As a Lidar novice, it seems like it would be ideal if .LAZ files could be supported directly in Pro instead of needing to convert each .LAZ file to .LAS.
Hi @ClaytonCrawford , our Federal customers would also like to see direct support for LAZ files in Pro. So thank you for following this one. Question: your response seems to include a nuance I don't know if I'm interpreting correctly. It suggests that an LAS file will need to be available separate from the LAZ (compressed version of the LAS). Whereas, by "direc support" I believe the Original Poster and our customers would like Pro to read and work with LAZ files directly (handle the decompression under the hood for the portions being utilized is what I would think would happen). Is that what is/will be available in Pro 3.6? Thanks for your attention to this matter.
@JTessier a LAS file will not need to be available separate from the LAZ. You can reference and consume one or more LAZ files/tiles directly from a LAS dataset (*.lasd).
How insane is it in 2026 that they don't natively support laz, and make you have an interoperability license to convert back to LAS, which is doubly archaic. Hello 1998 let me in! Global Mapper here i come....
Thanks @SimonSchütte_ct for providing some clarifying details. It's correct that no interoperability license is needed--the Convert LAS tool has been available since 2.3 (https://doc.esri.com/en/arcgis-pro/latest/tool-reference/conversion/conversion-toolbox-history-pro.h...). While it's true that today LAZ files need to be referenced by a LAS dataset, we understand that the desire (as indicated above) is to be able to use LAZ directly, as individual files, without the need of the LASD intermediary. That work is underway and we plan to have it in ArcGIS Pro 3.8 (planned availability November 2026). Thank you.
This is great news @KoryKramer ! We have been having to lean on QGIS and other products to bridge this gap in a kludgy way and it would be great to have this capability directly in Pro, especially with LAZs stored in Cloud - Azure Blob Storage (not sure if cloud stored LAZs is part of what will be available - hoping it will be?). cc @ashlee_robinson
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