# PDAL - Point Data Abstraction Library

PDAL is a C++ library for translating and manipulating point cloud data. It is very much like the GDAL library which handles raster and vector data. The About page provides high level overview of the library and its philosophy. Visit Readers and Writers to list data formats it supports, and see Filters for filtering operations that you can apply with PDAL.

In addition to the library code, PDAL provides a suite of command-line applications that users can conveniently use to process, filter, translate, and query point cloud data. Applications provides more information on that topic.

Finally, PDAL speaks Python by both embedding and extending it. Visit Python to find out how you can use PDAL with Python to process point cloud data.

The entire website is available as a single PDF at http://pdal.io/PDAL.pdf

## News

### 09-09-2020

PDAL 2.2.0 has been released. You can download the source code or follow the quickstart to get going in a hurry with Conda.

## About

- About
  - What is PDAL?
  - What is its big idea?
  - How is it different than other tools?
  - Where did PDAL come from?
  - What tasks are PDAL good at?
  - What are PDAL’s weak points?
  - High Level Overview
  - Conclusion

## Download

- Download
  - Current Release(s)
  - Past Releases
  - Development Source
  - Binaries

## Quickstart

- Quickstart
  - Introduction
  - Install Conda
  - Fetch Sample Data
  - Print the first point
  - What’s next?

## Applications

- Applications
  - chamfer
  - delta
  - density
  - eval
  - ground
  - hausdorff
  - info
  - merge
  - pipeline
  - random
  - sort
  - split
  - tile
  - tindex
  - translate

## Community

- Community
  - Mailing List
  - GitHub
  - Gitter
  - Keybase
  - IRC

## Drivers

- Pipeline
  - Introduction
  - Processing Modes
  - Pipelines
  - Extended Examples
- Stages
- Readers
- Writers
- Filters
  - Create
  - Order
  - Move
  - Cull
  - New
  - Join
  - Metadata
  - Mesh
  - Languages
  - Other

## Dimensions

- Dimensions

## Types

- Types

## Python

- Python
  - Versions
  - Embed
  - Extend

## Java

- Java
  - Versions
  - Using PDAL Java bindings
  - Using PDAL Scala

## Tutorials

- Tutorials
  - Reading with PDAL
  - Reading data from EPT
  - LAS Reading and Writing with PDAL
  - Clipping with Geometries
  - Ground Filter Tutorial
  - Applying a grid shift to point clouds

## Workshop

- Workshop
  - Introduction
  - Introduction to LiDAR
  - Software Installation
  - Exercises
  - Final Project
  - Notes

## Development

- Development
  - PDAL Architecture Overview
  - Compilation
  - Errors and Error Handling
  - Metadata
  - Writing with PDAL
  - Writing a filter
  - Writing a kernel
  - Writing a reader
  - Writing a writer
  - CMake
- Project
  - Coding Conventions
  - Contributors
  - Docs
  - Building Docker Containers for PDAL
  - Alpine
  - Testing
  - Continuous Integration
- API
  - C++ API
  - libLAS C API to PDAL transition guide
- FAQ
- License
  - Overall PDAL license (BSD)

- References
  - Citation
  - Reference

## Indices and tables

- Index

- Search Page