# writers.raster

The Raster Writer writes an existing raster to a file. Output is produced using GDAL and can use any driver that supports creation of rasters. A data_type can be specified for the raster (double, float, int32, etc.). If no data type is specified, the data type with the largest range supported by the driver is used.

Cells that have no value are given a value specified by the nodata option.

Default Embedded Stage

This stage is enabled by default

Streamable Stage

This stage supports streaming operations

## Basic Example

This pipeline reads the file autzen_trim.las, triangulates the data, creates a raster based on the Z dimension as determined by interpolation of the location and values of ‘Z’ of the vertices of a containing triangle, if any exists. The resulting raster is written to “outputfile.tif”.

    [
        "pdal/test/data/las/autzen_trim.las",
        {
            "type": "filters.delaunay"
        }
        {
            "type": "filters.faceraster",
            "resolution": 1
        }
        {
            "type": "writers.raster"
            "filename":"outputfile.tif"
        }
    ]

## Options

filename

  Name of output file. [Required]

gdaldriver

  GDAL code of the GDAL driver to use to write the output. [Default: “GTiff”]

gdalopts

  A list of key/value options to pass directly to the GDAL driver. The format is name=value,name=value,… The option may be specified any number of times.

  Note

  The INTERLEAVE GDAL driver option is not supported. writers.gdal always uses BAND interleaving.

rasters

  A comma-separated list of raster names to be written as bands of the raster. All rasters must have the same limits (origin/width/height). Rasters following the first that don’t have the same limits will be dropped. If no raster names are provided, only the first raster found will be placed into a single band for output.

data_type

  The data type to use for the output raster. Many GDAL drivers only support a limited set of output data types. [Default: depends on the driver]

nodata

  The value to use for a raster cell if the raster contains no data in a cell. Note that the nodata written to the output may be different from that of the raster being written. [Default: depends on the data_type. -9999 for double, float, int and short, 9999 for unsigned int and unsigned short, 255 for unsigned char and -128 for char]

where

  An expression that limits points passed to a writer. Points that don’t pass the expression skip the stage but are available to subsequent stages in a pipeline. [Default: no filtering]

where_merge

  A strategy for merging points skipped by a ‘where’ option when running in standard mode. If `true`, the skipped points are added to the first point view returned by the skipped filter. If `false`, skipped points are placed in their own point view. If `auto`, skipped points are merged into the returned point view provided that only one point view is returned and it has the same point count as it did when the writer was run. [Default: `auto`]