Preparing LiDAR data
LiDAR data is becoming more available, and it represents a fundamental source of detailed elevation data. This chapter will show you how to work with LiDAR data in QGIS.
Getting ready
We will use the Processing framework, so you should be familiar with it.
We will also use LASTools, which is not included with QGIS. Download LASTools binaries from http://lastools.org/download/LAStools.zip and install them on your computer.
Processing has to be configured so that it can find and execute LASTools. Open the Processing configuration by going to the Processing | Options menu and move to the Tools for LiDAR data section, as shown in the following screenshot:
In the LAStools folder field, type the path to the folder where you have installed the LASTools executables.
How to do it…
In the data corresponding to this recipe, you will find a las file with LiDAR data. This cannot be opened in QGIS, but we will convert it so that it can be opened and rendered as part of a normal QGIS...
