Processing Lidar data in .pts files

[AdrianKersten]

I am working on processing the Lidar data that we have just purchased.  I know how to process LAS files, but I have no clue what to do about the .pts files.  Can someone shed some light on this or point me in the direction of some material to teach me how to do this?  Thanks!

[RaghavVemula]

Are those .pts files originated by a certain type of scanner proprietary?
Is that airborne lidar or mobile lidar data?
Since different scanners may have their own proprietary formats, they usually also have the capabilities to export to .LAS format. Check with the 'source' of the data and ask them to give you the data in the .LAS format
If export to .LAS is not available or inappropriate (if it is mobile data, then .LAS is not ideal although usage of it is not uncommon), there are other workarounds.

[JeffreyEvans]

Unfortunately, we need more information to provide relevant advise. Before las was the industry standard vendors were somewhat sloppy about formats and file extensions. The first thing you need to figure out is what format ".pts" actually is. This could be a file extension from a propriety software, raw sensor data or could just be an delimited ASCII file. Try opening it with a text editor to see if it is binary or ASCII. If it is ASCII you can use LASTools (lastools.org) to convert to las and perform additional processing. I would chastise the vendor that provided you this data. Unless processing that result in specific products is requested, it is quite bad form to provide data in a non-standard format. There is a very good reason that the lidar industry settled on and adhere to a format standard.