las files

[MalgorzataMendela]

Hello,
could you please help me to solve the problem with importing las file into ArcMap.
I have used the Conversion Tool- From File- Las to Multipoint (the 3D Analyst Tool) to convert the las file into shp.

As a result I have received a dataset that consists of 8 smaller datasets.
The fact is that there is no possibility to define the values of X,Y coordinates for each point
(by using the Add XY Coordinates function-the Data Management Tools);it is possible to do it only for each of the created smaller datasets.
Is it possible to import las file into ArcMap and then define the values of X,Y coordintaes for each point without creating "blocks" of data?  

Thanks for your help,
Malgosia

[MarcinGasior]

The output of LAS to Multipoint tool is optimized for storing huge volumes of points. LAS files usually consists of hundreds of thousands points. That's why grouping many points in one geometry (multi-points in one row) drasticaly increase display and processing time of such multipoint layer.

Lidar multipoint layer is usually used as an input for creating a Terrain dataset. From a terrain dataset you can create DEM rasters or TINs.

That was a background - now you question.
You can extract each individual point from multipoint layer using Multipart to Singlepart tool from Data Management -> Features toolset and then add XY coordinates. But I'm interested in what for do you need those coordinates?

Note: Your multipoint layer if very small so you should not have performance problems but for larger datasets a multipoint feature class in geodatabase is better solution than shapefile.

[MalgorzataMendela]

Hello,
I really appreciate you gave me useful information to solve my problem.
Answering ypur question- I am working on automatically detection of objects in Lidar datasets. I would like to try to
use Python to implement one of the algorithms and see whether it is appropriate for linear objects. For that reason I need to know the XY coordinates of certain points.

Best wishes,
Malgosia Mendela