Clip Lidar data and export las

[johngartner1]

Hi- I have a lidar data in las format that I would like to clip with a polygon and then use the smaller las files in another program. So perhaps there are two questions:

1) How do I clip las data and keep it as las data? (I have seen info on clipping las files as tins or terrains are made, but nothing on keeping the data in las format.)
2) Can a "las dataset" be used as simply las data for another program?

A little more background: This lidar data covers a river and reservoir before and after a dam was removed, and I am quantifying erosion and deposition due to dam removal.  Areas of water have lots of noise, and I want to remove the water areas so that I can do a more reliable comparison of before and after conditions.

thanks!

[JieChang]

This cannot be accomplished at ArcGIS. However, you can use lasclip to do it.

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~isenburg/lastools/

- Jie

[johngartner1]

Thanks- that works

[EmilLarsson]

I am trying to do the same thing but I want to normalize my output by a ground surface model. I am dealing with tree height metrics so I need the ground elevation to be excluded.

Does anyone know how I can manage that in lastools? (or anywhere else)

Thanks.

/ Emil

[XanderBakker]

Hi Emil,

The 3D GIS Development Team (3DGISTeam) has added a number of tools to help you with LiDAR data:
http://www.arcgis.com/home/search.html?q=owner:3DGISTeam

Have a look at the LAS Height Above Ground geoprocessing sample.

This resource may be interesting too: Estimating forest canopy density and height
There is also a white paper on "Lidar Analysis in ArcGIS 10 for Forestry Applications" (PDF)

Kind regards,

Xander

Please note that LAStools (which is very powerful and can be integrated into ArcGIS) is not a free tool. If you want to use it for commercial use, you will need to obtain a license:
http://rapidlasso.com/pricing/