3D Point Cloud Data Processing - Open Source Geospatial Tools: Applications in Earth Observation - page 266

lasmerge -i dat*_31370.laz -o forest_31370.laz

In addition to the header and basic statistics on a LAS file, lasinfo from LAS-
tools can provide some interesting measures such as the average pulse density and
spacing. For the average number of points, we can refer to the pulse density (last
only) versus return density (all returns). Because the return density heavily depends
on the targets on the ground, the pulse density is often preferred to characterize the
instrument settings.
For instance, the point density and spacing can be computed using the option
-compute_density :

lasinfo dat10080401035_31370.laz -compute_density

...
point density: all returns 23.10 last only 16.36 (per square
→ meter)

spacing: all returns 0.21 last only 0.25 (in meters)

...

15.3.4 PulseTools

PulseTools is a suite of tools from the same author as LAStools, Martin Isenburg. It
can operate on a new open standard for full waveform LiDAR, PulseWaves . An open
source API library written in C++ is available to access files in PulseWaves format.
Some command line utilities have been released for Windows, but as executable only
(source is closed). 19

pulseinfo
Reads full waveform LIDAR data from PulseWaves format and outputs a textual
description of their content.
pulseview
Reads full waveformLIDARdata from the PulseWaves format and visualizes them
with a simple 3D viewer.
pulse2pulse
Reads full waveform LIDAR data from a variety of proprietary formats and stores
it to the PulseWaves format. Also computes an intensity value from the waves file
that is stored in the pulse file and that can be used for easier understanding and
navigation in pulseview.
Source code is closed and executable are only available for windows at this time.

19 And other full waveform LiDAR formats, including LVIS, LAS 1.3 FWF, GeoLas Waveform
and Optech CSD.