As a follow up to last week’s announcement by Esri of the release of the LAS Optimizer there is now an FAQ that provides additional information. Some of the highlights include the fact that you do not have to be an Esri customer to download it and it is free of charge to use. ArcGIS 10.2 licensees have an advantage in that it can read the compressed format directly. There is no need to decompress the file.
The FAQ by ESRI ignores the most burning question the LiDAR community is actually asking: Why a LAZ clone with (near-)identical performance and features? Why fragment the market? Why not embrace LAZ – the community-chosen open compressed LiDAR data exchange format – for the benefit of all. Why not follow through on your continual posturing about openness, interoperability, and community. This and more is and will be discussed in this blog article.