Creating boundary polygon shapefile from set of LAS files using ArcGIS Desktop?

Question

I have a bunch of LAS file sets that I need to process. The current task at hand is to generate a "footprint" shapefile that contains polygons for each LAS tile. I am looking for a graceful way to generate this polygon shapefile for all the LAS files in a directory. I am using ArcGIS 10 with just about every extension you can have (academic site license).

At the moment, my workaround is to use LAStools lasboundary.exe and then merge all of the individual shapefiles into single shapefile. However, this takes a while to execute and requires the additional merge step at the end.

Answer 1

After looking into both solutions proposed previously, I stumbled upon a dead simple way to do this.

1. Use 3D Analyst Tools > Conversion > From File > Point File Information.
2. In the dialog box, select Folders in the "Browse For:" drop-down menu. Click on the Folder icon and select the directory where your LAS files reside.
3. Enter the name and desired location for the Output Feature Class.
4. Specify the Input File Format (in this case, LAS).
5. Enter file suffix of the files you want to include in the process (in this case, las).
6. Enter the Input Coordinate System. It says that this is optional, but it is only optional if the coordinate system is specified correctly in the LAS files. Personally, I would look up the correct information from the metadata and enter it here.
7. Click Ok and wait for the process to finish.

Now you have a polygon shapefile consisting of the footprints of each and every LAS file in the directory.

Answer 2

I believe you can access those (LAS) directly now in 10 so I would try the mosaic dataset. Which does exactly what you are wanting (Build footprint polygons)

Answer 3

With lasboundary.exe (README) you can create fast & exact polygonal boundaries in SHP, KML, WKT or TXT format for Gigabyte sized LAS/LAZ LiDAR files. The tool can be found at LAStools.org.

Answer 4

As a first stab at this, I've used to Hawth's Tools in the past to create minimum convex polygons. The algorithm doesn't follow any concave edges so it may not be suitable for your datasets.

Answer 5

Another option would be to use/install the GeoCue Las Reader extension for Arc, add in the las file as a layer, and finally use the Minimum Bounding Geometry Data Management tool to create the bounding polygon layer.

Creates a feature class containing polygons which represent a specified minimum bounding geometry enclosing each input feature or each group of input features.

Answer 6

I tried each of the solutions on a latge UAV LAS data set and found lasboundary.exe to give the quickest and cleanest result