say the least. The practice goes against the basic idea of “Open Source” and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) even has an FAQ entry on the obvious contradiction of [http://opensource.org/faq#non-distribution “Open Source” without source code].

==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. Their new proprietary *.lasx files were seemingly identical in functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] two years earlier - 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 – [http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT], Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office</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=

# [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg]
# [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/ ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 ESRI description of "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list]
# [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/esris-claim-at-being-good-standards.html Refuting ESRI's response and claim to be good Open Standards citizens]
# [http://blog.abs-cg.com/2015/04/lidar-format-wars-creep-into-geospatial.html Questioning why some spatial media are not running this story]

News coverage:
# [http://www.itnews.com.au/News/402914,open-source-devs-in-uproar-over-esri-las-lock-in-plans.aspx IT News]
# [http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/04/21/1624219/osgeo-foundation-up-in-arms-over-esri-las-lock-in-plans Slashdot]
# [http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/LIDAR-offenes-Dateiformat-LAS-in-Bedraengnis-2609710.html Heise Online] [http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Lidar-Format-War-Geo-Softwarehaus-Esri-vs-Geo-Community-2615341.html Follow-Up] - German speaking IT news.
# [http://www.spatialsource.com.au/2015/04/21/os-developers-concerned-over-new-esri-lidar-format/ Spatial Source]
# [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-great-airplane-laser-debate-is-as-youd-expect-about-file-formats Motherboard]
# [http://geohipster.com/2015/05/04/martin-isenburg-may-the-foss-be-with-laz/ GeoHipster]

Blog coverage:
# [http://blog.abs-cg.com/2015/04/lidar-format-wars-creep-into-geospatial.html Adena Schutzberg]
# [http://odoepner.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/osgeo-open-letter-lidar-laszip-vs-esri/ Oliver Doepner]
# [http://www.northrivergeographic.com/archives/esri-osgeo-lidar-and-things Randal Hale]

=References=

<references />

[[Category: Standards]]

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-05-04T22:48:17Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Further Reading */

== Cover Letter from the OSGeo Board of Directors ==

The Board of the [http://osgeo.org Open Source Geospatial Foundation] (OSGeo) is presenting this letter to the geospatial community at large. The letter highlights concerns about the need for standards in LiDAR data formats, from many people within the OSGeo community. Although specific organizations are named in the letter, the OSGeo Board of Directors would like to focus on the general importance of standards in the industry, and learn from this example so we can make geospatial information easily accessible to all users. As always, if there is anything that the OSGeo Board can do to help, then please let us know.

Signed:
* Jeff McKenna (OSGeo President), Michael Smith (OSGeo Treasurer), Jáchym Čepický (OSGeo Secretary), Massimiliano Cannata, Vasile Craciunescu, Bart van den Eijnden, Gérald Fenoy, Anne Ghisla, Jorge Sanz

=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 joins with 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]; Professor in GIS, databases, open (government) data and interoperability; maintainer of GeoConverter; contributor to open source software (GDAL/OGR, QGIS).
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/phogan Patrick Hogan], [http://goworldwind.org/ 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, [http://www.polimi.it/en/university/ Politecnico di Milano]. Geo For All, committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Policy and to Open Principles in Research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ronfortunato 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bob-basques/14/8B2/537 Bob Basques], Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], Researcher and software developer, OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/raulnanclares Raul Nanclares], RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lucas-c-villa-real/7/a0b/b06 Lucas Villa Real], Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Warmerda Frank Warmerdam], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/etiennebracine Etienne B. Racine], Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alejandro-hinojosa/7/33b/342 Alejandro Hinojosa], [http://cicese.mx CICESE Research Center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:epifanio Massimo Di Stefano], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://clas.ucdenver.edu/directory/faculty-staff/Rafael-Moreno Rafael Moreno], University of Colorado Denver, [http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/ges/Pages/Geography.aspx Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences]. Openness is fundamental to progress.
# Peter Drexel, GIS manager, [http://www.vorarlberg.at/vorarlberg/bauen_wohnen/bauen/vermessung_geoinformation/start.htm State of Vorarlberg (State Survey Office)], Austria
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marco-minghini/a8/3b6/198 Marco Minghini], Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano]. Committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/candan-eyl%C3%BCl-kilsedar/65/380/976 Candan Eylül Kilsedar], WebGIS Developer, Research Fellow at [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AlastairMcKinstry Alastair McKinstry], Debian Linux meteorology/GIS developer, Ireland
# [http://people.unibo.it/it/elena.mezzini2 Elena Mezzini], Remote-sensing in forest ecology, Research Fellow, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=43566064 Mihai A. Tanase], Honorary fellow, Dept. of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-murray/10/742/3a2 Dave Murray], GIS Coordinator at [http://www.ci.westminster.co.us/ City of Westminster]
# Ayesa Martínez Serrano, Estudiante de Doctorado en [http://www.ciga.unam.mx/ Geografía del Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental de la UNAM-México]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/christopher-crosby/15/b7/114 Christopher Crosby], co-founder, [http://www.opentopography.org/ OpenTopography]
# [http://sg.linkedin.com/in/sgganesh Shanmugam Ganeshkumar], Vice President - Consulting, [http://www.geoicon.com GeoICON]
# [[User:Chaitanya|Chaitanya Kumar CH]], GIS Developer with [http://www.egis-geoplan.com/ Egis Geoplan - India] and OSGeo Charter member.
# KS Rajan, Associate Professor and Head, [http://lsi.iiit.ac.in/ Lab for Spatial Informatics, IIIT Hyderabad] and Chairman, [http://www.kaiinos.com/ KAIINOS Geospatial Technologies]; Promoter and Supported of Open Source, Open Data, Open Standards and e-Governance in India
# Pericles Nacionales, RS/GIS Specialist and OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/vasilecraciunescu Vasile Crăciunescu], Researcher at Romanian National Meteorological Administration and OSGeo Board member.
# [http://geo.tuwien.ac.at/staff/andreas-roncat/ Andreas Roncat] PostDoc Researcher, Research Groups Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, [http://www.geo.tuwien.ac.at/ Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation], Vienna University of Technology, Austria. In full agreement with [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin]: Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:remanuele Rob Emanuele], Software Developer, Azavea Inc.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/iliecodrinamaria Codrina Ilie], Researcher at the Groundwater Engineering Research Center, [http://utcb.ro/utcb/index_en.html Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest] and OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Djay Gérald Fenoy], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter Member.
# [http://www.aston.ac.uk/eas/staff/a-z/dr-lucy-bastin/ Lucy Bastin], Software Developer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission / Computer Science lecturer, UncertML developer, Member of OGC SWG on User Feedback.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/matt-wilkie/b1/3b1/a35 Matt Wilkie], Geomatics Analyst at [http://www.gov.yk.ca/ Yukon Government], [http://www.env.gov.yk.ca/geomatics Department of Environment]. A practising GIS Professional for 20+ years. Throughout that time, the process of manipulating data into, through and out of proprietary formats has been the most aggravating source of inefficiency and wasted time. Things are hard enough without adding unnecessary barriers.
# [[User:Annakrat|Anna Petrasova]], OSGeo Charter Member, GRASS GIS developer
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-seibel-gisp/45/517/942 Mark Seibel], Geospatial Hacker. Long live open Geo data & software.
# [http://www.wrsc.org/people/ben-discoe Ben Discoe], [http://vterrain.org/ Virtual Terrain Project] and [http://www.leica-geosystems.us/en/HDS-Laser-Scanners-SW_5570.htm Leica Geosystems HDS], I wrangle point clouds every day. Semi-open E57 is bad enough. No more closed formats!
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ilda-clos/19/21b/391 Ilda Clos], GIS & IWRM specialist
# [[User:Danielkastl|Daniel Kastl]], Founder [http://georepublic.info Georepublic] and OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Geejee Gert-Jan van der Weijden] Chairman of OSGeo.nl (local Dutch chapter)
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:rjhale1971 Randal Hale] Owner of North River Geographic Systems, Inc
# Volker Wichmann, [http://www.saga-gis.org SAGA GIS] and [http://www.laserdata.at LASERDATA LIS] developer
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/erictheise Eric Theise], Software Developer, San Francisco, CA.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/geogeek Darrell Fuhriman], Director of Technology, Renewable Funding/ Adjunct Instructor, [http://www.pdx.edu/geography/ Department of Geography, Portland State University]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ilkka-korpela/85/96/875 Ilkka Korpela], Academy Research Fellow, [http://university.helsinki.fi/en University of Helsinki]. Open formats benefit everyone.
# [http://www.pdx.edu/profile/meet-researcher-david-percy David Percy], Faculty, [http://geology.pdx.edu/ Dept of Geology, Portland State University].
# [http://dggs.alaska.gov/pubs/staff/kawoods Ken Woods], [http://dggs.alaska.gov/ Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys]. Providing a web-based map interface to the entire collection of [http://maps.dggs.alaska.gov/elevationdata all publicly available point-cloud data] in Alaska, USA.
# [[User:Wenzeslaus|Vaclav Petras]], using [http://grass.osgeo.org/grass70/manuals/r.in.lidar.html r.in.lidar] and [http://grass.osgeo.org/grass70/manuals/v.in.lidar.html v.in.lidar] in [http://grass.osgeo.org/ GRASS GIS] and afraid of [http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/elibrary/case/complex-singularity-versus-openness formats embraced by one vendor]
# [http://cehv.osu.edu/people/nespor.2 Jan Nespor], [http://www.osu.edu/ Ohio State University]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcosninoruiz Dr. Marcos Nino-Ruiz], Geospatial e-Enabler, [http://aurin.org.au/ AURIN] - [http://www.unimelb.edu.au/ The University of Melbourne], Australia
# Ed Russell, [http://www.ctmap.com/Computer Terrain Mapping, Inc.], Longmont, Colorado
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jim-robb/3/90/195 Jim Robb], [http://www.ziadesigngroup.com/ Zia Design Group/Zia Maps LLC], Boulder, Colorado. Establish and legally support an Open LiDAR format.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/travis-flohr/6/8a3/938 Travis Flohr], [http://la.wisc.edu/ University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Landscape Architecture]. Open geo standards are imperative to be successful in a transdisciplinary and collaborative world.
# [http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/iges/staff/academic-staff/pfb/ Pete Bunting] Senior Lecturer in Remote Sensing within the [http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/iges Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University] and developer of the open source [http://www.spdlib.org SPDLib] software package for processing LiDAR data.
# Chris Clasen, Lidar Scientist, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
# [http://au.linkedin.com/in/peterscarth Peter Scarth] Senior Research Scientist [http://www.gpem.uq.edu.au/jrsrp Joint Remote Sensing Research Program]. Open standards are essential for research data archival and reuse.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Just Just van den Broecke] OSGeo Charter member and Secretary of OSGeo.nl (Dutch Local Chapter)
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:fjbehr Franz-Josef Behr] Professor of spatial information processing at Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/monia-molinari/8a/b78/a48 Monia Elisa Molinari], Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# Don Brown, USGS, Enterprise GIS Specialist.
# [http://www.xing.com/profile/Thomas_Baumann84 Thomas Baumann], [http://geosysnet.de geoSYS], Project Manager GIS+Webmapping.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:mlennert Moritz Lennert], Université Libre de Bruxelles, Member of the GRASS GIS PSC
# Paulo Machado, [http://www.ptinovacao.pt/en/ Portugal Telecom Inovação] Committed to open data standards and open source software.
# [http://igeat.ulb.ac.be/fr/equipe/details/person/eleonore-wolff/ Eleonore Wolff], [http://www.ulb.ac.be/facs/sciences/index.html Universite Libre de Bruxelles]
# [http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Romanuel_Ramon_Antunez/ Romanuel Ramon Antunez], Member of UACEE, GIS Developer, Professor at [http://www.uci.cu University of Informatics Science], Cuba.
# [http://ajolma.net Ari Jolma], Biwatech Ltd.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pmeems Paul Meems], Active GIS developer in the [http://mapwindow4.codeplex.com/ MapWindow Open Source GIS] team.
# [http://www4.ncsu.edu/~ljsox Leslie John Sox], Master's GIS Student, NCSU Center for Geospatial Analytics,[http://cnr.ncsu.edu/geospatial], Degrees in Laser and Electro-Optics Technology, Geospatial Information Science, Raleigh, NC.
#[http://carlosgrohmann.com Carlos H. Grohmann], Assistant Professor (GIS/RS), University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:cschweik Charles Schweik], Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Rhaubourg Régis Haubourg], GIS manager, Adour-Garonne Water Basin Agency, France
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:kalxas Angelos Tzotsos], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:EdzerPebesma Edzer Pebesma], Professor, Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Muenster
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:oosterkamp Hugo Oosterkamp], Consultant Water & Sanitation
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:brylie Brylie Christopher Oxley] Free/Open Source software developer

=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, but one that uses laser light instead of radio 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 announced, 12 January 2014, 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 implementation of the "Optimized LAS" format is not available as Open Source and the format and algorithm details itself are undocumented, which means nobody can currently create alternate implementations, neither closed nor Open Source. This causes both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. It 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 Windows only library (DLL) as a free-of-charge (gratis) download that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between a "free-of-charge" binary distribution of DLLs and publishing something as "Open Source". Unless the source code of the library is released as Open Source under an Open Source 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.

Ironically, ESRI later placed their '''binary''' library files [http://github.com/Esri/esri-zlas-io-library on github] accompanied by an Apache License, but no source code was published. The distribution of binaries without source code is allowed by Apache License, but very uncommon and misleading, to say the least. The practice goes against the basic idea of “Open Source” and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) even has an FAQ entry on the obvious contradiction of [http://opensource.org/faq#non-distribution “Open Source” without source code].

==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. Their new proprietary *.lasx files were seemingly identical in functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] two years earlier - 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 – [http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT], Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office</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=

# [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg]
# [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/ ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 ESRI description of "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list]
# [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/esris-claim-at-being-good-standards.html Refuting ESRI's response and claim to be good Open Standards citizens]
# [http://blog.abs-cg.com/2015/04/lidar-format-wars-creep-into-geospatial.html Questioning why some spatial media are not running this story]

News coverage:
# [http://www.itnews.com.au/News/402914,open-source-devs-in-uproar-over-esri-las-lock-in-plans.aspx IT News]
# [http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/04/21/1624219/osgeo-foundation-up-in-arms-over-esri-las-lock-in-plans Slashdot]
# [http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/LIDAR-offenes-Dateiformat-LAS-in-Bedraengnis-2609710.html Heise Online] [http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Lidar-Format-War-Geo-Softwarehaus-Esri-vs-Geo-Community-2615341.html Follow-Up] - German speaking IT news.
# [http://www.spatialsource.com.au/2015/04/21/os-developers-concerned-over-new-esri-lidar-format/ Spatial Source]
# [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-great-airplane-laser-debate-is-as-youd-expect-about-file-formats Motherboard]
# [http://geohipster.com/2015/05/04/martin-isenburg-may-the-foss-be-with-laz/ GeoHipster]

Blog coverage:
# [http://blog.abs-cg.com/2015/04/lidar-format-wars-creep-into-geospatial.html Adena Schutzberg]
# [http://odoepner.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/osgeo-open-letter-lidar-laszip-vs-esri/ Oliver Doepner]
# [http://www.northrivergeographic.com/archives/esri-osgeo-lidar-and-things Randal Hale]

=References=

<references />

[[Category: Standards]]

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-24T18:04:47Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Further Reading */

=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 joins with 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]; Professor 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 and 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], Researcher and software developer, OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/raulnanclares Raul Nanclares], RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lucas-c-villa-real/7/a0b/b06 Lucas Villa Real], Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Warmerda Frank Warmerdam], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/etiennebracine Etienne B. Racine], Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alejandro-hinojosa/7/33b/342 Alejandro Hinojosa], [http://cicese.mx CICESE Research Center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:epifanio Massimo Di Stefano], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://clas.ucdenver.edu/directory/faculty-staff/Rafael-Moreno Rafael Moreno], University of Colorado Denver, [http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/ges/Pages/Geography.aspx Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences]. Openness is fundamental to progress.
# Peter Drexel, GIS manager, [http://www.vorarlberg.at/vorarlberg/bauen_wohnen/bauen/vermessung_geoinformation/start.htm State of Vorarlberg (State Survey Office)], Austria
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marco-minghini/a8/3b6/198 Marco Minghini], Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano]. Committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/candan-eyl%C3%BCl-kilsedar/65/380/976 Candan Eylül Kilsedar], WebGIS Developer, Research Fellow at [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AlastairMcKinstry Alastair McKinstry], Debian Linux meteorology/GIS developer, Ireland
# [http://people.unibo.it/it/elena.mezzini2 Elena Mezzini], Remote-sensing in forest ecology, Research Fellow, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=43566064 Mihai A. Tanase], Honorary fellow, Dept. of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-murray/10/742/3a2 Dave Murray], GIS Coordinator at [http://www.ci.westminster.co.us/ City of Westminster]
# Ayesa Martínez Serrano, Estudiante de Doctorado en [http://www.ciga.unam.mx/ Geografía del Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental de la UNAM-México]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/christopher-crosby/15/b7/114 Christopher Crosby], co-founder, [http://www.opentopography.org/ OpenTopography]
# [http://sg.linkedin.com/in/sgganesh Shanmugam Ganeshkumar], Vice President - Consulting, [http://www.geoicon.com GeoICON]
# [[User:Chaitanya|Chaitanya Kumar CH]], GIS Developer with [http://www.egis-geoplan.com/ Egis Geoplan - India] and OSGeo Charter member.
# KS Rajan, Associate Professor and Head, [http://lsi.iiit.ac.in/ Lab for Spatial Informatics, IIIT Hyderabad] and Chairman, [http://www.kaiinos.com/ KAIINOS Geospatial Technologies]; Promoter and Supported of Open Source, Open Data, Open Standards and e-Governance in India
# Pericles Nacionales, RS/GIS Specialist and OSGeo Charter member.
# Vasile Crăciunescu, Researcher at Romanian National Meteorological Administration and OSGeo Board member.
# [http://geo.tuwien.ac.at/staff/andreas-roncat/ Andreas Roncat] PostDoc Researcher, Research Groups Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, [http://www.geo.tuwien.ac.at/ Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation], Vienna University of Technology, Austria. In full agreement with [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin]: Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:remanuele Rob Emanuele], Software Developer, Azavea Inc.
# Codrina Ilie, Researcher at the Groundwater Engineering Research Center, Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest and OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Djay Gérald Fenoy], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter Member.
# [http://www.aston.ac.uk/eas/staff/a-z/dr-lucy-bastin/ Lucy Bastin], Software Developer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission / Computer Science lecturer, UncertML developer, Member of OGC SWG on User Feedback.
# Matt Wilkie, Geomatics Analyst at [http://www.gov.yk.ca/ Yukon Government], [http://www.env.gov.yk.ca/geomatics Department of Environment]. A practising GIS Professional for 20+ years. Throughout that time, the process of manipulating data into, through and out of proprietary formats has been the most aggravating source of inefficiency and wasted time. Things are hard enough without adding unnecessary barriers.
# [[User:Annakrat|Anna Petrasova]], OSGeo Charter Member, GRASS GIS developer
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-seibel-gisp/45/517/942 Mark Seibel], Geospatial Hacker. Long live open Geo data & software.
# [http://www.wrsc.org/people/ben-discoe Ben Discoe], [http://vterrain.org/ Virtual Terrain Project] and [http://www.leica-geosystems.us/en/HDS-Laser-Scanners-SW_5570.htm Leica Geosystems HDS], I wrangle point clouds every day. Semi-open E57 is bad enough. No more closed formats!
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ilda-clos/19/21b/391 Ilda Clos], GIS & IWRM specialist
# [[User:Danielkastl|Daniel Kastl]], Founder [http://georepublic.info Georepublic] and OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Geejee Gert-Jan van der Weijden] Chairman of OSGeo.nl (local Dutch chapter)
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:rjhale1971 Randal Hale] Owner of North River Geographic Systems, Inc
# Volker Wichmann, [http://www.saga-gis.org SAGA GIS] and [http://www.laserdata.at LASERDATA LIS] developer
# Eric Theise, Software Developer, San Francisco, CA.
# Darrell Fuhriman, Director of Technology, Renewable Funding/ Adjunct Instructor, Department of Geography, Portland State University
# Ilkka Korpela, Academy Research Fellow, University of Helsinki. Open formats benefit everyone.
# David Percy, Dept of Geology Faculty, Portland State University.

=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 announced, 12 January 2014, 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 implementation of the "Optimized LAS" format is not available as Open Source and the format and algorithm details itself are undocumented, which means nobody can currently create alternate implementations, neither closed nor Open Source. This causes both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. It 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 Windows only library (DLL) as a free-of-charge (gratis) download that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between a "free-of-charge" binary distribution of DLLs and publishing something as "Open Source". Unless the source code of the library is released as Open Source under an Open Source 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.

Ironically, ESRI later placed their '''binary''' library files [http://github.com/Esri/esri-zlas-io-library on github] accompanied by an Apache License, but no source code was published. The distribution of binaries without source code is allowed by Apache License, but very uncommon and misleading, to say the least. The practice goes against the basic idea of “Open Source” and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) even has an FAQ entry on the obvious contradiction of [http://opensource.org/faq#non-distribution “Open Source” without source code].

==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. Their new proprietary *.lasx files were seemingly identical in functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] two years earlier - 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 – [http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT], Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office</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=

# [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg]
# [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/ ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 ESRI description of "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list]
# [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/esris-claim-at-being-good-standards.html Refuting ESRI's response and claim to be good Open Standards citizens]

News coverage:
# [http://www.itnews.com.au/News/402914,open-source-devs-in-uproar-over-esri-las-lock-in-plans.aspx IT News]
# [http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/04/21/1624219/osgeo-foundation-up-in-arms-over-esri-las-lock-in-plans Slashdot]
# [http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/LIDAR-offenes-Dateiformat-LAS-in-Bedraengnis-2609710.html Heise Online] [http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Lidar-Format-War-Geo-Softwarehaus-Esri-vs-Geo-Community-2615341.html Follow-Up] - German speaking IT news.
# [http://www.spatialsource.com.au/2015/04/21/os-developers-concerned-over-new-esri-lidar-format/ Spatial Source]
# [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-great-airplane-laser-debate-is-as-youd-expect-about-file-formats Motherboard]

Blog coverage:
# [http://blog.abs-cg.com/2015/04/lidar-format-wars-creep-into-geospatial.html Adena Schutzberg]
# [http://odoepner.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/osgeo-open-letter-lidar-laszip-vs-esri/ Oliver Doepner]
# [http://www.northrivergeographic.com/archives/esri-osgeo-lidar-and-things Randal Hale]

=References=

<references />

[[Category: Standards]]

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-23T07:49:46Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 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 joins with 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]; Professor 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 and 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], Researcher and software developer, OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/raulnanclares Raul Nanclares], RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lucas-c-villa-real/7/a0b/b06 Lucas Villa Real], Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Warmerda Frank Warmerdam], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/etiennebracine Etienne B. Racine], Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alejandro-hinojosa/7/33b/342 Alejandro Hinojosa], [http://cicese.mx CICESE Research Center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:epifanio Massimo Di Stefano], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://clas.ucdenver.edu/directory/faculty-staff/Rafael-Moreno Rafael Moreno], University of Colorado Denver, [http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/ges/Pages/Geography.aspx Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences]. Openness is fundamental to progress.
# Peter Drexel, GIS manager, [http://www.vorarlberg.at/vorarlberg/bauen_wohnen/bauen/vermessung_geoinformation/start.htm State of Vorarlberg (State Survey Office)], Austria
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marco-minghini/a8/3b6/198 Marco Minghini], Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano]. Committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/candan-eyl%C3%BCl-kilsedar/65/380/976 Candan Eylül Kilsedar], WebGIS Developer, Research Fellow at [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AlastairMcKinstry Alastair McKinstry], Debian Linux meteorology/GIS developer, Ireland
# [http://people.unibo.it/it/elena.mezzini2 Elena Mezzini], Remote-sensing in forest ecology, Research Fellow, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=43566064 Mihai A. Tanase], Honorary fellow, Dept. of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-murray/10/742/3a2 Dave Murray], GIS Coordinator at [http://www.ci.westminster.co.us/ City of Westminster]
# Ayesa Martínez Serrano, Estudiante de Doctorado en [http://www.ciga.unam.mx/ Geografía del Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental de la UNAM-México]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/christopher-crosby/15/b7/114 Christopher Crosby], co-founder, [http://www.opentopography.org/ OpenTopography]
# [http://sg.linkedin.com/in/sgganesh Shanmugam Ganeshkumar], Vice President - Consulting, [http://www.geoicon.com GeoICON]
# [[User:Chaitanya|Chaitanya Kumar CH]], GIS Developer with [http://www.egis-geoplan.com/ Egis Geoplan - India] and OSGeo Charter member.
# KS Rajan, Associate Professor and Head, [http://lsi.iiit.ac.in/ Lab for Spatial Informatics, IIIT Hyderabad] and Chairman, [http://www.kaiinos.com/ KAIINOS Geospatial Technologies]; Promoter and Supported of Open Source, Open Data, Open Standards and e-Governance in India
# Pericles Nacionales, RS/GIS Specialist and OSGeo Charter member.
# Vasile Crăciunescu, Researcher at Romanian National Meteorological Administration and OSGeo Board member.
# [http://geo.tuwien.ac.at/staff/andreas-roncat/ Andreas Roncat] PostDoc Researcher, Research Groups Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, [http://www.geo.tuwien.ac.at/ Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation], Vienna University of Technology, Austria. In full agreement with [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin]: Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:remanuele Rob Emanuele], Software Developer, Azavea Inc.
# Codrina Ilie, Researcher at the Groundwater Engineering Research Center, Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest and OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Djay Gérald Fenoy], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter Member.
# [http://www.aston.ac.uk/eas/staff/a-z/dr-lucy-bastin/ Lucy Bastin], Software Developer at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission / Computer Science lecturer, UncertML developer, Member of OGC SWG on User Feedback.
# Matt Wilkie, Geomatics Analyst at [http://www.gov.yk.ca/ Yukon Government], [http://www.env.gov.yk.ca/geomatics Department of Environment]. A practising GIS Professional for 20+ years. Throughout that time, the process of manipulating data into, through and out of proprietary formats has been the most aggravating source of inefficiency and wasted time. Things are hard enough without adding unnecessary barriers.
# [[User:Annakrat|Anna Petrasova]], OSGeo Charter Member, GRASS GIS developer
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mark-seibel-gisp/45/517/942 Mark Seibel], Geospatial Hacker. Long live open Geo data & software.
# [http://www.wrsc.org/people/ben-discoe Ben Discoe], [http://vterrain.org/ Virtual Terrain Project] and [http://www.leica-geosystems.us/en/HDS-Laser-Scanners-SW_5570.htm Leica Geosystems HDS], I wrangle point clouds every day. Semi-open E57 is bad enough. No more closed formats!
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ilda-clos/19/21b/391 Ilda Clos], GIS & IWRM specialist
# [[User:Danielkastl|Daniel Kastl]], Founder [http://georepublic.info Georepublic] and OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Geejee Gert-Jan van der Weijden] Chairman of OSGeo.nl (local Dutch chapter)
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:rjhale1971 Randal Hale] Owner of North River Geographic Systems, Inc
# Volker Wichmann, [http://www.saga-gis.org SAGA GIS] and [http://www.laserdata.at LASERDATA LIS] developer
# Eric Theise, Software Developer, San Francisco, CA.
# Darrell Fuhriman, Director of Technology, Renewable Funding/ Adjunct Instructor, Department of Geography, Portland State University
# Ilkka Korpela, Academy Research Fellow, University of Helsinki. Open formats benefit everyone.

=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 announced, 12 January 2014, 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 implementation of the "Optimized LAS" format is not available as Open Source and the format and algorithm details itself are undocumented, which means nobody can currently create alternate implementations, neither closed nor Open Source. This causes both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. It 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 Windows only library (DLL) as a free-of-charge (gratis) download that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between a "free-of-charge" binary distribution of DLLs and publishing something as "Open Source". Unless the source code of the library is released as Open Source under an Open Source 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.

Ironically, ESRI later placed their '''binary''' library files [http://github.com/Esri/esri-zlas-io-library on github] accompanied by an Apache License, but no source code was published. The distribution of binaries without source code is allowed by Apache License, but very uncommon and misleading, to say the least. The practice goes against the basic idea of “Open Source” and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) even has an FAQ entry on the obvious contradiction of [http://opensource.org/faq#non-distribution “Open Source” without source code].

==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. Their new proprietary *.lasx files were seemingly identical in functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] two years earlier - 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 – [http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT], Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office</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=

# [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg]
# [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/ ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 ESRI description of "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list]
# [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/esris-claim-at-being-good-standards.html Refuting ESRI's response and claim to be good Open Standards citizens]

News coverage:
# [http://www.itnews.com.au/News/402914,open-source-devs-in-uproar-over-esri-las-lock-in-plans.aspx IT News]
# [http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/04/21/1624219/osgeo-foundation-up-in-arms-over-esri-las-lock-in-plans Slashdot]
# [http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/LIDAR-offenes-Dateiformat-LAS-in-Bedraengnis-2609710.html Heise Online] - German speaking IT news.
# [http://www.spatialsource.com.au/2015/04/21/os-developers-concerned-over-new-esri-lidar-format/ Spatial Source]

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-20T23:53:40Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* "Optimized LAS" A Proprietary ESRI Format */

=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 joins with 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]; Professor 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 and 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/raulnanclares Raul Nanclares], RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lucas-c-villa-real/7/a0b/b06 Lucas Villa Real], Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Warmerda Frank Warmerdam], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/etiennebracine Etienne B. Racine], Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alejandro-hinojosa/7/33b/342 Alejandro Hinojosa], [http://cicese.mx CICESE Research Center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:epifanio Massimo Di Stefano], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://clas.ucdenver.edu/directory/faculty-staff/Rafael-Moreno Rafael Moreno], University of Colorado Denver, [http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/ges/Pages/Geography.aspx Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences]. Openness is fundamental to progress.
# Peter Drexel, GIS manager, [http://www.vorarlberg.at/vorarlberg/bauen_wohnen/bauen/vermessung_geoinformation/start.htm State of Vorarlberg (State Survey Office)], Austria
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marco-minghini/a8/3b6/198 Marco Minghini], Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano]. Committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/candan-eyl%C3%BCl-kilsedar/65/380/976 Candan Eylül Kilsedar], WebGIS Developer, Research Fellow at [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AlastairMcKinstry Alastair McKinstry], Debian Linux meteorology/GIS developer, Ireland
# [http://people.unibo.it/it/elena.mezzini2 Elena Mezzini], Remote-sensing in forest ecology, Research Fellow, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=43566064 Mihai A. Tanase], Honorary fellow, Dept. of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-murray/10/742/3a2 Dave Murray], GIS Coordinator at [http://www.ci.westminster.co.us/ City of Westminster]
# Ayesa Martínez Serrano, Estudiante de Doctorado en [http://www.ciga.unam.mx/ Geografía del Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental de la UNAM-México]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/christopher-crosby/15/b7/114 Christopher Crosby], co-founder, [http://www.opentopography.org/ OpenTopography]
# [http://sg.linkedin.com/in/sgganesh Shanmugam Ganeshkumar], Vice President - Consulting, [http://www.geoicon.com GeoICON]

=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 implementation of the "Optimized LAS" format is not available as Open Source and the format and algorithm details itself are undocumented, which means nobody can currently create alternate implementations, neither closed nor Open Source. This causes both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. It 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 Windows only library (DLL) as a free-of-charge (gratis) download that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between a "free-of-charge" binary distribution of DLLs and publishing something as "Open Source". Unless the source code of the library is released as Open Source under an Open Source 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.

Ironically, ESRI later placed their '''binary''' library files [http://github.com/Esri/esri-zlas-io-library on github] accompanied by an Apache License, but no source code was published. The distribution of binaries without source code is allowed by Apache License, but very uncommon and misleading, to say the least. The practice goes against the basic idea of “Open Source” and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) even has an FAQ entry on the obvious contradiction of [http://opensource.org/faq#non-distribution “Open Source” without source code].

==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. Their new proprietary *.lasx files were seemingly identical in functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] two years earlier - 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 – [http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT], Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office</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=

# [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg]
# [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/ ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 ESRI description of "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list]
# [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/esris-claim-at-being-good-standards.html Esri's claim at being good "Standards" citizens is questionable]

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-20T23:50:19Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 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 joins with 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]; Professor 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 and 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/raulnanclares Raul Nanclares], RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lucas-c-villa-real/7/a0b/b06 Lucas Villa Real], Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Warmerda Frank Warmerdam], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/etiennebracine Etienne B. Racine], Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alejandro-hinojosa/7/33b/342 Alejandro Hinojosa], [http://cicese.mx CICESE Research Center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:epifanio Massimo Di Stefano], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://clas.ucdenver.edu/directory/faculty-staff/Rafael-Moreno Rafael Moreno], University of Colorado Denver, [http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/ges/Pages/Geography.aspx Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences]. Openness is fundamental to progress.
# Peter Drexel, GIS manager, [http://www.vorarlberg.at/vorarlberg/bauen_wohnen/bauen/vermessung_geoinformation/start.htm State of Vorarlberg (State Survey Office)], Austria
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marco-minghini/a8/3b6/198 Marco Minghini], Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano]. Committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/candan-eyl%C3%BCl-kilsedar/65/380/976 Candan Eylül Kilsedar], WebGIS Developer, Research Fellow at [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AlastairMcKinstry Alastair McKinstry], Debian Linux meteorology/GIS developer, Ireland
# [http://people.unibo.it/it/elena.mezzini2 Elena Mezzini], Remote-sensing in forest ecology, Research Fellow, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=43566064 Mihai A. Tanase], Honorary fellow, Dept. of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-murray/10/742/3a2 Dave Murray], GIS Coordinator at [http://www.ci.westminster.co.us/ City of Westminster]
# Ayesa Martínez Serrano, Estudiante de Doctorado en [http://www.ciga.unam.mx/ Geografía del Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental de la UNAM-México]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/christopher-crosby/15/b7/114 Christopher Crosby], co-founder, [http://www.opentopography.org/ OpenTopography]
# [http://sg.linkedin.com/in/sgganesh Shanmugam Ganeshkumar], Vice President - Consulting, [http://www.geoicon.com GeoICON]

=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 implementation of the "Optimized LAS" format is not available as Open Source and the format and algorithm details itself are undocumented, which means nobody can currently create alternate implementations, neither closed nor Open Source. This causes both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. It 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 Windows only library (DLL) as a free-of-charge (gratis) download that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between a "free-of-charge" binary distributions of DLLs and "Open Source". Unless the source code of the library is released as Open Source under an Open Source 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.

Ironically, ESRI even placed their [http://github.com/Esri/esri-zlas-io-library binary library files on github] accompanied by an Apache License, but still no source code was published. The distribution of binaries without source code is allowed by Apache License, but very uncommon and misleading, to say the least. The practice goes against the basic idea of “Open Source” and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has an FAQ entry on the obvious contradiction of [http://opensource.org/faq#non-distribution “Open Source” without source code].

==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. Their new proprietary *.lasx files were seemingly identical in functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] two years earlier - 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 – [http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT], Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office</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=

# [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg]
# [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/ ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 ESRI description of "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list]
# [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/esris-claim-at-being-good-standards.html Esri's claim at being good "Standards" citizens is questionable]

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-20T23:49:31Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* "Optimized LAS" A Proprietary ESRI Format */

=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 joins with 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]; Professor 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 and 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/raulnanclares Raul Nanclares], RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lucas-c-villa-real/7/a0b/b06 Lucas Villa Real], Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Warmerda Frank Warmerdam], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/etiennebracine Etienne B. Racine], Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alejandro-hinojosa/7/33b/342 Alejandro Hinojosa], [http://cicese.mx CICESE Research Center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:epifanio Massimo Di Stefano], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://clas.ucdenver.edu/directory/faculty-staff/Rafael-Moreno Rafael Moreno], University of Colorado Denver, [http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/ges/Pages/Geography.aspx Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences]. Openness is fundamental to progress.
# Peter Drexel, GIS manager, [http://www.vorarlberg.at/vorarlberg/bauen_wohnen/bauen/vermessung_geoinformation/start.htm State of Vorarlberg (State Survey Office)], Austria
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marco-minghini/a8/3b6/198 Marco Minghini], Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano]. Committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/candan-eyl%C3%BCl-kilsedar/65/380/976 Candan Eylül Kilsedar], WebGIS Developer, Research Fellow at [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AlastairMcKinstry Alastair McKinstry], Debian Linux meteorology/GIS developer, Ireland
# [http://people.unibo.it/it/elena.mezzini2 Elena Mezzini], Remote-sensing in forest ecology, Research Fellow, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=43566064 Mihai A. Tanase], Honorary fellow, Dept. of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-murray/10/742/3a2 Dave Murray], GIS Coordinator at [http://www.ci.westminster.co.us/ City of Westminster]
# Ayesa Martínez Serrano, Estudiante de Doctorado en [http://www.ciga.unam.mx/ Geografía del Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental de la UNAM-México]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/christopher-crosby/15/b7/114 Christopher Crosby], co-founder, [http://www.opentopography.org/ OpenTopography]
# [https://sg.linkedin.com/in/sgganesh Shanmugam Ganeshkumar], Vice President - Consulting, [http://www.geoicon.com GeoICON]

=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 implementation of the "Optimized LAS" format is not available as Open Source and the format and algorithm details itself are undocumented, which means nobody can currently create alternate implementations, neither closed nor Open Source. This causes both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. It 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 Windows only library (DLL) as a free-of-charge (gratis) download that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between a "free-of-charge" binary distributions of DLLs and "Open Source". Unless the source code of the library is released as Open Source under an Open Source 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.

Ironically, ESRI even placed their [http://github.com/Esri/esri-zlas-io-library binary library files on github] accompanied by an Apache License, but still no source code was published. The distribution of binaries without source code is allowed by Apache License, but very uncommon and misleading, to say the least. The practice goes against the basic idea of “Open Source” and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has an FAQ entry on the obvious contradiction of [http://opensource.org/faq#non-distribution “Open Source” without source code].

==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. Their new proprietary *.lasx files were seemingly identical in functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] two years earlier - 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 – [http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT], Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office</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=

# [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg]
# [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/ ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 ESRI description of "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list]
# [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/esris-claim-at-being-good-standards.html Esri's claim at being good "Standards" citizens is questionable]

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-20T23:48:40Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* "Optimized LAS" A Proprietary ESRI Format */

=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 joins with 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]; Professor 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 and 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/raulnanclares Raul Nanclares], RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lucas-c-villa-real/7/a0b/b06 Lucas Villa Real], Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Warmerda Frank Warmerdam], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/etiennebracine Etienne B. Racine], Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alejandro-hinojosa/7/33b/342 Alejandro Hinojosa], [http://cicese.mx CICESE Research Center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:epifanio Massimo Di Stefano], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://clas.ucdenver.edu/directory/faculty-staff/Rafael-Moreno Rafael Moreno], University of Colorado Denver, [http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/ges/Pages/Geography.aspx Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences]. Openness is fundamental to progress.
# Peter Drexel, GIS manager, [http://www.vorarlberg.at/vorarlberg/bauen_wohnen/bauen/vermessung_geoinformation/start.htm State of Vorarlberg (State Survey Office)], Austria
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marco-minghini/a8/3b6/198 Marco Minghini], Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano]. Committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/candan-eyl%C3%BCl-kilsedar/65/380/976 Candan Eylül Kilsedar], WebGIS Developer, Research Fellow at [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AlastairMcKinstry Alastair McKinstry], Debian Linux meteorology/GIS developer, Ireland
# [http://people.unibo.it/it/elena.mezzini2 Elena Mezzini], Remote-sensing in forest ecology, Research Fellow, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=43566064 Mihai A. Tanase], Honorary fellow, Dept. of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dave-murray/10/742/3a2 Dave Murray], GIS Coordinator at [http://www.ci.westminster.co.us/ City of Westminster]
# Ayesa Martínez Serrano, Estudiante de Doctorado en [http://www.ciga.unam.mx/ Geografía del Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental de la UNAM-México]
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/christopher-crosby/15/b7/114 Christopher Crosby], co-founder, [http://www.opentopography.org/ OpenTopography]
# [https://sg.linkedin.com/in/sgganesh Shanmugam Ganeshkumar], Vice President - Consulting, [http://www.geoicon.com GeoICON]

=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 implementation of the "Optimized LAS" format is not available as Open Source and the format and algorithm details itself are undocumented, which means nobody can currently create alternate implementations, neither closed nor Open Source. This causes both technical as well as legal barriers for other applications reading and/or writing to this proprietary format. It 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 Windows only library (DLL) as a free-of-charge (gratis) download that is claimed to convert between LAS and "Optimized LAS". Note there is a distinct difference between a "free-of-charge" binary distributions of DLLs and "Open Source". Unless the source code of the library is released as Open Source under an Open Source 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.

Ironically, ESRI even placed their [http://github.com/Esri/esri-zlas-io-library binary library files on github] accompanied by an Apache License, but still no source code was published. The distribution of binaries without source code is allowed by Apache License, but very uncommon and misleading, to say the least. The practice goes against the basic idea of “Open Source” and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has an FAQ entry on the obvious contradiction of [http://opensource.org/faq#non-distribution Open Source” without source code].

==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. Their new proprietary *.lasx files were seemingly identical in functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] two years earlier - 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 – [http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT], Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office</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=

# [http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/01/lidar-format-wars/ Paul Ramsey provides background to LAS vs Optimised LAS]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2015/02/22/lidar-las-asprs-esri-and-the-laz-clone/ Running commentary by Martin Isenburg, author of LASlib]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ Earlier comment from Martin Isenburg]
# [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ First call-to-action by Martin Isenburg]
# [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression/ ESRI Announces "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214 ESRI description of "Optimised LAS"]
# [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/ica-osgeo-labs/2015-March/001225.html Discussion background on this topic at Geo for All list]
# [http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/esris-claim-at-being-good-standards.html Esri's claim at being good "Standards" citizens is questionable]

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-20T17:01:40Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 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 joins with 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]; Professor 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 and 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/raulnanclares Raul Nanclares], RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lucas-c-villa-real/7/a0b/b06 Lucas Villa Real], Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Warmerda Frank Warmerdam], Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/etiennebracine Etienne B. Racine], Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alejandro-hinojosa/7/33b/342 Alejandro Hinojosa], [http://cicese.mx CICESE Research Center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:epifanio Massimo Di Stefano], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://clas.ucdenver.edu/directory/faculty-staff/Rafael-Moreno Rafael Moreno], University of Colorado Denver, [http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/ges/Pages/Geography.aspx Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences]. Openness is fundamental to progress.
# Peter Drexel, GIS manager, [http://www.vorarlberg.at/vorarlberg/bauen_wohnen/bauen/vermessung_geoinformation/start.htm State of Vorarlberg (State Survey Office)], Austria
# Marco Minghini, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano]. Committed to Open Principles in Geo Education and Research.
# Candan Eylül Kilsedar, WebGIS developer, Research fellow at [http://www.polimi.it Politecnico di Milano].
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:AlastairMcKinstry Alastair McKinstry], Debian Linux meteorology/GIS developer, Ireland
# [http://people.unibo.it/it/elena.mezzini2 Elena Mezzini], Remote-sensing in forest ecology, Research Fellow, Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=43566064 Mihai A. Tanase], Honorary fellow, Dept. of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Australia

=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. Their new proprietary *.lasx files were seemingly identical in functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] two years earlier - 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 – [http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78959/All_About_Open_Source_v2_0.pdf An Introduction to Open Source Software for Government IT], Version 2.0, United Kingdom Cabinet Office</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=

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

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-18T19:20:46Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and ESRI's "Optimized LAS" */

=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]; Professor 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# Raul Nanclares, RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# Lucas Villa Real, Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# Frank Warmerdam, Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# Etienne B. Racine, Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# Alejandro Hinojosa, [http://cicese.mx CICESE research center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico

=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. Their new proprietary *.lasx files were seemingly identical in functionality to the open *.lax files that had been [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/j0qA8NBMHJs/discussion announced] two years earlier - 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-18T15:39:59Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 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]; Professor 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# Raul Nanclares, RS&GIS Specialist
# [http://www.ing.unitn.it/dica/hp/index_eng.php?user=rigon Riccardo Rigon], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.
# Lucas Villa Real, Research software engineer at IBM Research - Brazil.
# [http://terraremote.com Loren Dawe], GIS Manager at Terra Remote Sensing Inc. Lidar Supplier and Open Standards Advocate
# Frank Warmerdam, Software Developer, OSGeo Charter member
# [http://ch.linkedin.com/pub/jens-ingensand/0/836/6b0 Jens Ingensand], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, [http://www.heig-vd.ch/international School of Business and Engineering Vaud].
# [http://nsidc.org/research/bios/khalsa.html Siri Jodha Khalsa], Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center, [http://cires.colorado.edu/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences], University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
# [http://gis.uster.ch/ Andreas Neumann], GIS manager, City of Uster, Kanton Zurich, Switzerland
# [http://www.iwmi.org/ Yann Chemin], Researcher - Remote Sensing, International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka
# Etienne B. Racine, Geomatics and remote sensing project manager, WSP, Canada
# Alejandro Hinojosa, [http://cicese.mx CICESE research center], Earth Sciences Division, GIS & Remote Sensing Lab, Ensenada, Mexico

=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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-17T20:31:34Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 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]; Professor 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# Raul Nanclares, RS&GIS Specialist
# [[User:riccardoRigon|Riccardo Rigon]], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.

=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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-17T20:31:02Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 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]; Professor 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# Raul Nanclares, RS&GIS Specialist
# [[User:riccardoRigon|Riccardo Rigon]], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary, OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://lefsky.org Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.

=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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-17T20:23:57Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 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]; Professor 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://pt.linkedin.com/pub/jorge-rocha/1b/560/499 Jorge Gustavo Rocha], Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Minho, Portugal, committed to better science through [http://www.gistam.org/EventChairs.aspx?y=2016 Open Data].
# [http://people.eecs.ku.edu/~miller/ Jim Miller], University of Kansas, Professor, Computer Science. Open standards for data exchange are essential for education and research.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# Alex Paza Makini, National University Solomon Islands, Natural Resources and Applied Science. Committed to open data standards for education and research, and everything beyond.
# Jorg M. Hacker, Professor, 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/clquintanilla 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Pcav Paolo Cavallini], QGIS PSC
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Dr Phillip Davis], Member OSGeo Geo For All education advisory board, Director @ GeoAcademy
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Nbozon Nicolas Bozon], [http://zoo-project.org ZOO-Project PSC], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslanrainis Ruslan Rainis], Professor, Director, [http://www.research.usm.my/default.asp?tag=36 Centre for Research Initiatives in Liberal Arts & Social Sciences](CRI-LASS). Open GeoInformation for a Sustainable Tomorrow and the Bottom Billions.
# [[User:Silli|Silvia Franceschi]], [http://www.hydrologis.com HydroloGIS], OSGeo Charter member, Environmental Engineer Open Source GIS power user, HydroloGIS co-founder.
# Oscar Martinez Rubi [http://esciencecenter.nl Netherlands eScience Center] eScience engineer.
# Werner Macho, QGIS team member. Committed to open data standards for education and research.
# Giuseppe Patti, Geologist and Freelance Geospatial Advisor, GFOSS supporter.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Drappo Daniel Rappo], Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, School of Business and Engineering Vaud.
# [[User:nachouve|Juan Ignacio Varela]], Freelance Geospatial Advisor and OSGeo Local Chapter Member.
# [[User:dmorissette|Daniel Morissette]], President at [http://mapgears.com Mapgears], OSGeo Charter member.
# Raul Nanclares, RS&GIS Specialist
# [[User:riccardoRigon|Riccardo Rigon]], Professor at University of Trento (Italy)
# [[User:Siki| Zoltan Siki]] Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary, OSGeo Charter member.
# [http://warnercnr.colostate.edu/~lefsky/ Michael Lefsky], Professor of Remote Sensing Science, Colorado State University and Director, Center for Ecological Applications of Lidar.

=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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-17T05:35:50Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 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]; Professor 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brandt-melick/22/869/261 Brandt Melick], Information Technology Department Director, Springfield Oregon USA. The need to promote open solutions is paramount.
# 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, Boulder Creek, CA [http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/ Countdown to the Last Coast Redwood]. 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 [http://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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
# Bob Basques, Saint Paul, Mn., GIS Systems Developer for the City of Saint Paul Public Works, Technical Director for SharedGeo.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maning Maning Sambale], OSGeo Charter Member

=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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-16T18:20:07Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [http://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

=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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-16T18:19:35Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 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.
# [http://www.geodatawiz.com/armin-schmidt 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.
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Madi Margherita Di Leo], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Sacosta Sergio Acosta y Lara], OSGeo Charter Member
# [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/User:Maximdubinin Maxim Dubinin], CEO at NextGIS, OSGeo Charter Member. Another 'standard' proprietary format? No, thank you.
# [[User:Steko|Stefano Costa]], Soprintendenza Archeologia della Liguria, Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, Italy
# [http://www.geog.illinois.edu/people/jgrn Jonathan Greenberg], Assistant Professor, [https://publish.illinois.edu/jgrn/ GEARS Laboratory], Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

=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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-14T12:51:50Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 'We The People Hereby Sign' */

=Open Letter for the need for Open Standards in LiDAR=
April 2015.

We, the undersigned, are concerned that the current and wonderful 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 hurdle 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.

='' 'We The People Hereby Sign' ''=
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.
# 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.
# Giuseppe Conti, CTO Trilogis Srl, Italy. https://www.linkedin.com/in/gconti. 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.

=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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-14T12:51:01Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 'We The People Hereby Sign' */

=Open Letter for the need for Open Standards in LiDAR=
April 2015.

We, the undersigned, are concerned that the current and wonderful 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 hurdle 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.

='' 'We The People Hereby Sign' ''=
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.
# 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.
# Giuseppe Conti, CTO Trilogis Srl, Italy. https://www.linkedin.com/in/gconti. 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.

=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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-14T12:50:12Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* 'We The People Hereby Sign' */

=Open Letter for the need for Open Standards in LiDAR=
April 2015.

We, the undersigned, are concerned that the current and wonderful 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 hurdle 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.

='' 'We The People Hereby Sign' ''=
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.
# 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.
# Giuseppe Conti, CTO Trilogis Srl, Italy. https://www.linkedin.com/in/gconti. 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.airborneresearch australia.com Airborne Research Australia, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Open formats have always been a great benefit to airborne LiDAR.

=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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-11T00:41:37Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and "Optimized LAS" */

=Open Letter for 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 concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 hurdle 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.

=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.

==Proprietary "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 "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 standard 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 standard the 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 specification], 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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-11T00:40:34Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and "Optimized LAS" */

=Open Letter for 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 concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 hurdle 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.

=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.

==Proprietary "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 "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 standard 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 announcement] 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 standard the 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 specification], 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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-11T00:32:40Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and "Optimized LAS" */

=Open Letter for 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 concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 hurdle 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.

=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.

==Proprietary "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 "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 standard 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] sponsored [http://laszip.org LASzip], which facilitated and the development of LAS 1.4 compatibility mode, [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ beta-released]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 announcement] 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 standard the 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 specification], 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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-11T00:26:17Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and "Optimized LAS" */

=Open Letter for 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 concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 hurdle 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.

=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.

==Proprietary "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 "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 standard 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] sponsored [http://laszip.org LASzip], which facilitated and the development of LAS 1.4 compatibility mode, [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ beta-released]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 announcement] 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", removing 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 standard the 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 specification], 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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-11T00:19:59Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and "Optimized LAS" */

=Open Letter for 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 concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 hurdle 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.

=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.

==Proprietary "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 "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 standard 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 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] explaining 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] sponsored [http://laszip.org LASzip], which facilitated and the development of LAS 1.4 compatibility mode, [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ released in October 2014]. This allows support for new point types to [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 announcement] 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", removing 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 standard the 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 specification], 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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-11T00:18:40Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and "Optimized LAS" */

=Open Letter for 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 concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 hurdle 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.

=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.

==Proprietary "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 "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 standard 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 catches up to include LAS indexing '''

: With the release of ArcGIS 10.2 in July 2013, ESRI introduced LAS 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 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] explaining 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] sponsored [http://laszip.org LASzip], which facilitated and the development of LAS 1.4 compatibility mode, [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ released in October 2014]. This allows support for new point types to [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 announcement] 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", removing 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 standard the 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 specification], 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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-11T00:04:06Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Open Letter for the need for Open Standards in LiDAR */

=Open Letter for 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 concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 hurdle 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.

=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.

==Proprietary "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 "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 standard 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 useful addition 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 [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 catches up to include LAS indexing '''

: With the release of ArcGIS 10.2 in July 2013, ESRI introduced LAS spatial indexing to speed up queries. However, rather than using the open *.lax file structure [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] a year earlier ESRI introduced practically identical *.lasx files with a proprietary file structure.

: '''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 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] explaining 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] sponsored [http://laszip.org LASzip], which facilitated and the development of LAS 1.4 compatibility mode, [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ released in October 2014]. This allows support for new point types to [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 announcement] 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", removing 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 standard the 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 specification], 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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-11T00:02:58Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Open Letter for the need for Open Standards in LiDAR */

=Open Letter for 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 concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 hurdle 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 that the term "LAS" is not included in the name of a proprietary format, as it makes the 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.

=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.

==Proprietary "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 "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 standard 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 useful addition 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 [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 catches up to include LAS indexing '''

: With the release of ArcGIS 10.2 in July 2013, ESRI introduced LAS spatial indexing to speed up queries. However, rather than using the open *.lax file structure [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] a year earlier ESRI introduced practically identical *.lasx files with a proprietary file structure.

: '''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 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] explaining 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] sponsored [http://laszip.org LASzip], which facilitated and the development of LAS 1.4 compatibility mode, [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ released in October 2014]. This allows support for new point types to [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 announcement] 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", removing 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 standard the 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 specification], 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 is 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 have 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 />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T16:10:24Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and "Optimized LAS" */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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]].

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 ESRI releases the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS" with a *.zlas file extension.
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a [http://www.asprs.org/a/society/committees/standards/LAS_1_4_r13.pdf clear copyright] on their LAS specification, as of April 2015, 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 ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<Martin: Where have all the references gone? That was such a useful collection ...>

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T16:06:42Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* References */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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]].

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 ESRI releases the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS" with a *.zlas file extension.
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<Martin: Where have all the references gone? That was such a useful collection ...>

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T16:04:01Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and "Optimized LAS" */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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]].

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 ESRI releases the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS" with a *.zlas file extension.
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T16:03:36Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and "Optimized LAS" */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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]].

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 ESRI releases the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS" using the *.zlas file extension.
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T16:03:01Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* History: LAS and "Optimized LAS" */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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]].

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 ESRI releases the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS" using a "*.zlas" file extension.
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T16:01:30Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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]].

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 ESRI releases the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS"<strike> or "zLAS"</strike>. <Cameron: To avoid confusion, we should only refer to ESRI's format using one term, either Optimized LAS or zLAS, not both.>
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T15:58:53Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* Signed */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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).

<Cameron: Is "Optimized LAS" and LASzip a "format" or an "algorithm" or a "library"? We use all terms, but should be consistent to avoid confusion.>

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]].

One year after releasing "Optimized LAS", 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 ESRI release the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS"<strike> or "zLAS"</strike>. <Cameron: To avoid confusion, we should only refer to ESRI's format using one term, either Optimized LAS or zLAS, not both.>
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T15:58:29Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* About LiDAR */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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" [https://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html NSDI]. Open standards are essential for this.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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).

<Cameron: Is "Optimized LAS" and LASzip a "format" or an "algorithm" or a "library"? We use all terms, but should be consistent to avoid confusion.>

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]].

One year after releasing "Optimized LAS", 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 ESRI release the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS"<strike> or "zLAS"</strike>. <Cameron: To avoid confusion, we should only refer to ESRI's format using one term, either Optimized LAS or zLAS, not both.>
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T15:57:52Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* About LiDAR */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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" [https://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html NSDI]. Open standards are essential for this.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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 [https://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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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).

<Cameron: Is "Optimized LAS" and LASzip a "format" or an "algorithm" or a "library"? We use all terms, but should be consistent to avoid confusion.>

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]].

One year after releasing "Optimized LAS", 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 ESRI release the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS"<strike> or "zLAS"</strike>. <Cameron: To avoid confusion, we should only refer to ESRI's format using one term, either Optimized LAS or zLAS, not both.>
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T15:56:06Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* About LiDAR */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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" [https://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html NSDI]. Open standards are essential for this.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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 [https://github.com/LASlib/LASlib LASlib] <Cameron: http://rapidlasso.com/LASlib points to a broken web page>. 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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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).

<Cameron: Is "Optimized LAS" and LASzip a "format" or an "algorithm" or a "library"? We use all terms, but should be consistent to avoid confusion.>

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]].

One year after releasing "Optimized LAS", 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 ESRI release the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS"<strike> or "zLAS"</strike>. <Cameron: To avoid confusion, we should only refer to ESRI's format using one term, either Optimized LAS or zLAS, not both.>
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T15:55:21Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* About LiDAR */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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" [https://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html NSDI]. Open standards are essential for this.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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 [https://github.com/LASlib/LASlib LASlib] <Cameron: http://rapidlasso.com/LASlib points to a broken web page>. 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 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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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).

<Cameron: Is "Optimized LAS" and LASzip a "format" or an "algorithm" or a "library"? We use all terms, but should be consistent to avoid confusion.>

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]].

One year after releasing "Optimized LAS", 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 ESRI release the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS"<strike> or "zLAS"</strike>. <Cameron: To avoid confusion, we should only refer to ESRI's format using one term, either Optimized LAS or zLAS, not both.>
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<references />

LIDAR Format Letter

2015-04-10T15:51:05Z

Wiki-Lastools: /* About LiDAR */

=Open Letter for 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 "Optimised LAS" proprietary format. This is of concern since the fragmentation of the LAS format will lead to reduced 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 sponsors of OGC help to 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 "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard to remove any technical or legal hurdle in use of "Optimised LAS" as an Open Standard. A simple test to determine if "Optimised LAS" can be used as an Open Standard would be if "Optimised 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 closed when selecting software and services.
# The owners of LAS open 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)], publicly request ESRI avoid incorporating the use of the word "LAS" in describing a proprietary format.

=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" [https://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html NSDI]. Open standards are essential for this.

=Background=
==About LiDAR==

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar LiDAR] (Light Detection And Ranging) is a form of high precision range measurement unit 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. A common storage format for these point cloud data is the LAS format.

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 [https://github.com/LASlib/LASlib LASlib] <Cameron: http://rapidlasso.com/LASlib points to a broken web page>. 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 files for faster download.

==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.

==Closed "Optimized LAS" format from ESRI==
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).

<Cameron: Is "Optimized LAS" and LASzip a "format" or an "algorithm" or a "library"? We use all terms, but should be consistent to avoid confusion.>

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]].

One year after releasing "Optimized LAS", 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 ESRI release the Windows DLL 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.

In particular, 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.

==OGCs efforts so far to enable Open standards in LiDAR ==

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 at least 2007. http://www.asprs.org/a/society/divisions/ppd/ppd_meetings/2007springppdreport.pdf. 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 "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 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 initially opened dialogue suggesting to embrace open source [http://laszip.org LAZ], the de-facto community standard for compressed LiDAR.
:* Simultaneously ESRI developed their own proprietary format, "Optimized LAS"<strike> or "zLAS"</strike>. <Cameron: To avoid confusion, we should only refer to ESRI's format using one term, either Optimized LAS or zLAS, not both.>
:* The open geospatial community offered, on numerous occasions, to work with ESRI to avoid format fragmentation.
:* ESRI's closed "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 the [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 standard 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 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, what we want to do regarding compression and spatial indexing."

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

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

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

: However, there were encouraging follow-ups from the ESRI team about compression 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 de-facto open standard 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 right then Martin asked ESRI to become a sponsor to create the kind of clean, well-documented and easy-to-use API for [http://laszip.org LASzip] 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 the following 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 extended to include indexing '''

: In July 2013 ESRI added an improvement to their LAS file handling with the release of ArcGIS 10.2, namely spatial indexing to speed up area-of-interest queries. Just like the LAS Dataset file (*.lasd) this was done with a closed format. Their new proprietary (*.lasx) files have a practically identical look and feel as the open source spatial indexing (*.lax) files introduced a year earlier and [http://rapidlasso.com/2012/12/03/lasindex-spatial-indexing-of-lidar-data/ published] at the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in December 2012.

: After more requests (in particular for [http://forsys.cfr.washington.edu/fusion/fusionlatest.html USDA's FUSION]) for an easier interface to [http://laszip.org LASzip] Martin decided not to wait for funding from ESRI but "code it forward". On July 30th of 2013 Martin [http://groups.google.com/d/topic/lastools/oplsDhhnhDQ/discussion announced the release] of a clean well-documented, and easy-to-use DLL with the expectation that developers at ESRI would 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'''

: All this [http://rapidlasso.com/2013/12/30/new-compressed-las-format-by-esri/ changed] suddenly in December of 2013 when several LAStools users contacted Martin with suspicions that ESRI may be working on their own 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]. ESRI's LAS compression scheme (that has since been dubbed the "LAZ clone") comes with one additional feature, that [http://laszip.org LASzip] is obviously lacking: it is ESRI-controlled technology.

: Caught in an instant [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-las-compression heated-debate (see comments)] from the LiDAR community, ESRI released an [http://www.lidarnews.com/content/view/10214/ official FAQ] a few days later to confirm the rumors. From day one Martin has taken a very outspoken stance, informing the community about ESRI's actions and lobbying against the "LAZ clone". Martin tried to keep his critical stance "light-hearted" in order not to burn bridges with ESRI. Again and again he engaged in direct personal communication with decision makers and product managers of ESRI pleading to work with the LiDAR community and 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 repeatedly 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: (1) add those unspecified technical additions that ESRI had hinted at being the reason for creating the own closed "Optimized LAS" instead of embracing the existing open [http://laszip.org LASzip] format and (2) 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. Unfortunately Martin's proposal fell on deaf ears at ESRI.

: '''April 2014: Last plea to avoid format fragmentation'''

: In a final attempt to convince ESRI management, Martin released an April Fools' Day [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] to demonstrate how positively the community would react to news of ESRI embracing an open format. This [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ prank press release] was entirely true except for the claim that ESRI had agreed to such a cooperation. Many people fell for the "good news" and their [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.

: This seemingly positive [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/04/01/esri-and-rapidlasso-develop-joint-lidar-compressor/ press release] was widely carried by geospatial news outlets that had not covered the controversy surrounding ESRI's release of "Optimized LAS". This has limited the exposure of the controversy over the new LiDAR format by ESRI, especially evident on [http://www.lidarnews.com/ LiDAR news] that reported every advance of "Optimized LAS" [[http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-the-las-optimizer 1] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/faq-on-esri-las-optimizer 2] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/early-positive-reviews-for-esri-las-optimizer 3] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated-to-include-parallel-decompression 4] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated 5] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-announces-beta-program-for-optimized-las 6] [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esris-zlas-io-library-now-available 7]] without any mention of the controversy.

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

: Martin was able to win [http://www.csc.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/ Digital Coast, NOAA Coastal Services Center] as a gold sponsor for [http://laszip.org LASzip] and announced in October 2014 the development of [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/10/06/rapidlasso-announces-laszip-compatibility-mode-for-las-1-4/ LAS 1.4 compatibility mode] that would allow addition of immediate support for the new point types to [http://laszip.org LASzip] without closing the door on a potential cooperation with ESRI for a joint LAS 1.4 compressor by utilizing a recoding of new point types into old ones.

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

: The final signal from ESRI that they were not willing to cooperate on an open compression standard came in November 2014 with the [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated announcement] that ESRI had added their [http://blog.lidarnews.com/esri-las-optimizer-updated own extension] for the new LAS 1.4 point types to "Optimized LAS". This ended all hopes of devising a joint compressor and avoid format fragmentation by exploiting this "natural break" in the LAS format as Martin had pleaded with ESRI earlier.

: Since then, ESRI has been [http://rapidlasso.com/2014/11/06/keeping-esri-honest/ promoting] their closed format. ESRI blurs the distinction between the open LAS standard and their own proprietary format by calling it "Optimized LAS" and "zLAS". This is likely to mislead novice and future users, thereby endangering many years of standardization work. Although the ASPRS holds a clearly spelled-out copyright on the name "LAS", as of April 2015, the LAS Working Group (LWG) has yet to make an official statement regarding ESRI's exploitation of the "LAS" name in promoting their new closed LiDAR format.

=Value of Standards=

The importance of Open Standards is described is 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 have 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>

=References=

<references />