Las Converter

lasConverter.py converts survey CSV files into LAS files using EPSG:4978 and groups/crops them by H3 cells.
The main steps are:

Prepare H3 Cells and Assign Surveys
Convert CSV Surveys to LAS using EPSG:4978
Group and Crop by H3 Cells

./PotreeConverter converts LAS files into Potree's Octree Structure, which the Molloy Explorer Potree Viewer supports as its native input format. Additional documentation on the PotreeConverter can be found in the PotreeConverter GitHub repository: PotreeConverter

We used this specific fork of the PotreeConverter to deal with a compatibility issue the original repo had with MacOS. PotreeConverter Fork

Requirements

Prerequisites

CMAKE Version >= 3.16
PDAL

You will need to have CMAKE version 3.16 or later to run the PotreeConverter to create the data structure. PDAL is necessary for the lasConverter.py.

Prepare Files and Folders

Before running the script, make sure your project folder has the following structure:

lasConverter.py
surveys/
    ├── survey_name_1/
    │     ├── file1.csv
    │     └── file2.csv
    ├── survey_name_2/
    │     └── ...
    └── ...
metadata/
    ├── metadata.csv
    └── level1_h3_cells.csv

`surveys/`

Contains one folder per survey, using the survey name as the folder name.
Each survey folder contains the CSV files for that survey (arbitrarily named).

`metadata/metadata.csv`

Must include the columns: fid, survey_name, survey_area, geom, epsg.
Script assumes bounding polygons in geom use EPSG:4258.
Each row corresponds to a survey.

`metadata/level1_h3_cells.csv`

Must contain a single column cell_id, listing all relevant level 1 H3 cells.

How to run

1. Activate python environment

Create a python virtual environment with

python -m venv <environment_name>

Activate it:

Windows:

<environment_name>\Scripts\activate

macOS/Linux:

source <environment_name>/bin/activate

2. Install Python requirements

Install the required Python packages:

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Run the lasConverter script

Run the converter:

python lasConverter.py

The processed LAS files, cropped to level 2 H3 cells, will be saved in the ./h3_cells folder.

4. Setup PotreeConverter

First make a build directory in the Potree directory

cd PotreeConverter
mkdir build
cd build

Then run

cmake ../
make

5. Run the PotreeConverter

From the root of the repository, run the run.sh script to convert the H3 cells into the Potree Structure.

./run.sh

The output is saved in ./pointclouds. It can then be directly moved into the public folder in the Molloy Explorer viewer or the shell script can be adjusted to automatically save the files in the viewer.

6. Optimizations

This script runs the PotreeConverter on each of the H3 cells sequentially. It is possible to modify the shell script to run these conversions in parallell.

TDT4290-group-4/lasConverter

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