State of PDAL
2026-09-01 , Ran1

PDAL is Point Data Abstraction Library. It is a C/C++ open source library and applications for translating and processing point cloud data. This is an update on the status of the library and new and updated features and capabilities over the last 2 years.


PDAL is Point Data Abstraction Library. It is a C/C++ open source library and applications for translating and processing point cloud data. It is not limited to LiDAR data, although the focus and impetus for many of the tools in the library have their origins in LiDAR. PDAL allows you to compose operations on point clouds into pipelines of stages. These pipelines can be written in a declarative JSON syntax or constructed using the available API. This talk will focus on the current state of the PDAL Pointcloud processing library and related projects such as COPC and Entwine, for pointcloud processing. Coverage of the most common filters, readers and writers along with some general introduction on the library, coverage of processing models, language bindings and command line based batch processing. First part will be covering new features for current users. Some discussion of installation method including Docker, binaries from package repositories, and Conda packaging. For more info see https://pdal.io


Level of technical complexity: 2 - intermediate Give indication of resources (video, web pages, papers, etc.) to read in advance, that will help get up to speed on advanced topics.:

https://pdal.io, https://copc.io, https://entwine.io

Indicate what is (are) the open source project(s) essential in your talk:

https://pdal.io,

I make my conference contribution available under the CC BY 4.0 license. The conference contribution comprises the abstract, the text contribution for the conference proceedings, the presentation materials as well as the video recording and live transmission of the presentation:

Mike is a Physical Scientist at the US Army Corps of Engineers and a long time PDAL user and occasional developer. Our organization is one of the primary sponsors of the library. Mike is on the PDAL, GDAL and MapServer PSC and is a charter member of OSGeo and was first elected to the Board of Directors in 2014. He was reelected in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Mike currently serves as the Treasurer (treasurer@osgeo.org) on the OSGeo Board